This Woman's Tiny Home On Wheels is STUNNING!

hey my name is Danny and this is my minivan and she doesn't have a name but I have been traveling around for about a year and a half I'll tell you a little bit about my story and then we'll get into the tour a couple of years ago I was burned out at work I was in a job I didn't love I had been saving money for maybe an RV maybe some kind of change in life and I realized I might have enough money to quit my job for a year and travel if I was willing to go really Bare Bones I got a minivan instead of a big RV or a sprinter van you know big dream vehicle or whatever I started where I was with what I had and I just did what I could do so my channel is you and me living free on YouTube and I really started the channel just to kind of document my journey and my memory is not that great I wanted to have literally like kind of a scrapbook video scrapbook for my kids if no one ever watched the channel That was fine and it just became kind of a passion project where I would tell my stories on the road I just you know started where I was with what I had I bought this minivan for 3 400 and I took the rest of the money and just tried to travel I went out west a lot and down south um not much in the in the North or the East so what happened though is I was just I was just burnt out and I had a dream to travel for a year in the minivan and I'm at a transitional time in life my my kids are I'm soon to be empty nester my kids are in college but they're still home and so I'm like what do I want to do with my life so now I am back in Kansas City traveling here and there but it's really kind of decision time on whether I will stay in town for the next year or two and work at maybe Sticks and Bricks or if I will be able to get something remote keep traveling all of that kind of stuff is up in the air but you know life is a journey that's just that's half the fun is not knowing so we're just up for anything and and we have dreams and just move forward you know step by step right I have a 2009 Toyota um Sienna and uh she doesn't have a name I never named her I kind of feel like I should you can see the crack in the front windshield it needs to be replaced it's already been replaced once but that's what happens when you're on the road you almost need to have a secret savings account for for new windshields at least that's what I find so let's let's get into the tour I literally have everything I need within this minivan it totally can be done and here's how I did it foreign [Music] the front seat I want to keep pretty clear usually I keep my jackery cords down here I keep some gloves because I try to pick up litter no matter where I go and a couple of battery packs I keep a air purifier up front it gets recharged from the Sun so I leave it up there I never have trouble with smells in the van I think that's because I don't cook anything that splatters a lot or that you know a lot of people have trouble smelling the van I don't I keep the front seat pretty clean and I am usually in and out through the back back here now the front did have a console in the middle I took that out so that I could easily move from front to back with my doors closed traveling as you know as a woman single woman whatever it it was important to me to have that kind of be able to be a little more stealthy not have to get in and out of the van like this so there's plenty of room for me to get in I usually carry a little bit bigger cooler but now I'm only going on shorter trips and here is my stove right there and I keep a lot of my dry Dry Goods food right in the back so I have everything I need if I want to cook I can cook right here on a tray or I can pull things out and cook on a picnic table or whatever up here on the back of the seat I have those really essential things that I will just use on a regular basis uh you know sunscreen and bug spray sunscreen bug spray and wipes I mean how more basic do you get than that that's basically what's there in front when I first started out I did my first trip with a cot and then I realized you know I really love good sleep good sleep is so important I have a very basic bed it is two by fours and a piece of wood paneling and mattress pad topping that I have doubled over so I use regular twin sheets and everything on that and then I have my storage my main storage of stuff that I use all the time is right under here so cooking stuff and and plates everything like that is there and then we have the pots and pans and the and the collapsible dish wash bowl and then stuff for showers and and cleaning and stuff like that is there so I mostly sit if I'm sitting in the van I'm sitting on my bed or I'm just sitting in the past I'm sitting in the driver's seat I do a lot of things in the driver's seat if I'm if I'm journaling if I'm working on editing a YouTube video anything I'm usually in in that seat right there typically I would have my jackery up here I just have a jackery 240 but it's it's not here with me right now but the 240 is good for phones fans lights and my computer and my Kindle the 240 is just fine if I wanted to get a refrigerator ever I'm going to need more than the 240 that's something for people to consider I think back here is my little small pop-up tent I use this when I'm in a BLM spot and I want to leave to go to town and I don't want to lose my spot I bring this out and it basically we'll just pop