VAN LIFE (our daily routine on the road)

this video was sponsored by target [Music] we're kara nate and we've been traveling the world for the last four years so excited about it but 2020 brought us back to the us where we bought a converted sprinter van that we've been living out of full time for the last three months after living in a mechanic's garage for the past week our van is road ready again and we are officially leaving colorado to make the 17-hour drive to the pacific northwest with no row plans yesterday we hit the road and made it six hours which put us just outside of salt lake city utah and we rolled into our campsite in the middle of nowhere just as the sun was setting [Applause] my favorite thing about this new heater that we installed is we ran the control panel all the way back to the bed so i don't have to get out to turn it on so i usually end up laying here for about 15 minutes before i get out of bed [Music] so [Music] coffee's ready [Music] i'm not sure that we ever have normal days but this is probably about as close as it gets today is what a typical day looks like for us if we're not going out exploring a new place going on some big adventure or having something breaking also target has hooked us up with a very generous gift card so that we can stock our van up with food from their good and gather line just look at this good and gather good and gather good and gather good and gather good and gather also and [Music] so in addition to our daily routine we're also going to be sharing what we eat in a typical day which for me starts with yogurt or cereal or some kind of just coffee for me they eats enough for the both of us for breakfast now they're spilt and underpants [Music] i think it's a tad bit aspirational to include this in our daily routine video but we try [Music] it's the real reason i run so i can listen to podcasts and still feel productive at the same time also just don't lose everything i work for on the bike trip not a bad view for a run it's a great thing about living in a van the views change every day [Music] [Music] how's your run hard i think i'm losing it in the last three months i've showered one time in this van because the hot water heater has not worked since we bought it but last week i'm about to take my first hot shower [Applause] [Music] when we're living off the grid like this we always have to be conscious about how much electricity we're using and how much water we're using electricity we can make more of so that's really not that big of a deal but water we obviously can't and i've always been curious how much water it would take for both of us to shower so yesterday i picked up this four gallon blue bucket i've just left our tank open so everything from the shower is gonna drain into that and yeah we'll see this hot water heater is awesome but i still can't take like a long enjoyable shower because we only have 40 gallons of fresh water so that means i have to turn on the water get wet turn it back off get soapy turn it back on rinse turn it back off so could be better has been worse [Music] kara's made a genius discovery she put the towel in front of the heater and it doubles as a towel warmer i feel like we've gone from roughing it to living in luxury just in the last couple weeks wow that's less than two gallons whoa baby to be fair i didn't wash my hair but that's like nothing we could take 40 showers go us washing my hair so when we first moved into the van we couldn't find a mirror to fit this door so i ended up just buying three separate mirrors instead and sticking them together and this is how i get to get ready in the mornings here you go you grab that corner for me we just stuff everything up in that cabinet we used to fold it but what's the point we're being honest we convert this back into a desk 50 of the time it never gets less annoying to do i was glad we did it though i know anytime we have a table i'm like wow we should do this first thing every day and then we don't never once ready get to work [Music] if you've seen a lot of our videos it's probably easy to think that all we ever do is go out and have fun on adventures and don't get me wrong we do a lot of that but the reality is we probably spend more time doing this how good is this best office ever work for us means that i'm editing and nate's doing the business side of things we're gonna need some food emailing planning and researching our future reading of this that's a good idea and anything that has to do with our finances i always like to say that i'm in charge of our social media and nate does well basically everything else the good news is we really like doing this because we're always on the move the opportunity to just be still feels like rest like a break it's work but it's rest it's confusing i feel super stereotypical saying this but if we're eating lunch in the van it's usually a smoothie and i think i figured out why vans and smoothies go so well together they're super quick it's an easy way to get a bunch of healthy stuff in your body at once i don't have to cook anything and probably most importantly is there's like no cleanup the only thing i have to wash is this every smoothie i make consists of four main ingredients and from there i just added any other fun things in this case dragon fruit coconut chips and honey coconut now let's try it out cheers so good and gather it's target's newest and biggest grocery brand and we were super impressed with how comprehensive this selection was in this video we wanted to share our go-to meals and we were able to get 90 of the ingredients from good and gather plus a few things that we didn't need like these super yummy himalayan salted dark chocolate almonds i think my favorite