Van Life 101: How to Live Well in a Car, Van or RV

right and i think these are two items that you may want to consider pretty important i think that this is a lucy light you can get on amazon uh and i'm seeing them in more more retail stores uh a solar panel and uh inside our there's this pow is this got juice in it where's the this is an older one where's the button on this one there it came on well you can't really see because it's light but uh this and this will run it most of the night won't it this you put this out in the during the day it'll probably run most the night and it's lucy lights are really good uh it's also oh there's there it is up on high and uh off and flashing and off and it's i'm going to deflate it and it deflates packs down to nothing so in a space where you have to have all the room you can get this is the minimum amount of space oh and i turned it on one more i think that's really good do you put it in your like on your dashboard or something during the day you put it on your dashboard don't you yep it's just a solar light so you don't have to replace batteries all the time and i am just a huge fan of headlamps uh i i would recommend everybody have a headlamp uh to go on your hands and your head free you go to go outside in the middle of the night for an emergency run to the nearest bush got a headlamp uh you can read by them and your hands free you can hold your book while and they're they angle i don't know if you can see that they can angle uh and they have i don't know how much you're going to be able to see this this this is energizer and i'm very big fan of the energizer brand this is probably 15 or 20 dollars it's got a super bright central light which will you walk at night you can see period then it will have a red light like suanne mentioned at night you use the red light people won't see it it won't blind you and then it has a low beam um so i am a big big fan of energizer lights of energizer headlamps and i recommend them okay and your entertainment system here it is folks i do an awful lot on this when i'm on the road it is low power consuming so um even things like writing emails i wrote bob an email this morning and did it on this um anything except if i'm going to write a long long piece of text or edit pictures i will do on my phone and we might add that with bluetooth accessories yes maybe that really expands their usefulness a keyboard a bluetooth keyboard a bluetooth uh uh speakers and and it really enhances and uh you can probably most newer phones you could connect to a bigger screen although most of us aren't gonna be carrying bigger strings i guess um at any rate they're remarkably useful uh download watching tv uh videos i watch tv on that all the time yeah it's amazing if you're holding it right here you don't need it any bigger right and a big one to me is books reading books take no space you can get the kindle app the nook app lots of apps and read your books right there and of course kindle has a million free or really cheap books and all the mapping apps for travel are great yeah just it can really honestly be your travel your very low uh power use uh entertainment center i will recommend that especially on the west side of the country that the verizon network has the best coverage that i've experienced yes by far uh and here we have a inverter you plug this into your uh it's just a standard cigarette lighter plug your car almost certainly has a standard socket to put a cigarette lighter plug in power port and then it has a usb so you could charge your phone off of this although better to charge it directly and has a standard 110 plug so you could take a crock pot and if you're driving all day across country you could take your crock pot a very small one they make quart sized crock pots low power one or a rice cooker no wouldn't run a rice cooker no this is too small but you could get a 400 water wood you could yeah i think if you went like to truck stops and gut things that truckers use the 12-volt ones right especially right they would be a better choice at any rate uh because much more efficient at any rate you can power 110 items low volt low drop 110 items with this while you drive very very handy or your laptop if your laptop runs on 12 volt or one's a 110 and you can't find an adapter try to find an adapter for your laptop if you have a laptop or your tablet whatever and if it requires 110 then you can you can charge your laptop with this while you drive okay so next we come to the bathroom the thing everyone is going to ask us about how to go the bathroom when you live in a car and we're not shy you're not shy i'm just asking the questions so you're the one who has to be not shy uh and you're gonna answer the questions uh hopefully hopefully this is not your thing please pass forward so um living on the road i i'm just gonna use the words pee and poop uh you can't say that no no no this is polite company all right if at all possible keep them separate so um i will talk about peen i p this is how i do it i pee in this has just a regular yogurt container and then once i do that i just pour it in this for storage and then once this gets a half full or so i uh go water a tree lucky tree i like a tree yeah i do it's good for them yeah yeah so um this is what is this two gallons two and a half gallons two gallons this is a two gallon bucket it actually came from a local grocery store it had uh cake