itself out like that door on either side I put a nice um usually big size Rock inside to hold it down because I don't feel like doing the the tent pulls and so back here you can see I have my solar panel I have a collapsible bucket for garbage or whatever I need if I'm out boondocking and then in my bins these are my clothes bins no matter what it is I allow myself two bins for clothes and then in the bottom one I usually travel try to start the travel with it empty or something kind of for backup I have three of these bins the first one is for food the second one is for my backup items of stuff I use a lot which would be like toilet paper plates wipes all that kind of stuff and then the bottom bin is for garage type items not battery charger but my instant start my little Thor thing that starts the battery if it runs down things like that extra canopies and and and canvas and stuff I keep in the bottom one I keep my camp chair here it takes up a lot of room it's a great big Coleman but it's so important to have a big comfy camp chair so I do it anyway and then I keep my window covers back here and my window covers are basically um just some reflectix with some black material glued on on one side and they've worked great for a year and a half and then I keep my extra butane canisters over here in the little cutout there at the back of the van on this side I usually have two two and a half gallon water tanks right here that just slide in nicely I do two and a half instead of five gallon I don't want to lift up a five gallon and try to get it filled all the time I also keep this passenger side pretty lean and mean there is the stuff in the gray that I that's just everyday stuff that I need the tent's flying away oh that's hilarious so Danny I noticed your van is very clean inside and so my question is how do you keep it so clean here's the thing I'm not really super super super clean by nature but in the van you have to be you literally have to be you have any idea how easy it is to lose the smallest thing from the van it's the most frustrating thing in the world so literally every single thing has a place and it has to stay in its place when it's not being used period end of story it has to be normally these Vans have a center console did you pull your center console out I pulled it out on purpose it was critical for me to pull it out because I wanted to be able to get front seat to back seat sleeping stealthy I have my window covers they cover everything and I wanted to be able to get in and out of the van without people knowing that I was some single person traveling alone so that was very important to me I pulled it out and I just lift up my little arm thing and I can easily get from front to back or if I'm in I feel like I'm in any danger any bad situation I'm always like I could jump right in the car and go so my Toyota Sienna has a bunch of metal pieces on the floor and I noticed that you have a really nice carpet on here yeah do you did you remove your rails or is the carpet covering your rails the carpet is covering plus I have those playground mats or the weightlifting room mats but they they fit together like puzzle pieces and then I have literally taped them down I also took where the seat usually hooks in and I have covered them with extra foam and stuff because they were still sticking my knees when I would hit one wrong so that was important to me so yeah it's it's soft and I can crawl around and hear what I need to so if I'm sitting in the back of the van I'm probably sitting here like this now so I can grab a little table from the back set it up I can cook in here if I want to set up my stove right here leave my window or my door open to vent my dry food is here my cold food is here and I have everything I need to cook right here plates and stuff Skillets and stuff everything is right here within Arm's Reach you have a semi no build conversion and you don't have any back seats did you remove your back seats I removed my back seats and donated them yes for a while I left it in storage and I was like I'm literally never going to use this and if I do sell it I'm not going to sell it probably until it just goes to the junkyard anyway so I wasn't going to worry about it they took up too much room so your bed you talked about it a little bit before is it a tri-fold is it a solid is it a yeah I I dreamed about having one of those beds where you know it had the piano hinge and you could do it up and get to the storage I went with something just even more simple than that because this bed is more than really I could even manage on my own I got a monthly membership at a workspace that had tools and everything so that I could cut the plywood so that I could cut the legs to be all the right size there are no two legs on this bed that are the same size every single adult bed every single leg is a different size and so I put eight legs on it instead of a lot of them you'll see do six and I made it 26 inches wide and it is so so so stable um it's it's one of the best parts I literally sleep on this bed as as well as I do my bed at home so would you say that anybody can build a bed like this well here's the thing I would have said anybody but I didn't have the garage space I didn't have the tools so I had to have a membership to build it but sleep was like one my number one priorities it's like safety and sleep are two huge things right so I had to have it so