VAN TOUR: Solo Female w/ 2 Cats

hi guys my name is quinn and i live in this for transit with my two cats otto and alice [Music] 2020 was obviously a pretty crazy year for everyone but i just moved to los angeles from chicago two weeks before the pandemic started and so when i got to la i was an event producer we had planned this huge world tour eight cities three countries then it all just sort of stopped so i didn't really want to live in los angeles anymore so i ended up moving back to chicago then i moved um to colorado and the entire time i was trying to figure out where to move i had atlas and auto with me so we did around 10 000 miles together just going back and forth trying to figure out where to live we started researching fan life and so once i started watching a ton of youtube videos and figuring it out i really thought that i could do this so in november i found the perfect van after searching forever for it went down to indiana picked it up and then i gave it to builders to work on for around three months and then in february we started driving and we've never looked back since it's been pretty incredible that i as a solo female can tour around the country with my two cats atlas and auto and love every second of it so i'm excited to share with you my van build i hope you like it i'd love to hear some of your opinions and let's go from there i'm excited to show you around [Music] this is my kitchen i was working with this contractor out of grand junction and he personalized a stove top tray cover and this is really awesome because i love my stove but one of the things with the cats is they always go like this this tray is an amazing tray because then it just doubles as a table and sometimes i work as a standing desk or if we're playing games or something we'll take this i'll put some food in it and any books or wine and i can like put it on my bed so it's like a really nice addition that is both functional and looks pretty good so this is my dish rack and so i use this when i dry my dishes and then when i'm not using it i think it looks kind of nice like i don't know what else to put there i absolutely love spices i cook with spices all the time this is a company called the spice house out of chicago so it kind of reminds me of home because i used to live literally right across the street from it and i'm like obsessed with these spices i started collecting things prior to this from all of my travels and so one of my favorite souvenirs that i picked up like two years ago was these portuguese tiles so when i went to lisbon i picked up these really great tiles and a lot of them were broken and they kind of meshed them back together that's probably one of my favorite personalized touches i didn't want like a huge backsplash i honestly think that eventually i'll put a window here okay welcome to my upper cabinets so here you have your pantry so i have a ton of like nut products in here i don't know why i love nut products so much this is my dishes so when i first started on the road i stuffed this van i put everything that i physically could fit in this van and then when i got one on the road for the first month i didn't use any of it so when i went back to my home base which is in colorado i ended up getting rid of almost all of my dishes i didn't need plates i only use bowls so like these are they're like from target they're like the most incredible bowls ever and then these are the non-breakable non-chippable ones i have my magic bullet blender and then i have three tea mugs this is my two glasses so if i want like a nice fancy drink these are my two glasses and that is pretty much the extent of um my dishware and then i also have all my toiletries so since the four transit is curved that's why we can't do the up cabinet and these help with the spring keeping them up and then i also have like a magnet system to keep them closed but this is all my skin care my natural deodorant i love the ordinary so cheap and so nice perfume because i still want to smell nice and then i recently gave up coffee about three months ago because i am a solo female and i don't want to feel jittery on the road so i drink a lot of mud water i drink a lot of tea but this is all of my skincare and all my stuff and whenever i use it i just sort of take it out and then i put here and then same with this as you just kind of put them down and then you put them back up and it's really easy and i have a lot more space so maybe i should buy some more products just kidding so moving on is the sink so the sink i really wanted because i wanted the most counter space so i definitely wanted where the butcher block was also on top of the sink but i wanted a very deep sink i'm not so great at doing dishes and i have a lot of hair and so when i'm not able to shower i'd love to have my entire head fit in that sink i don't love the fact that it's white because i realized it stains really easily so if you can avoid getting white i liked it because it like my aesthetic is primarily white um but if you can avoid it avoid it because i realized it really stains pretty easily so i have a sliding door so one of the things with the sliding door is i initially wanted the sliding door for security and that way i could lock it whenever i needed to lock it but i've learned that i actually like it more for insulation since i have two cats typically if i'm cooking or maybe it's bad weather outside but i need the doors open or i don't know i just need them to be in here for a little bit i will open this i will put them in there they still have room to hang out and then i will close this and i almost get this whole area to myself and i don't have to like attach them to the van or worry about them kind of like drifting away