Van Tour of Solo Woman Living in a Nissan Van

take a look at her van you're living full time we just shot a video so you should have seen that already you want to know why luis has purple hair go see that video and uh now we're going to take a tour of your van because you got a great great van thank you i just i've i've watched your channel and you have a youtube channel yes and so tell everyone your youtube channel vans v-a-c-a-y-v-a-n-s so check out our channel and we won't go into a lot of detail because you've got the details on your channel i will just take a quick look around give you some really good ideas uh things you really like what you did right what you did wrong how long have you been on the road i've been on the road for 10 months that's a long time yeah i got so this is this is free bird she's a 2012 nissan nv 2500 high roof and i got her a year and a half ago from a repo guy i found her on craigslist she used to be a chicken catering delivery van and when i got her she was covered in pink and purple almost like my hair really like a big like a big bird and pink and purple all over and so i got a really good deal on her and converted her for three to four months and have been living in her since then and did you do the conversion yourself i had a partner at the time and we did the conversion together and then he realized that van life was not for him so we parted ways and he didn't want the van so i found myself with the van suddenly alone and that was not the plan and i just thought for a long time can i do this on my own and i was really afraid for a long time yeah i was i just didn't the plan was to do with a partner you know and i just never imagined doing it by myself and so but eventually i found myself in this situation and i was able to face my fears and i hit the road march of last year and have been on the road ever since it's weird because i've traveled alone before internationally i've done things alone i really like being alone but for some reason being on the road alone it did scare me i just there's so many unknowns about it you know traveling abroad you stay at a hostel and you make friends but here it just i just didn't even know what it was going to look like and so how's it been it's been wonderful i mean that that's kind of the thing that i say you know the second i hit the road that moment i was not afraid anymore oh good yeah it's the time before you make the jump that is the scariest it is it was for me too um and i think it is i think that's true for most people yeah and but once you're once you got in it turned the key and drove away yeah they were pretty calm totally wow that's great yeah that's great and have you had scary moments you know so i had a scary moment one of the first nights that i was in the van alone because the first night of course yeah i know i know i was um it was it was dark and i didn't know where i was gonna park and i was in the middle of nowhere and so my thoughts my monkey mind just took over and everywhere that i went to park i was thinking oh this isn't safe you know is there a person what's that and i was just completely in my head and so i fell asleep that night pretty terrified i woke up and it was the cutest freaking little town that i had ever seen there was a little post office and a coffee shop and everyone was so friendly and when i woke up and i saw the reality versus my my fears i realized there's really not any reason to be afraid you know it's all internal and so since that first night of that fear and then realizing how how it didn't make any sense i just haven't been afraid since then that's great you know we we build up in our minds the idea of roving gangs of murders and rapists and we actually think that way and when you get out here the reality is you meet the most wonderful kind people they give you the shirt off their back yeah they would don't want to harm you in any way absolutely i mean they're bad people everywhere of course but they're rare out here yeah absolutely i mean i hate to say it but for violence against women it's more often someone that you know yes and absolutely yeah and i just i haven't had any circumstances that have been scary or dangerous in the van and the thing is is that if i did i'm in a van i can drive away right you know i consider it to be much safer out here than it would we were in the city yeah when just walking from your work to your car can be the risk and then driving home is the riskiest thing you'll ever do in your whole life and that's just not true out here at all so you haven't been afraid so you kind of just got dumped into it alone yeah and uh do you mind if i ask how much you have in your van if you don't want to say don't say yeah the van was um i think it was about 16 000 for the conversion all done yes so the actual van was 11 000 i got a really good deal i think i could have spent maybe 14. uh it had 50 000 miles 2012. i know i know i got a really good deal and then the conversion was a little more expensive than it probably that it than it could have been you know looking back of course hindsight's 20 20. but you've got a really nice van yes a home you really enjoy yes and that's worth whatever you have to pay for it yeah right i love it you could be living in this thing for a long time to come so you might as well really enjoy it absolutely yeah and how are you supporting yourself on the road we had a video and so let me say you should go on back and watch the video we did about money but just to for those who haven't seen it how are you supporting yourself on the road so i was a lawyer and then i started flipping houses and renovating houses i had a sustainable design company for a little while as well and so now i do some legal work remotely part-time i have rental properties in austin texas that i manage remotely and then i also help put on van life events with van life diaries and you know now i'm kind of just doing the youtube thing and just kind of hustling good good sounds and it's enough for you to live on yeah is the bottom and because you live so cheaply yes absolutely right so go watch that video on money we won't we won't go through all that again so tell me all about how you built your van yep so i have a sustainable design background and so for me it was really important to try to make the van more sustainable than not indoor air quality is really important in our homes and so when you're living in 60 square feet the air that you're breathing it's important for it to be as healthy