icing in it uh originally and i line it with the item called a double duty bag uh i'm sure it's pun intended uh and it is specifically made for human waste and it is a double bag i'll show you the outside bag is a really heavy plastic and the inside bag is a like a heavy black garbage bag so what i do oh these and these are very expensive so i try to be frugal some might say cheap but i call it google is i then line the black bag with a doubled uh grocery bag and put it in here now at the bottom of the black bag is oh show them that okay at the bottom of the black bag is this silicon stuff that when it gets moist it gels up so um and the reason i like to have that as a backup is because sometimes my poop is running and it might go through you can't say that might go through the garbage bags so if that happens i want to have this double duty bag as my backup typically however that is not the case so what happens is once the deed is done i just wad it up in this and then put it in one of these this is just a ziploc cheap old ziploc bag and then because i'm usually out on camping for days at a time they collect and they smell so i found that plastic doesn't do it the smell permeates the plastic so i bought one of these again a thrift store find it's just a canister canisters i believe it's stainless steel and then i take this and i put it in here so does it screw off it's actually i've never seen one quite like no i haven't either i'm not going to open it because oh it's uh okay it's being used oh it just popped yeah it just pops off yeah uh we should say that on our forum uh that someone just commented that they use a glass tall glass jar right a um like a mason jar that has the lid that you can latch tight it has a seal around it like a gasket i'm i would i would be cautious using glass right because because of bumpy roads and things you know knock up against something hard um it's one thing i wouldn't want to have in my vehicle so whoops this all goes together in my car [Applause] like this oh and oh i should say yeah let's can i just back up here and sure so if it when everything's there this is a um luggable lid that's actually kind of broken right now how long have you had that one 10 years there's there's no secrets there you know that and uh it fits best on a five gallon bucket but it does fit for the last eight years on this two gallon bucket and it's worked great for me and you in a car i have no place to put a five gallon bucket only only the two gallon bucket right and yet this is plenty sturdy plenty obviously yeah the same bucket um and this goes uh you know that hump that is between the two passenger seats in the back this goes on top of that hump and then this goes is flat enough where it just goes under my mattress so storage is really easy and then when this is stored on that hump between them the uh seats this is what goes in this and this when it's being used goes outside it doesn't get stored in my car for a pair of reasons and then i put this towel out just to let folks know that i typically i always uh cover the seat when i'm doing bathroom stuff just as a caution right okay and you you actually use the restroom inside the vehicle i do it bad weather people around you just have to be able to right right if i'm if i'm in town and i have the choice to use a public restroom or my car i use a public restroom for sure but if i don't have that choice then i you know i use the car i have been in situations where there haven't been any campers around and the brush has been high enough where i'll just go outside you know and and that works fine too okay so here this is uh your bathroom this is gonna be the bathroom i guess right on the bathroom thing toiletries so um between trips to town which can be as long as 10 days 14 uh two weeks i take sponge baths and i uh use basically a washcloth to do that and you know before i get into bed at night um i use this is water water for my face so basically i'm taking a clean washcloth during my face then this is um rubbing alcohol and i use this for the stinky places so under my arms and anything like that and uh and just work my way down my body to my feet and the rubbing alcohol isn't uh that's a new one to me yeah and it isn't abrasive it isn't hasn't been i've tried different things i've really um witch hazel uh diluted rubbing alcohol combination with rich wood table witch hazel and alcohol vinegar but this is seems to be best for me and it's just pure you're just using it i think it's 70 yeah so and um this is the bag i used to put my uh toiletries in so my brush and my deodorant and my vitamins are in here anything that i'm going to kind of use on a daily basis is in here and that's probably a thrift store bag you can find these at thrift stores a dime a dozen exactly and um you'll notice maybe with the exception of the bucket and the case for the um stove is everything is soft sided and that's done purposely i have tried hard sided containers but when you're in a car every square inch counts and you can make a soft-sided container really fit in those kind of odd spaces where a hard sided container like a drawer will not fit right and we're going to now we'll talk about your clothes uh and then it becomes really apparent why that's important right so if i could have you hold that for a minute okay so this is um uh one of my clothes bags i have a one this size and this is just a duffel bag and another