and i'll only do this obviously when it's like cooler outside really really really highly recommend this door and then anyone with a transit you know how the roof kind of curves down well it's a perfect space for some extra storage so all this is extra storage it goes the entire distance so i have like two towels back there i've got some of my tools back there i've got the cat food and a lot of the cat products back there um and also you can see that this like overhang so i've got a lot of my like receipts for my business so this is an amazing way to utilize some additional storage in your ford transit additionally with this partition wall is this is pretty hollow um so i store things in it so i can make this into like a spice pantry i have towels hanging in it right now i've got cleaning supplies but you have about six inches in this partition wall where i'm like physically stuffing my window covers and some more cat products because this whole van is filled with cat products while we're on the topic of sort of this wall this is the lights in the main area and then this one operates my water pump so when i push this on then i can get flowing water where i don't have to physically pump it myself and then when i press this button which i'm not going to press this button right now is my gray water tank is underneath the van so when i press this button it is an electrical release and then everything will be released into the dump so it's super easy super effective i don't need to do anything weird wires down there which is really nice so this is a glass breaking sensor so i've seen a lot of solo females use a system called simply safe so simply safe is um a security system so if anyone breaks any glass this will alert me and then i will the police will be dispatched so if i'm not here and something happens the police will know my gps coordinates and they will go to the location because i can do it on my app so that's really nice and then i also have a camera which we'll show you a little bit later and i have like a little module that it all connects into like a home base that i plug in um and it has like electrical battery too so there's like a power outage it will still work okay so my fridge i haven't had a chance to go grocery shopping so it's a little empty but this fridge fits a ton so this is the isotherm this is the 85 liter one i believe but you can tell it has a ton of space in it and it has a freezer so the freezer does get a little like frost happy and there's like a ton of chunks of ice but like i love it i also instead of using ziploc bags use a lot of the beeswax wraps i love them for cheese for fruit pretty much like this is a huge fridge i love this fridge this fridge is perfect for two people for my build i wanted to have a lot of desk space i also wanted to have a lot of open space for the cat i used to have like a legume table here but it got kind of in the way so i kept this open and what we did with this contractor that i used out of colorado is we put a desk right here so this way it doesn't take up any room we did the chain for a little bit but the chain got a little bit annoying the cats went a little bit crazy with the chain and so this just reinforces it a little bit more and then you come on down and then i can easily work here so it's super nice i have some extra storage right here that i put my makeup in i also sometimes when i'm here is like i'll take one of like the pillows and then i'll just put a pillow right here and then i will lounge i can kind of put my legs out all the way like i love this space so much and i can like look out and see what's going on so in addition to the desk that i have right here for work i also wanted a desk that people could hang out at so this is our makeshift big table a lot of times i see tables that are right here that come down this big with a chain but i wanted one a little bit bigger i have a lot of friends that come and visit me and we both stay in the van or maybe they camp out and i wanted three people to sit across this table and play cards hang out chill and this is the prototype so like go easy on us he just like whipped this up and it was freaking genius because i was like yeah i want like a three four foot table but literally this is a huge table and so how it does is it folds so you can see it folds back into itself so what you do is that one already did it itself so you can tell that it's a prototype you take these little extenders off you flip this down and then you flip this down if it behaves and then there's a little latch and you stick the latch in and voila eventually we're going to have something here where it like kind of comes down like this and then it's also a standing desk so if i'm sitting on the bench um and laying out i'll have this as an option too or like i can stand and work from it but again that'll be prototype phase number two okay so the two questions i get asked the most out of the van build is number one where is your toilet do you have a toilet and number two is where is the litter box so let me show you i decided to put for space reasons and because my fridge is huge i decided to put my toilet underneath my bed and so it rolls out and this isn't a very popular toilet in the van life industry it's really used in boating but this is called a sea head toilet it is a composting toilet and then you have this little little handle you hook up this little handle and then you go like this and so this is if you decided to go number two this is how you would turn um and compost it um but i absolutely love this toilet again it is cheaper than the nature's head and i it does not smell at all i put this little thing here so that it can hold this but this is my toilet i use it every morning