as possible so for the insulation i used wool which is chemical free it's antimicrobial and it's moisture resistance there's also the ability for air to pass through which is really nice so there's no moisture getting blocked off inside the interior of the van the paint was no voc paint so that's good for indoor air quality the flooring is linoleum flooring which also doesn't have any chemicals um emitting into the air a lot of the laminates that we use have a lot of really bad chemicals and formaldehyde that can get into the air and cheap cheap flooring can off gas in your air for up to five years so it's just something to pay attention to i tried to use some reclaimed materials this the cabinet doors are old tongue and groove flooring from a texas barn outside of austin texas it's really beautiful thank you yeah it really warms up the space i just love using reclaimed materials they're a pain in the butt to use but it's really worth it absolutely the layout i spent a lot of time thinking about the layout you always have to kind of balance um you have to sacrifice something when you're living in 60 square feet so instead of doing the raised bed where i have more storage in the back i ended up doing this bench to bed conversion setup because i work remotely and i spend a lot of time working in the van outside the van around the van so you'll see these two bumps on the floor these are for my table one of the back pieces of my benches turns into a table top and so i can put my table either you know here or there depending on where i want to work and how i want to set up the the bed and bench situation you have a really cool video on your site how you change it from this to your bed in 60 seconds yeah yeah and you time it and it's like a 62 second a minute and a half and two second video yeah yeah it's funny i know it just it's i knocked it out you know did it pretty well and i mean honestly people always say like oh isn't that a pain in the butt to make your bed every day i'm like well it's it's 60 seconds so it's not that bad but i will say that i actually usually only make this part of the bed because i am five two and so a lot of times i'll just set up half of the bed and i'll leave that as a bench so if that's like 30 seconds right yeah that couldn't be any simpler yeah so there's storage underneath all of this um there's actually quite a bit quite a bit of storage i have sewing machines in here i have my um 4 000 amp inverter 4000 watt inverter 100 amp battery under there as well and then i have my little propane tank right in here i just have a one gallon propane tank i use that for cooking and it lasts me eight weeks 10 weeks it lasts a long time so like three gallons for two months yeah for two months yeah it's crazy i had no idea this little baby lasts forever it's really cool so i made window covers that fit over all of the windows on one side it's reflectix in the middle there is a thermal fabric in there that that is really a really good thing i highly recommend the thermal fabric and then this is just a pretty fabric on the on the front so you know these are my window covers and they fill up the windows completely and they keep they really keep the air either warm or cool in here depending on what you want it to be and missing the windows you must have put these windows in i did yes so for the windows you know i really it's important to have some cross ventilation very so that's why i put the two windows here uh if i were to do it again i might make them a little bit bigger but i thought that i wanted the wall space for extra storage so it's kind of a balance i definitely recommend having these windows windows that open because when you're sleeping here you know if you're not in a place where you can open your back doors it's really nice to have this ventilation and then i put this window here in the kitchen for task lighting like a lot of times we have under cabinet lighting for when we're you know cooking and so this kind of does that has that effect where it's able to bring light right here where you're going to be you know washing your food and washing your dishes the kitchen is pretty big it's very big i'm not gonna lie to you this kitchen is kind of ginormous i mean this is a lot of countertop space it really is i put this window in for daylighting it's really really nice because when you're here cooking you can see out and it's gorgeous and this is also cool because it's raised up so people can't see in so this is a window that i can always have uncovered if i wish because like during the day because people can't see in because it's higher up and so i have this light and you know more privacy as well which is a good combination this countertop pops up and you have a huge amount of space between both sides yeah i mean well i used to design houses so in my mind it was like kitchen kitchen that's the most important thing and so i really have created an awesome kitchen and i love it i really love it the eureka moment was when i realized that i could fit the fridge in between the two front seats that's nice yeah that was really the moment that i was like because it opened up all of this space here for storage um in a house you the smallest opening that you really want for a walkway is 24 inches and so when this is down this entry and exit is 24 inches i don't think it needs to be any bigger personally and so i decided to cut into the sliding door space and build this cabinetry this is a three burner stove that's propane and then this is my drawer for my kitchen and as you can tell it's a complete mess in here right now it probably could be half the size if i organized it properly you never know you really don't need that much storage space once you once you live in a van you realize you don't need more than like you know two cups and two plates well you gotta cook you know yeah definitely you save a whole lot of money if you cook eat healthier yeah yeah i do and i cook all the time uh i have dedicated trash and dedicated recycling i can cook everything that i used to cook in this van i mean the only thing is i don't have an oven but i didn't really use my oven that often anyways so you know i'm able to make almost everything that i made when i lived in a house now for my water i have five gallon fresh and then five gallon gray this is a stainless steel uh jerry can and that's really nice because i don't have plastic i don't think i've ever seen uh stainless steel before oh cool awesome yeah uh it's just nice because the