Solo Female Van Life at age 70! Tour of INCREDIBLE DIY Ford Transit Stealth Camper Conversion.

i'm virginia this is my van axel axel is the letters of my father's name scrambled because he's alex and and he has an axle this is a ford transit and it took me a year me and my friends to model it into what it is now so i'll take you in come on [Music] [Music] so i insulated it with spray foam and then we put the floor in so these are the cabinets up the way there was another shop and there was a cabinet maker there and he made the cabinets but he was lovely and he let me work with him and so i did whatever he would let me do so i sanded everything and then give and then it and and primed it and give it back to him and he'd put it together and then i did all the painting and i did cabinet tops this is zebra wood so i got this rough wood and then i sanded it down and put the put the both tops on he helped me also to build these bits but i did all the painting and all of the design of everything all the design is mine all of the art at the back is mine and i guess that's it like um ray outfit did the solar and he also did other kind of electric things for me because that's not something i would want to do on my own i have 400 watts of solar and i have 300 watts of lithium batteries at the back this is a copper bowl i was in portugal a year ago june and i bought it and i brought it home as my carry-on so then um another friend of mine and i put it in and then i would pull and he would put in brackets and i would pull and he would put till we got it to run away because it was flat right so the top i bought off kijiji so like that right now we're not level so it won't drain that tells me i'm not quite level um and this is my berkey so that's also what i would use for drinking water or cooking water and down in here all the way all the way forward is a 15 gallon um water so i can i can fill that from outside and that's that's the kitchen ins if i'm cooking inside i have uh induction so i would put the induction here and then plug it in over here like that pantries here and all the my herbs and things like that and canned goods and other essentials the bottom one seems to have turned into a bar this is all my sprays and electronics and jewelry and whatever fits in there most of the time i go the bathroom in here and i have a wishy and that's what i would do here if i'm staying over somewhere i have another thing but most of the time i'm just as happy to do that in the night or whatever i actually found i like standing up to pee and then all my cutlery bowls everything they're all in something so they don't rattle because i there's enough rattly things in a van this one has just clothing in it so what i would do is current clothing would go in here and then all my other stuff like out whatever season i'm not in goes down underneath here under the under the cushions and these work either on the bed or if somebody's shorter i can put this and they can sit nicely on here i have two fans and this little fan here that moves everything through i have another one of these over here in case it's neat i hardly ever use this one i seem to only use that one so i also have four-way cameras because i travel alone so i like to be able to see all the way around so at night if i'm in somewhere that doesn't feel totally comfortable um or a truck stop or something like that i i just leave those on and i can see behind me in front of me and then both sides also have another one up the front for when i'm driving so i can see all around it goes on when i'm driving and this is my bed i had this made up to fit i can fit this way so i'm lucky i can go sideways i'm well i used to be five nine but i'm probably five eight and a half now so i fit that's um one of the art things i like to do it's called wood quilting and it's done with lath from latin plaster so somebody in my neighborhood was pulling down a wall so let me have the the wood so it's hard wood but it's like junk wood and then i rough sanded it so it wasn't slippery but it still has that kind of you can see the saw marks and everything when i was doing the walls the walls didn't don't quite meet so i put them far enough apart that it looked like i meant to do this and then it doesn't look so bad so i also have a piece of art right here with my initial and it says valley vacancy and that's where i might live and my other friend did this one it needs to be redone that's my home so i don't get home heather stewart did that for me so i didn't get homesick this is my invention it's my full-length mirror and so every girl needs a full-length mirror these are from ikea and i just velcroed them together and then you can go like this take them off the hook and they just goes up there so when i need to get dressed i have a full-length mirror this is my mom and dad i'll tell you a funny little story when my mother died she left me a summer money and when i was thinking of buying the van i thought to myself my mother would hate me doing this she would really really worry about it but my daughter is um she's 26 and she said to me well that money used to be papa's and he would have loved the idea so don't spend all of it just spend his half so that's what i did and then i bought the band with that and then i worked another year to renovate it and i don't know if