if i'm staying in a campground i'll use obviously a campground if i'm staying out in the middle of nowhere i'll just like go outside if i'm near a gas station then i'll go in a gas station but there's tons of options so if you don't have a toilet in your van it's you don't need to have a toilet in your van it's just really nice um i find this to be a luxury in my van but it's great because i can just close it and no one knows it's there so now the litter box so um for the litter box there's a couple different reasons or ways to use it so how you do it and this is all clean so don't worry um right now i'm trying out paper pellets i don't like clay litter because i just think it smells bad and i don't like the fact that it clumps up too much i like stuff like this but anyway so this is a litter box um this is how i dump it every single day so one of the other things that i got stuck on is this is a charcoal deodorizer this thing literally soaks up all the smell and then when it you can start smelling things again you put this out in the sun for like 24 hours and it you just use it again and i put this right next to the litter box like right on the inside of it and it works wonders i'm obsessed with it but another way that you can get to the litter box is if you remove this and you get to it this way i don't really use this way as much i typically do the roll out but this is a really another great option if you wanted to have a top entry you would just put a hole right here and then your cats could go on the inside i put the deodorizer here and then they go into the litter box from this way the third most asked question that i get is when you leave the van how do you make sure that your cats stay cool now one this is a fully insulated van so it doesn't operate like a normal car would so when i close all these doors it's not gonna get super hot in here it's gonna maintain the temperature now the biggest piece of advice that i can give to you is get two forms or areas of circulation in your van not one but two i personally have three so this one i have right here is a fantastic fan and this one you can have open you cannot drive with it open and you cannot have it open when it rains but i have it open 100 of the time whenever i am stationary and i'm obsessed with this fan i love it so much so this i wanted to have something above my kitchen i wanted to have something take the smell out and i cook fish probably every other night and it does not smell like fish in here thank god so i love the fantastic fan and i also have another fan i have a max air fan right here so the max air fan is a bit covered so you can use the max air fan when it rains and you can drive with the max air fan on now the cool thing about having two fans so you have your max air fan blowing down and your fantastic air fan blowing up it creates a circulation where you're literally getting this incredible air in your van for my third area of circulation when i close this door [Music] this is another form of air that i have coming into the van so what's really great about this is when i have both of these fans going there's a nice flow of circulation and it keeps the van really really really cool um i travel with the weather so i'm traveling with weather 80 degrees and below if i do have to leave the van for whatever period of time say i'm doing a hike i'm always doing a hike in the morning when it is the coldest part of the day now again another amazing thing is i have a security camera right here so this really helps for me to watch over what's happening in the van what they're doing in the van if anyone breaks in from the van here's like the home base of it so i plug this in to one of my outlets right there it also monitors the weather i use a bluetooth meat thermometer in here and that helps me monitor the the temperature from my phone so that's i really really appreciate that i love that okay lighting um so i have three areas of lights i've got lights under here that are connected to a switch i have lights here that are connected to a switch right on top and then on my bed i have lights that are attached to a dimmer so this thing over here is a dimmer that i can go up and down up and down and it's so nice at night that i can um dim the lights above my bed so what i have for electric and i have a really great electrical system so i've got four 100 watt rinology um solar panels on top i also have a really awesome rooftop deck which i never use but i love it so this is how you get to it so yes the ladder's up here but you put your foot here and then you clear up and there is a baby rooftop deck up here so it's only like one two three four like panels of wood um but i really like it i recommend getting a lighter color so that it doesn't heat up so get like a wood color or like i have like a gray color and it never gets warm um but i like bringing coffee up here i like watching the sunrise sunset it's just a really nice area for like a different point of view but you could probably have like three people up here um but anyway so i have 400 watts of solar on the top i have a victron inverter um down below and then i have 300 amp hours of battle board batteries um in electric and so my electrical system is all on this side of my bed if i wanted to get to it i would just do this i also have a propane tank so it's a tiny little i think it's like the five gallon i think um but i've been using it for the last two months and it still has not gone out and then all of my solar um kind of the operating controls are over here so if i wanted to turn the inverter on i would turn it on here and what's really great is this charges everything since i've been in the desert since i've been in a really really high sunlight area