plastic doesn't seep into your water they're saying now that uh bpa-free really isn't bpa-free so oh great yeah and here i have uh my toilet that is an electric um toilet it's basically a bagging system it's basically like a diaper genie in a toilet so it kind of vacuum seals it exactly yeah it vacuum seals it i think it's about 17 flushes for each cartridge and um you know it's it's definitely not the most affordable option it's definitely the most expensive option it is it is it's also the most convenient it's you know it's really a balance it's what i got before i moved into a van and before i knew anything about living in a van and so you know i would maybe get a composting if i were to redo it again today but this is what i use and it's what's worked for me right i kind of reorganized everything recently and i was trying to think of the things i use all the time and i was trying to make them the most accessible so here's all my power bank and then all of my clothing is in this front area here it surprises me that a lot of people don't utilize the storage above the front seats right i don't really know why uh this is a huge amount of storage it is and i have all of my clothes in these bags because otherwise it would be a complete wreck yes right and soft bags work by far the best yeah they get smaller as they empty out and put them into a laundry bag and it works really really well yeah it's fantastic and i and i have all of my tops and all of my bottoms you know in in one bag and so i'm able to kind of throw things around in here and it still doesn't get too messy and then this is something i really love it's a small thing oh yeah it's a big thing yeah having this door open like this i automatically turn this space from my kitchen into my bathroom and so i usually have it's a little crazy in here right now but i have my kind of toiletries here so i'm able to you know wash my face and brush my teeth and i'm not sticking my face in the rear view window and you know it's just nice to have a mirror and to kind of get yourself ready and i obviously like to you know get myself ready and take care of how i look and you know so it's really nice to be able to do that have the luxury to do that in a van cute stuff yeah gotta have the cute stuff gotta you make it home yeah exactly you don't want just a place you hang out you want a home yeah and that's kind of my favorite thing about freebird is that this is a place where people gather and this becomes where all the the parties are you know the after parties everyone can kind of come in here and sit and when you open all the doors it's so open and cozy at the same time i love the layout i wouldn't change it for sure um i probably didn't need the ac unit i built the van out in austin texas and so not having an ac didn't even cross my mind right no but uh thankfully i live in a van so i don't have to be in austin texas in the summer yes uh so the one question that we haven't answered for folks is how do you shower i usually go to a gym i the first year i did this i had a planet fitness membership i'm going to get a different gym membership because i wanted to go to someplace that i would actually work out but planet fitness is a really good option it's 30 something a month if you want access to all of the gyms around the country they say 10 something but that's only for one planet fitness location so gym is a really good option for showering i just bought a solar 5 gallon solar shower bag for um you know if i just want to do something quick outside so that's a really good option too those work really well i could have just 10 gallons fresh water and you know if i'm using biodegradable soap have my gray water drain and then maybe hook up the shower in the back perhaps outside yeah outside yeah uh yeah i was just yeah just outside but i mean i don't know that's different people do have different opinions about that so i'm not sure if that's the right thing to do or not but um that i really i just don't shower that often anymore just a sponge bait yeah you know what do we do before indoor plumbing we sponge bait um water in a basin and and washcloths and wet wipes yeah right and i mean you can't really dye this you can't get this hair wet that often anyways or it'll start fading so you know works for the lifestyle right you live for your purple hair yeah exactly it works i'm a big fan of the nissan and people ask me why i don't have more my one concern about them is the gas mileage how's that been for you i think that it's about 14.5 right um which is a lot more than what i was used to i used to have a tiny honda civic so you know it's not great there is a lot of cabinetry in here though i mean this whole thing is wood cabinetry if you look at it so it's possible that i would have better gas mileage if i didn't have so much weight but it's yeah it's not it's not great no i don't think anyone gets better than 15 or 16. really yeah that's about what they get it's uh it's a big powerful engine you could tow you know because it's such a big powerful engine but uh yeah they just they're not known for their cast mileage yeah but i haven't had any any issues with the van at all nothing weird right they're a great salt they're a great van real solid band just mediocre gas mileage yes absolutely um i also have a little storage nook right here for right now has my yoga mat but sometimes i'll throw some shoes there like if i have some muddy shoes or something they can just kind of fit just goes underneath there yeah and that little crevice there so that you don't have to bring them inside and this is really nice i just cut up this welcome mat and it just picks up a lot of the dirt which is pretty important when you're in such a small space and then this is pretty sweet oh how nice well lisa thank you so much for sharing your home with us and tell everyone again your youtube channel and your social media yeah i'm vacay vans instagram youtube all of the above if you have any more questions about the build i'm more than happy to make more videos or tell you about that just reach out to me on youtube very good thanks so much lisa i really appreciate it thanks bob and folks there you have it another great video another real inspiration [Music]

Channel: CheapRVliving

Views: 370,151

Keywords: live, living, car, van, RV, Full-time, nomad, gypsy, camper, camp, boondock, travel, snowbird, caravan, tiny, house, tribe, RTR, adventure

Id: WLyFodsz0G8

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 13 2019