about half the size that i typically put underwear in and i pack enough clothes for 10 10 days to two weeks again and what happens is when i wash my clothes and fill this up it is like hard to zip because it's so full but after you know days in the back back country it starts getting smaller but my dirty clothes bag starts getting bigger so what happens is basically is a zero gain of space being taken up so it just collapses and expands as you need it too exactly so your absolute best use of space also especially the dirty clothes bag can just stuff in any corner exactly and stuffing them in in odd little spaces which cars have an abundance of odd little spaces is really a critical element too right so again um just like we talked about the bedding the materials that you choose for your bedding uh for you if you're in cold weather you want to also think about that in terms of the materials that you choose for your clothes so um you know if it's gonna be cold try to stick stay away from cotton uh and if it's it's gonna start cold and get warmer do layers you know a t-shirt a shirt a fleece and then uh a really heavy coat and on this particular trip i've used everything right at the same time because it got cold yeah yeah quite cool i do the same thing i'm doing the exact same thing right now which is what i got up and did this morning i've got a i've got a t-shirt and then a flannel and then a coat pull over and earlier i had on my heavy coat uh which i took it off for this video but normally i'd be have a heavier coat right because so layers layers are critical in ever in both in the in sleeping and in dressing right really critically important um the other hand i'll give you when you're sleeping in cold weather is to wear something on your head because it keeps you so much more warm you know i i have a hoodie that i wear i've used a stocking cap which kept falling off that's why i don't use it anymore but i know people that use a stocking cap right with a hoodie you put it up at night and draw string it in and tie it off and it's not coming off there's almost nothing better to sleep in than a hoodie just for this reason and this is uh a lot of stuff but it will fit in most cars yes and it will make you give you a pretty reasonably comfortable life i would say the way i i thought about it when i started this lifestyle or preparing for the lifestyle is that if i were a backpacker that would be like the minimal amount i would need so anything above that to me is is really just that a step above and makes it more than just surviving but actually thriving right absolutely and if if you get a chance to move up from a car to a minivan even or or even an suv for most people would give them more room or all the way up to a full-sized van then you can take these ideas and take them to the next level so you'd have a laptop instead of just a phone or a five-gallon bucket instead of a one and a half or two and so everything would be just a little more and a little better but this is still the basics that will be the foundation of your life in a car a van or even an suv and even an rv with if you have if you have an rv you're moving into then of course you have much much more room with almost every rv and more storage but it was still this essentials are still there these are basic ideas that you can always apply to your life so one more thing before we're done we want to talk about what i think is probably the most important thing and that's privacy uh you have to have privacy sometimes you're gonna be in the city people will be wandering around and even if you come to the rtr or other gathering people are going to be walking by and looking inside and you're going to be in there whatever you're doing whatever you're doing right right and you don't want people looking in on you and so you got to have some privacy now what most people do is reflectix this is reflectix it's an aluminum uh aluminum foil really heavy aluminum foil on the outside and on the inside it has some bubble wrap i don't know how well you can see that it works really really well um you would most people will just cut it to fit the window a little cut it a little large and then push it inside and kind of push it up and in the gaps around the window and it'll just stay uh you some people will put magnets or um velcro on it this has velcro on it looks like you guys have velcroed it and but most people find you can just compression fit it into windows it's got several big advantages the first is in the winter it'll keep some cold heat in and in the heat in the summer it'll keep the heat out it is especially good at keeping heat out it's exceptionally good at that so those are its big advantages heat and cold no light passes through but it also has some disadvantages and that's why you don't use it anymore what are the disadvantages well when when i started out in 2010 i had brought reflectix with me and did the pressure compression fit like you're talking about the reason i don't like it is because of the space that it takes up by the time because the prius has lots of windows by the time you have all of those rolled up in a in a bag it just takes up a lot of room it's not heavy but it still takes up a lot of room and so i decided to go with uh curtains not so conventional curtains but curtains all the same and you were also mentioning that you passed through cities a lot right and earned cities and the stealth