you got a shot of the ceiling this is my favorite i did this myself so this is plastic because tin would rattle and be very very noisy plus it's very expensive so this is my makes my van a little different than everyone else's the uh fridge is here so it goes under the bed it's a dometic it's fridge freezer so i like that because i can i have i have room for a lot of food and with covet it's nice because a couple of times i've had to isolate and have enough food and then this is my tape so this comes across and then i can use it as a desk or a table so these are the light switches and the usb and the controller and this is my wabasco heater dial so my van is gas but my heater is diesel so where i outfitted put a tank under my hood and connected it so it does work on diesel it doesn't cost me very much hardly at all but it's real fun when i need to fill it up because as i try to if i take the diesel thing to the there you can see people looking over going oh my god that woman's putting diesel in her windshield wiper so i was have fun with that that's it right there and it's in that corner at the back so there's a feed for under the bed to keep all of the batteries and things warm and then the other ones down here for in the cabin so put it on 20 minutes later you got to turn it off it's really powerful so i can't really put it on for long because it's a small space it heats up pretty fast [Applause] now you can kind of see the full effect of the wood protein this is my knee pillow so yeah under here is all the the batteries so the batteries and the controller and the mppt or whatever it is and then there's my wabasco heater in there so i can plug in i have this little plug and i have a thing on my alternator that goes on every 15 minutes when i'm driving and then it goes off and then it goes on just not to destroy the alternator and so i get power when i'm driving and i just bought another battery i was with two for a long time but i was in arizona and california so it's not like there's a lot of sun so it wasn't a problem but i anticipate this winter there being a problem so i went and got another battery just to be on the safe side and in bc there's a lot of rain and it can go on for days so that was just something i thought might be wiser but so far i haven't really got to the point where i've ever had an emergency on-demand shower back here and i have a shower tint i bet you can't see it you can't it's in there that pops up and then what i was talking about earlier i have a portable so if i was staying somewhere for a week or something i have this and it work it comes off of a stand and it it diverts so i'd put that in my shower and just go outside so here is my outside kitchen denise gedard my friend did this this is my journey and this is my table so this when i'm outside i have a coleman that i just pull out from under here and then i have cooking space here and then as i showed you the pantry the pantry comes both ways everything comes out the stuff that comes out this way at night i guess it turns into the bar so that would be you know hot tall bottles really almost anything in here somebody help me but i they weren't workmen or people professionals except for the electrics and things like that right just loving friends can you tell me what are some of the benefits that you found about living in a van and traveling this way well i'm single and um it's hard to socialize when you're older because your friends unfortunately do die or they move away and so with the van i can either visit them or i can um find new friends and people on the road really really wonderful they open their heart i find people of all ages become your friend i have young friends now i have older friends than me it's just if you just seem to have that one thing in common you find other things in common i've even had some trump friends which is not you didn't think that would happen who i love dearly so um i don't like the politics but i love the personalities so that's good too and that has been wonderful because what i've learned is you if you just don't judge people there's always like a common ground so i'm really enjoying that piece of it rather than kind of is this person like me i'm more like what is it about this person that i could learn from or i could you know enjoy being around so i love that part of it so it's opened me up a lot because i was i was a massage therapist for 38 years and i did a lot of being in rooms quietly with people and not talking as much right so this is another way like this is more exuberant than what i was doing before what are some of the challenges that you face in this lifestyle the biggest challenge i i set for myself is finding a beautiful place to park every night which you can't always do but i try um i haven't had a lot of negativity happened to me nothing really bad touchwood has happened to me um there's a magic that's happened to me where when something breaks the person who knows how to fix it pokes their head in the door and shows up and that has happened so many times to me where i'm going oh my god what am i gonna do and somebody walk over and say oh i have that tool i mean something bad could happen to me but i'm i'm so comfortable in my van i'm not sure that i've had anything i would say i've just had such a good time since i've started living