I did the membership so almost anyone could do it I mean I had never done anything like this I had never used a saw to cut a piece of wood I had never nailed in a two by four and it was a lot harder than a lot of the videos will will have you think when they show you all the edited versions of just putting it together mine was a lot tougher than that for me it took like two days for me and my daughter but it was worth it now your window shades seem like they are are custom did you make those yourself I made them myself and I'm not crafty at all I can show you kind of how they fit in which is good enough but they're not very pretty and but they are 100 functional and sometimes that just has to be good enough and they're very cheap here's one example right they're like it looks kind of okay from this side and then the other side you can tell so the reflectix and the material which I did with adhesive spray-on glue but then the corners started to come up after about eight months or so so then I took some gaffer tape and just taped down some problem areas and literally that is how it works and so you can put it it goes in super easy like that's as easy as it as it can possibly be that's literally all it takes I prefer to have it when you're inside is like this but it looks it broadcasts to the whole world that you're inside if you have it like this so if you want stealthy you go with blackout about how much did it cost you to make those like thirty dollars for the reflectix I had to have two rolls instead of one just barely because I wanted to make one um for the back and all these back windows also I made reflectix for my past my driver and passenger which a lot of people don't but there's so much so many times when I'm up in front and the Sun is just glaring in that front so I made it for those two things so I needed two rolls of reflectix they were like 20 a piece so 40 10 or 12 dollars for the fabric five bucks for the spray adhesive and then gaffer tape was like ten dollars but I already had some so literally you know 50 bucks or so I couldn't live without my fan my fan and my Lucy light will put these right here and so this plugs right into my jackery goes right here I can shift Direction I can move it this way and that way it is my Lifesaver I love this little fan oh polar love it it's got a slow and a fast speed I can have it on all night and it takes maybe five percent of my jackery or something even on high it takes very little it takes very little power and um love it that in my Lucy light I stick it up in the front window when I'm when I'm traveling and then stick it back here at night it'll go for two or three days usually so I went to the Grand Canyon for the first time as I was traveling out west and in the van and the first time I went to the Grand Canyon I had chills I loved it so I was completely in love with the Grand Canyon completely enamored and when I started watching videos on the Grand Canyon I saw somebody do a hike of the Grand Canyon actually they did it all in one day but I got it into my head that I really wanted to hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim and then I'm like no I'm way too out of shape it's way too it's impossible but it's a dream that just kept coming up again and again and again so I decided I'm gonna go for it I'm gonna give myself almost two years to train I'm starting with just little walks five times a week and I have a whole planning schedule of what to do with what months and how I'm going to get in good enough shape enough to do the Grand Canyon rim to rim which is like 24 miles and four thousand feet um incline in like two days and crazy right down to the bottom of the the canyon and up out again um but I'm so excited I'm so excited I'm scared and excited like that's how you know you're on to something with your dreams right you're you're excited but you also got that fear you know you're just kind of really going for something big so I'm thrilled and I'm gonna do it in two years which will be October 2024 and so just starting that journey is really I'm going to share a lot of that on my channel too um really excited about starting that Journey so Danny what's been the hardest part about your van life Journey the hardest part the hardest part was okay I'll say two things number one just the very first trip like doing the work ahead of time to be able to go out and travel in the van was probably the hardest part putting everything in order that had to be in order getting my priorities right getting knowing people were going to look at me and say why are you doing that you're crazy put that money in a 401k and you know retire early or whatever um so getting by everybody and doing all the things I had to do to actually start was probably the hardest thing another hard thing is when you're out there for a while you eat everyday decisions are are kind of hard it's it's kind of hard to go it's harder to go to the bathroom it's harder to cook meals it's harder to do the essentials of life when you're in a van and it's also um finding a place where you're gonna stay always kind of having that pressure of not quite having that solidity uh I missed I I just got to the point where I kind of missed that stability like always being in motion was divine and then after a while you're like okay now I need to slow down and and spend some time in one place do you ever feel lonely on the road I never do