This Van Conversion is Nicer than Studio Apartment

[Music] what's up my name is travis wilde this is my 2016 ram promaster and i've been living on the road in different rigs since 2016. [Music] this video is sponsored by jackery to get your very own solar generator click the link in the description and get 10 percent off when you use code floor at checkout the jackery solar generator 2000 pro has 210cc watt hours of capacity and can be fully recharged with six solar saga 200 watt solar panels in only two and a half hours the solar generator is portable it only weighs 19 kilograms which for how much power it provides you is exceptionally lightweight and with its folding handle you can carry it anywhere it's press and play design makes the jackery solar generator easy and intuitive to use you can charge it with solar panels with a wall outlet or in a vehicle so click the link in the description and get your very own solar generator today and get 10 off when you use code floor at checkout now enjoy today's video and remember to subscribe before i lived in my van uh i hadn't really traveled a whole ton i'm from michigan i moved to colorado worked in some group homes moved back to michigan and was coaching so basically i had a lot of different jobs and then i got cancer and was in hospitals a lot so i wanted a way so i could be at the hospital more but still feel like i was at home and at the same time wanted to build my career in the direction i already wanted it to go which meant traveling working in the outdoor industry and doing photography i was going to live in a teardrop trailer but i was talking to a friend of mine and her and her husband i thought they were like these well put together people he's a lawyer she's a city planner the wife jamie was like no you don't want to live in a trailer you want to live in a van you can be more stealth that way and it was really cool because it's a different reaction than i thought so then i googled best van to build tiny home in and ended up on the 2002-2006 sprinters which that was my first van my first van build was really done like on the fly like a lot of people in their first ones i started building and then i had to redo it a few months later because i saw it could be lighter could be way more efficient and it got to the point where i wanted to build another one there was a couple that really wanted mine so i sold it to them that first build took me about four months it was super bare bones i can build a van out now in two to four months i put anywhere from fifteen to twenty four thousand dollars worth of materials components on the vans but end of the day the point is to get these experiences and it's approachable at every budget it just depends on realistically living within your means and having the goals and when you're ready to upgrade you can do that [Music] all right this is my ram promaster 2500 i built out sprinters in transits already so i wanted to try the width of a promaster and live in that i also liked it because it was red i have a dealer that i like to buy from and he hit me up because he had a red one and i was stoked on it i had to install windows on the sides and back i got the lights out here just because i like having the ability to light the van 360 when we're camping in the desert all my vans i've wanted mainly to be gear haulers so they've all been built like this meant to store everything i wanted to it's pretty empty right now just transitioning from winter to spring snowboarding to biking i had a lot of stuff emptied out but yeah it's all modular and stuff so i can actually bring everything out if i ever wanted to replace it held in by i think 16 screws so i could take that out and then it's got underneath i've got another bar that i can put in that just supports it from underneath the bed it probably doesn't even need that but i still like to have it but you can have a completely empty space here and could even sleep another person down there if you really wanted to i've got this big area that's on 500-pound sliders so it's kind of nice for all the storage and accessibility and keeping things organized but also when it's a nice day out you can hang out and sit up here fully supports people or a dog but yeah it's kind of nice to have a place to hang out here bailey can you come down down good girl uh you can modify the doors to hang extra gear on which is also nice so this bookshelf uh area in the back before i had it here ayla was laying right on the edge and she like slipped down and would have just fallen into this cavern here so that's where i was like i was already playing on it might as well throw it in but it's been really nice just to have a little bit of extra storage i made it so i don't have to be so picky with the books that i'm gonna bring in the van either which has been nice i carry a 30 gallon water tank in here and having a water fill on the outside is just way more convenient the only downside is you really got to make sure if you're in oregon or i think new jersey the gas station tendon doesn't get confused if i ever let friends use it i would probably put a sticker here that says water only a ladder roof rack on top yeah so i like bringing ayla up there people always ask how she gets up so i'll show you the rack is just a standard industrial roof rack that a lot of workers would put on their rigs it's got the ladder roller in back that's actually great if you want to load kayaks up here or anything but it's an aluminum roof rack and then i just used exterior screws the biggest thing with doing your roof rack is remembering that basically you're going to be going through a hurricane and a tornado every day so for the wood finish is a four season log cabin finish that i put on and it's held up the best out of any finish i've done but still probably need to redo it every year and a half or so for solar we've just got two 100 watt panels feeding into 300 amp hours of lithium batteries also have that connected to a dc to dc charger from the alternator so it keeps my batteries usually eighty percent charged or more uh but yeah it's been more than enough for me that's everything on the outside so let's go take a look on the inside [Music] all of my vans have had a divider from the front to the back rather than the swivel seats just because me personally i wanted more of a cabin feel than being in a vehicle so i try to hide every aspect that you can kind of feel that you're in a car i did a whole wall here rather than a door all the vans i've lived in the past have had a door that opens up but this one has three seats in the front so the door would just open up to a wall of seats so i still have this area if it's raining or i need to jump through i can still do that but for the most part i just keep this cloth cover down and gives me privacy it's really nice as a form of insulation just having