in my van and i keep i i don't have goals particularly i am trying to bring spontaneity so i just try to see what is offered and that's what i'm going to enjoy rather than going oh if i drive for like five hours i'll be right where i want to be yeah drive for three hours and stop and this is beautiful i'll stay here i just try to accept what is if i'm on the side of the road and it's ugly i'll try to accept that right but that doesn't happen very often i know people have some hard things but i haven't had any hard things i love living in my van i find it i have everything i need it's very comfortable i designed it so it's made for me you know like that what kind of advice would you give to somebody that's thinking about building out a van or thinking about living in their van try to figure out all the things you'd want in your van and then make a list and on one side of the list put things you could not live without so you need to have some sort of way of going the bathroom you need a way of cooking those kinds of things on the other side just put your desires because you can't have everything and you have to have that first list so when you're designing once you've got those in the van then you can go to the other list and choose and one of the things is you can't have everything so you have to really prioritize what exactly it is that you think that you need to live your life and be happy in the band also i'd go and stand in a bunch of empty vans to get perspective because they're all shaped a little different so if you get a sprinter you've got the problem of them coming up so you probably can't sleep this way if you get the ram you get a nice square thing for building but it's not quite so high so if you're really tall you probably want to transit it's the tallest so those kinds of things so go in car lots and go into vans look and see what the longest one's like what the next one's like just go in them and try to figure out spatial relationship because you don't have a lot you but have about 85-ish square feet to work with and you have to get everything in it that you want what kind of reactions do you get when you tell people that you live in a band fear which is their fear not my fear you're just as safe in the van as you are in your house right because you don't get attacked in a van a lot and you don't get attacked in a house a lot but sometimes people do in both places so i wouldn't make that a deciding factor i have the cameras just because that makes me a little safer um i could jump in the seat and drive away if i saw somebody skulking around my van or if i saw a bear i could get in the seat and go but the other thing i get a lot is how brave i am which makes me laugh because i don't feel like a brave person i'm just doing what i want to do i'm just living the life i want to live but what i realize is people don't usually live the life they want to live and that's why they think it's brave because they're stopped by something like if you break that down that fear sometimes isn't real it's um you limiting yourself so if it's stopping it's fine if you want to be stopped but if you want it if it's really bothering you and you want to get through it you can get through that and you can have what you want and that would be the only bravery there is to it is facing your fears but really a lot of them evaporate when you look at them because i'm i feel totally safe i feel totally welcome places i you know maybe even more welcome than i did in the city i mean i don't go up to people in the city and go hi i'm virginia i'm next to you here you know i i do that out if i'm another person's around just to see who they are and see if i feel safe with them and then they might be you know having a fire with me in an hour too you know you had to sum up what would your personal philosophy on life be um say yes often um and don't just dream do people dream too much dream but then do and do you have anything else that you'd like to add about van life or about your experience yeah i'm so happy i had this i i don't know what i would have done with my retirement maybe renovated my house again for some strange reason or something that wasn't as useful as this and i've met so many wonderful people and when covet's over i could go back and see them again where can people find you online if they want to follow your journey so i am on instagram i'm v van boom and i do have a youtube channel but i haven't been it only has i think three videos and i haven't been doing that but it's also called the bamboo so that's where you can find me hey everybody it's forrest the filmmaker hope you guys enjoyed that episode of alternative dwellings if you want to see more playlists are popping up right now where you can watch all of our archived episodes or if you want to see new ones make sure to subscribe because they premiere at 7 30 a.m pacific standard time every single monday hope to see you guys there

Channel: Different Media.

Views: 948,621

Rating: 4.9326305 out of 5

Keywords: vanlife, van life tour, solo female van life, retired vanlife, van life, ford transit conversion, ford transit camper, stealth van living, stealth van conversion, stealth van camping, female, woman, girl, solo, traveller

Id: oT6YmGoAn5c

Length: 20min 16sec (1216 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2020