and I thought I might I might having my camera doing my videos on YouTube is kind of like I feel like I have a friend like I don't think about a bunch of people watching I think about like having one friend with me to kind of share the journey so that's kind of how I view it and I guess like I really like my own company I I've been a mom and all that stuff for so long it's so nice to have like me time like quiet time like there's so many moms and stuff who are just like I can't even imagine having time to shower and and have self-care time let alone going off and doing that like I I loved having the time by myself I could go I go two weeks without talking to another human and be perfectly perfectly good so what's been your best or favorite experience on the road it is nearly impossible to pick one and it really is my my I thought I wasn't gonna like the the rain forest and I would have to say that Washington and Olympic National Park in Mount Rainier that area the beaches and the rainforest and the mountains also Southern areas Southern Utah and Northern Arizona that entire area with the red rock and all the gorgeousness there there's a ton there the big five parks in Utah Monument Valley everything like that some of the best boondocking I've ever had right in that strip so those are a couple for you and of course the Grand Canyon like I already mentioned which is phenomenal did you ever get to Slab City in your travels or have you ever thought about it you know what I got close enough and then I I was a little scared to go I was you know me just on my own it's kind of like going down into Mexico like a lot of people do it I want to go down to New Mexico but I want to do it with a small Caravan I wasn't going to go to Slab City by myself I've just heard things here and there what's your best tip or trick that you'd like to share with anybody who is just now learning about or thinking about getting into minivan camping I would say there's a certain amount of planning you can do but I would I would encourage you to start traveling with just a Bare Basics I bought so many things that I ended up not needing that if I had just waited until I actually got out then I would have had a better idea so if you can do short trips at first and decide what you really need and I wouldn't buy anything on Amazon only gives you 30 days to return something so use it within that first 30 days because I've lost hundreds of dollars because I couldn't return something to Amazon that I needed to and and honestly just to do it there are a hundred 200 300 people who talk about doing it more than that one person who actually will and I just want people to be like that kind of person in life where you have that dream and just do it even if it's in a small way just just try just do it what I'd like to just say about safety a lot of people ask me if I feel safe when I'm on the road and I I truly feel like number one statistically I'm the most dangerous thing I do is drive miles on the open road and drive in places where I don't I don't know so I'm always trying to be careful when I drive and the second thing is follow your intuition if a place doesn't feel right I always have a backup or a plan B somewhere else that I can go and I have even called local police departments asking I got here it's the only place in town listed on I Overlander is there somewhere I can go that I could park overnight and be okay I'm just passing through it'll only be one night and they will tell you so listen to your gut and like when I'm laying down I feel very I usually feel very secure because I'm inside a steel box I lock everything up at night if I get scared at anything like I have done it like maybe one Walmart parking lot I pull down the window shades I start the car and I leave and that's it's pretty safe being in a being in a steel box but otherwise follow your intuition and I have my car alarm right by me I have a plan in my head of what I would do if someone came up and tried to get in so that would be to ring my my honk my horn on my car alarm and to Simply get up and drive away I was back into the parking lot parking spots things like that so safety is a concern but it's not it's not going to stop me from doing anything I want to do when this crazy but no joke we got caught up talking and we ran down the battery on the Daddy's Toyota Sienna so we're gonna try her jump starter before hopefully it works but if not I do have jumper cables okay cool this will work I'm curious this baby has it's really safe it's really great some of the best 50 bucks I ever spent this is all there is to it and I've used it literally like half a dozen times so I'm gonna do flat first I don't think it matters especially the black first it only matters I guess if the smoke comes out right [Music] oh that started right up all right guys thanks so much for watching be sure to check out Danny's Channel at you and me living free here on YouTube and I'll see you on my next adventure [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: Off Grid Adventure

Views: 1,590,674

Keywords: Minivan camper, Sienna camper, micro camper, minivan camper, minivan camper conversion, minivan camper tour, minivan life, no build minivan camper, sienna camper van, stealth camping, toyota sienna camper, toyota sienna camper conversion, van life, van life tour, vanlife

Id: X07AJhQTajM

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022