part of it is if you see this logo in any of their products then you know that it's free from artificial flavors artificial sweeteners so there's no high fructose corn syrup or synthetic colors so basically you can feel good about what you're putting in your body alright back to work okay this is so weird nate's at the top of the hill he was getting a video of us down here and i decided i wanted to try to make some coffee and so i tried to turn on our water boiler and it wouldn't turn on then i turned on the music i was listening to and realized that there was a very loud beeping noise coming from under the bench where i was sitting this is all the stuff that we just got fixed we literally just left the shop [Music] overload alarm what does that mean donna sarah move forward do this really technical thing where i turn it off and back on it seems to be working really since we've never had hot water before we've never ran the hot water heater and the water boiler at the same time and i bet that's what overloaded it you're so smart living out of a van for three months so between the water heater the water kettle the blender and all the electronics that we're charging today we're using a lot of power and putting quite a bit of stress on the van but the great thing about our new setup is because we have the alternator charger all we have to do is turn the van on and then everything will charge back up where before we would had to go to a campground plug in it would have turned into this whole big ordeal but [Music] all right i'm pretty much done with this vlog that i've been editing but before i post it to youtube there's one last step and that is what we call our final watch and edit round also known as a guaranteed fight in our relationship every time at this point i haven't seen any of the footage since i filmed it behind the camera and kara's spent 20 plus hours editing this video she's super invested and it's my job to tear it apart it's just this weird thing where i need fresh eyes on it but because i'm so emotionally invested anything nate wants to change she's like we started doing this really cheesy thing where before we start we hold hands and we're like okay i love you we're on the same team all right you ready let's do it coffee tends to help okay so i have i think that whole person they need to come out right this is like why i think it's the other issue is we have very different creative styles i like like well-lit steady maybe even verging on the edge of cinematic shots and cara will take like the real raw that's funny i think we've been doing this long enough that we've started to understand that like these different creative mindsets are what help shape our videos and have turned our channel into what it is so in some ways we're grateful for it but it doesn't make this any easier yep [Applause] we're still married oh isn't that bad i would not consider myself a good cook but i do love to eat so every once in a while i attempt to whip up something yummy so earlier this year my sister-in-law showed me this chickpea curry recipe and i totally fell in love and it has been a staple ever since so we're on the bike trip i made this for the guys and a ton of people asked for the recipe so that is what i'm going to make us for dinner tonight and all these ingredients look a little intimidating but trust me it is so simple and it's so hard to mess up that's what i love about it unless you like really love garlic this is probably a bit excessive you need this much if you don't like garlic i'm sorry you put that much olive oil i love it okay step one chop up some fresh ginger fresh garlic and fresh onion and saute in a whole bunch of olive oil all these smells made me so happy i think these are like the three strongest things that come from the ground and pretty much every step of the way i add salt and pepper and while those are simmering i drain and rinse the chickpeas all right next i get my spices ready and this is a new jar of turmeric and last time i opened a jar at altitude it didn't go well my whole face is burning i'm scared okay give me a knife i'll do it outside okay point it at you be gentle it didn't explode oh good thank you typically i am a big time measurer when i'm cooking like i like to measure things perfectly but for some reason with this curry i just oh that looks good makes me feel like a real chef so the main most important spice in this curry is turmeric okay now i'm just going to let all of this simmer for just a few more minutes so all the flavors get nice and married don't drip it in the curry all right well kara's cooking us dinner i've been tasked with refilling our peat moss and our composting toilet so that we can start using the solid side of things again this is the first time i've ever done this oh it smells so good all right last thing i put in here for a while are the chickpeas and i let this simmer for several minutes because i like it when the chickpeas get nice and crispy just walk away [Music] so this is what it looks like inside and then after you go to the bathroom you move this thing around and mix everything up also i think i used about two percent of this bag you have to use organic peat moss and the only size i could find was you think this is enough it's so heavy that massive bag it feels kind of wasteful but it was only twelve dollars okay now it's getting excited this is all sizzling it's time to add the liquids starting with coconut so good can be a little stubborn there we go now we're cooking okay i'm not gonna worry too much about scraping the rest of that coconut milk out because the way i measure the vegetable broth is just pour in the can one less measuring cup to wash oh yeah and we like it spicy so i add