was a big deal right so um unless you painted or line it with black fabric of some sort uh people are going to see that you have the reflectix up on your window right and so some people will do that they will take the same uh uh felt what is uh what am i saying fleece same fleece uh spray glue and then glue that on it and so that from the outside you don't see it uh or they will actually buy can of dollar spray paint and spray paint it black but it does take up more room it just it really does it you roll this or fold it and that's pretty big multiplied towards the entire car and it's becomes an issue and even laying flat uh putting it under your mattress say for example it still takes up a lot of room so what are you doing instead okay so um what i decided to do is use matte black material and the reason i chose matte black is because being mad is not shining if somebody car would go by it would would not reflect the light so there's a stealth factor there i chose polyester fleece because you don't have to hem it you cut it and it requires no sewing what i did is i mounted four s hooks and i don't know if you can see it but this is the four s hooks uh two at the front holders where you have a handle here and then two at the struts with the hatchback and then i strung a pretty thin a bungee cord material here the thing that holds the curtains up so this is like one of my curtains is i took grommets and and made a place for those s-hooks to go and the s-hooks one goes here one goes back at the strut and then it will cover the whole window the reason the bungee cord material is there is if i want to i can clip so it would be kind of like this but once the the if i want it all the way up to the top i just clip it with one of those uh clips that i showed you earlier so that there wouldn't be a gap where it falls and correct and hangs which is what it tends to do correct sometimes i want the gap because i want that hot air to escape out out the window where i have a little opening there and sometimes i want the complete privacy the way the material is cut is this big piece of polyester here polyester fleece covers behind the front seats and then all the way back to the struts and then this piece here goes from that handle on the other side to the other strut and then i have another piece that will go in the back the back patch back window so it really doesn't cover the whole set of windows but really from here to the struts and then front and back and your your windows are really dark anyway i did have them tinted for this right whatever and put these these on so you can have the window down and not rain not getting in and people can't see it exactly right very very good and so between the black flat black material and the tinting you're you're good right so tinting would be something we would recommend if anyone that can afford it if you can afford it and get the darkest that is legal in your state and it varies by state so you're going to do your own research on that and so you've done good i mean if you're in the city you and i i have been with you camping in campgrounds uh we were in monument valley let's just tell the story real quick why don't you tell the story no no you go ahead uh we were in monument valley because it's navajo land and to be and then you've got to be on navajo land and be in their campground and we were in this area gorgeous what if you never if you go nowhere else on the planet go to navajo or monument valley well they had a parking lot and you parked and then you took your tint down and set it up of course we just i slept in my van and you slept in your car right and so all day people were walking by your car and you were in there all day and at night you were in there with your lights on and watching your phone right and uh no one ever knew nope superb stealth so that's i can highly recommend sue anne smith at his stealth as being super good and so that will work for you the tinting is really important whether you use uh whether you use uh reflectix and black out the one side or uh now what you can do is see if you spit this window then this would be silver and this side would be black and then at night you would reverse them so that one would come here this one would go there and then the black would be on the outside and that's how you would work it but again you do have a problem of the extra size inside the van inside the via car which you have to fit to face in a van it's not such a big deal in the car it becomes a pretty big deal unless you have windows in your van right well i know i think you have more storage so you can throw them height you can store them the storage is a big problem yes i see what you say yeah you have so much more room for storage okay well thank you suanne you really are the pro you've done this and you've got it all figured out thank you thank you so folks thank you for watching this video and we'll ask you again to subscribe to the channel and like us on youtube and tell all your friends if you've learned anything and we'll talk to you later [Music] you

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 361,073

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Fill-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, Prius, Essentials, List, car-camping, minimum, minimal, backpacking, bathroom

Id: u6vMiRfKV00

Length: 26min 28sec (1588 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2016