the wall there so that's why i've chosen to do it and it was really cool too because i was able to use all this for storage space kind of like a little pantry space and it looks really good too so i've loved that all my vans have had pretty unique live edge it's just something that gives it a really cool look again with having this whole wall here i was actually able to do a wrap around live edge into the sink counter area here underneath is where the dog food goes all of the water pump and the plumbing that goes back to the water tanks is in there as well there's a way to divert it to a gray water tank or just to let it run out depending on the area you're in and the capabilities for that so it's nice to have both but originally i had gray water tanks that didn't go out at all and i realized for the most part i was storing like 10 to 15 gallons of toothpaste water that got really gross so the less i have to do that the better over here these are all the drawers that are just like food pantry top drawers the toiletry like contacts and glasses and all that stuff down here this one was meant to fit backpacks that's where i keep all my camera gear we've got three cabinets up top for food and extra clothes i kind of have more storage than i need which was intentional because i wanted a space that was specific for everything and didn't need to be filled up so i could feel really at peace and organized about where all my stuff is not that it's all just packed in somewhere this is actually a mirror image of the counter so you can see this knot here is actually the other like quarter of this live edge that i just milled down in planes down and then put and used for the cabinet covers up top so the propane tank is sealed and mounted and vented right underneath this cabinet here it's got two lines one goes to the stove the other goes to this wave 6 heater last year in colorado it got down to negative 20 to 25 for a few nights in a row this made it so i was still just sleeping in t-shirts and shorts in bed the reason why i haven't gone with diesel is because they're finicky and they break a lot and all my friends were just like oh you need to get a diesel heater travis and then all their diesel heaters broke within the first month of uh being in the mountains and their pipes froze and their batteries like really struggled so this is consistent they've been in vans and rigs for like 60 70 years and they're super solid so that's why i choose propane underneath the stove we've just got a little spice drawer here and then we've got our trash down here this is where the propane is sealed and vented is just in that little box down there as far as the bed goes we've got a big area here huge drawer for games camera equipment writing stuff and then underneath is the slide out table which i love and then under here is a little laptop drawer as well so really utilizing the space if you know me i don't like talking about this stuff but this is a nature's head composting toilet uh if you have any more questions on it you can go on google and get them answered and plenty of van lifers love talking about it under here is my dirty laundry and shoes here's the fridge over here it's a dometic cfx35 i've done them before on sliders um and kind of just timed it out it's way quicker to do it this way so makes it easier for me when i just want to get into the fridge quick that i don't have to slide the whole thing out into the floor space something i love about my vans is they have these drop down storage so you can create extra counter space got one over here as well just makes it a little nicer when you're cooking or moving things around have some extra storage space on the outside here we've got the battery monitor all the outlets and then this is how you access uh the inverter if needed i've got my remote from a vent fan there as well that's where the 30 gallon water tank is as well and the batteries and everything so still want to be able to access those as far as the bed goes it's been really nice having the promaster fitting a full mattress in here you can do it side to side and sleep that way super comfortable bed and up here is a staple in all my vans this is actually the smallest bookshelf that i've included in any van whenever i build a van i put them all through what i call the dwight schrute test i'm not sure if you remember that episode of the office where they go to the christmas party i think and dwight is like banging on the banister and pulling on everything but all my cabinetry and everything my dwight street test is that i'm able to do pull-ups off of it and if i can it's solid it's past the test so i'm never worried about having cabinets or weight on the ceiling at all for people that want to get started especially now i would say talk to friends who are doing it try to go on a trip beforehand even if you can rent some other vans to see what you do and don't like i think a misconception i had about van life was that my stress levels were going to go down in every way and they've gone down in a lot of ways but the stress of constantly moving and not having that place that's secure and home like it's not necessarily a simpler life in every way but it's simpler in a lot of important ways i think the biggest mantra the biggest thing is like this isn't going to be a problem in a month because that can be a hard part about van life is like it when it rains it can pour and it can get really hard certain times but like a lot of times when i'm like oh man this is so much i just remember like this isn't going to be a problem in a week it's going to be even smaller problem in a month and it's probably going to be nothing in a year so that kind of is a better way to reframe your problems that you're having in the moment i did not think i would be doing this for six years and there's a lot of people who don't do it for that long and a lot of people who complain about new people coming in but honestly i don't know if i would still be on the road if it was just about vans and just about builds but it's been how it's changed new people new takes new reasons coming into it that's really kept me interested and kept me on the road and kept me motivated to build more vans for people and also just keep experiencing it for myself

Channel: FLORB

Views: 996,294

Keywords: Travel, tiny house, van life, van dwelling, simple living, van tour, tiny house tour, tiny house on wheels, van conversion, florb, dylan magaster, van, van dweller, vanlife, van life tour, living in a van, van build, camper van, van life build, camper van conversion, vandwelling, vanlife tour, diy van build, sprinter van conversion, van conversion ideas, diy van conversion, camper van tour, campervan, van tour van life, red van, red, diy camper van, stealth van, diy van

Id: RPvTFYh0DWo

Length: 14min 3sec (843 seconds)

Published: Sun May 22 2022