a bunch of these okay so now i really just have to walk away and it's just going to simmer and thicken and become [Music] while the curry was simmering i made some basmati rice and now we just have one last ingredient add in some fresh greens stir them in and let them cook for just a minute and then we'll be ready to serve i'm uh using a measuring cup as a ladle here because van life so to finish off i add a dollop of greek yogurt a hefty serving of cilantro because it's our favorite a squirt of lime a tad bit more olive oil and i top it off with a little bit more turmeric just because it's pretty so ever since we first got married kara's done this thing where right before i'm about to take my first bite she looks at me like this tell me what you think you love it and i decided early on that i was just gonna be honest so that i didn't have to eat food that i didn't like for the rest of my life and to her credit she takes criticism about her cooking a lot better than she does about her editing but i have no criticism of this meal this is one of my favorites tell me again how good is it i'd like to say that our dinners usually look something like this where we're staring into each other's eyes and engaging in deep conversation but the truth is it usually looks more like this because we spend all day together it's not like we have a lot to catch up on over dinner so we usually end up watching youtube thanks i hate doing dishes and cara hates making the bed so this works out pretty well compromise can you put my hair all right we hope you enjoyed this peek into a day in our life when we typically don't pick up the camera whenever we have days like today it can be for just one day or sometimes we do this for seven days straight it just totally depends on what we have going on but now you have a better idea of what our real life looks like in between videos so are you gonna get up and turn off the lights or do you want me to do thank you i love you love you good night i know the scene of nate and i kissing good night and snuggling and going to sleep together is super romantic but the reality is 50 of the time i stay up another few hours editing and that's because mate is more of a morning person that's when he feels most productive and i'm kind of a night out hence the reason why nate brings me coffee every morning and has to basically shake me to wake me up the air is free no way yeah this tire was on 20. what's it supposed to be on 70. wow it's warm oh are you okay are you bleeding say something are you okay are you bleeding where did it hit all right on your temple can you see straight yeah are you sure yeah it was so loud okay yeah just my brother-in-law is six six and he hits his head all the time and i always laugh at him and ever since we moved into the van i feel so bad for that oh i nailed it on one of the handles i'd do this at least once a week in the band never used to hit my head i'm short same while that sun feels so good oh i'm hot i'm cold we really like doing this now [Laughter] we've gone through points where like this is bad for our relationship we shouldn't do this anymore but karen request that we do it every time i need it it's mainly me cutting stuff out and so me deciding that like this 30 seconds is boring and needs to come out and kara knows that she spent an hour putting that together i can see why it makes you mad yeah but i know that he's right that's the annoying part it's like i don't want to take it out but i know that he's right all right let's do it let's do this i love you we're in this together i don't care what it looks like if it's funny even if the camera is pointing at the ground i think it should stay in and it's like no take that out and i'm like it's funny and he's like nobody's gonna think it's funny because they can't see anything like it doesn't matter and then i'm probably gonna watch this one more time [Applause] that wasn't your plan oh that was like a salad hello cara from the future here this video makes it seem like i cook this proper meal every single night and that is so not the case at least half the time our dinner looks like this snack foods meat cheese crackers veggies a dip it's one of our favorite meals you never have to i'll do this every night i wish you're a drummer and you can use your hand at different [Laughter] thanks again to target for sponsoring this video

Channel: Kara and Nate

Views: 1,591,026

Rating: 4.9235063 out of 5

Keywords: kara and nate, van life, target grocery, target good and gather, good and gather, good & gather, van cooking, curry recipe, cooking, meal prep, grocery, grocery haul, vanlife, converted sprinter van, day in my life, daily routine, van life morning routines, travel, vlog, travel vlog, travel couple, off grid living, van life utah, utah travel vlog, #vanlife, full time travel, tiny home, tiny home on wheels, travel vlogger, van life usa, morning routine, van life couple, van

Id: BSuzyQn9qHU

Length: 22min 40sec (1360 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/hello_amy]

Target is such a lucky sponsorship, I’m envious!! It’s interesting to see what they’re doing between big adventures. I’d still watch their “boring day” vlogs tho haha

[u/reliableotter]

Wow. Target is huge. Good for them. I do like that they treat this as a job, and they show that to us- they work.

I'm so jealous of their lifestyle though. I wish I could just go off in a van. And travel the entire world... sigh... To be young and adventurous. We just were never risk takers like this. Even their boring days look great.

[u/theworkoutqueen]

These “day in the life” videos are so unappealing to me, especially after the first one. I think one is enough. I much rather prefer their travel vids.