i've never run out so my cats love these toys these are their favorite toys they refuse to play with any other toy um and they're obsessed with them so they're like i don't know a dollar for like 30 of them on amazon so i'll link these below too but they're obsessed with them anyway these are also fake plants i don't know if you could tell my cats will eat all the plants so and i'm incapable of taking care of plants like you can see that these plants have already started to die so i wanted to add the extra greenery of fake plants so my cats don't eat them and they still look great i'm a huge snowboarder i've been doing it for i don't know like 16 years and one of the biggest things with the van is i wanted a way to warm it up because i am going to be in some pretty cool temperatures i have a webasto 2000 um heater and so this connects to my gas tank and then it will pump out warm air and how you determine it because sometimes you do have to mess with it with the altitude is you have this um dial right here i was um in the van in chicago when it was i think it was like negative 10 outside and i was using it was just myself so like my cats weren't here but it was like negative 10 outside i put the heater on put my sleeping bag on had two comforters in here and it was amazing like it worked it was so toasty i was sweating so it really really really works highly highly highly recommend this heater so i have a huge hat collection um as you can see i love hats there's four hats in the sand right now and so how they stay up is i literally just go like this and then um i attach them to there and maybe if i'm on a bumpy road they'll fall but pretty much they never fall okay so my cabinets i have three really really really big ones really long ones so this is a very messy everything drawer got spoons i've got my panic button for my security system i've got knives i've got my epipen then i have this drawer which is very neat and organized i'm obsessed with this if you don't have one you should get one it's called the garmin inreach and there's a little sos button so i find myself in places that doesn't have service so this is perfect for staying in contact with people because you can text them off this satellite phone this is my hair product section i used to work in the hair industry and i love i love nice hair products this is all my jewelry this is my wi-fi router so i'll get a little bit more into this in a new video but this is my att wi-fi router i do 50 gigs a month it's like 50 a month i just plug this in plug it in and then i just press the button and i have wi-fi and it's amazing one of the things though that i would recommend is if you're going with a t you should probably have verizon service or vice versa i have a t as my cell phone carrier and so like in places like california where att isn't like the best carrier that means this won't be the best either so if you're gonna do wi-fi and hotspot routers get them different from your phone so that you get coverage from all over the place here is my panel for my security system this is out of range because it's not on right now but this is my panel and i keep it in here so this is really nice and then fun parts as a solo female on the road you need weapons i'm not going to go through all the weapons that i have in my van but definitely tasers so i've got a couple flashlight tasers and then i've got like some small tasers that i always have on me you can never be obviously too safe i also have pepper spray wasp spray and bear spray but that's my safety tools so the final drawer that i'll take you through is my pots and pans and then my fruit drawer so i absolutely love cooking with this it's like an all-purpose pan i also have a dutch oven that one of my friends got me thank you mag i have my fruit i've got a blender i've got so i don't really drink coffee anymore i'm a tea person but if i have friends over and want to do coffee this is like a coffee presser which is really nice i really like that and then for my favorite thing in the van this is my electric tea kettle and it's a collapsible tea kettle um so i don't need to light my stove every morning instead i can use this and it just plugs into the wall and it doesn't take that much voltage and it is literally the greatest thing i use it probably four times a day and then when you're done you just collapse it and it's the best thing ever and it heats water up in like 30 seconds it's like amazing but anyway that is the spur oh i also have more collapsible containers i'm trying really hard not to use ziploc bags or paper towels so i have stasher bags which are really great that are really easily washable and then i also have these and these are also collapsible so so that's really nice too for for saving space i guess but that's that i am a huge huge huge gear junkie so while the dinette looks really really great on instagram and on some of my friends builds like i'm obsessed with the dinette you can fit so many more people there i can't have a dinette because i love gear too much so anyway come take a look at my garage i am obsessed with this cooler now i have a really big fridge but i fill that fridge with food so like when i went like spin drifts or like sparkling water or something like that i'll always put this in here and whenever i'm caravanning this is just so much more helpful but when you take the cooler away i have so many other things i've got extra clothes based on the season as well as if i'm in like a business situation or like i'm at a speaking event this is like some of where my nice clothes live i've got some of my like goggles helmets snowboarding stuff this is really nice for my outdoor shower so i'll just put this down so that i don't get muddy this is a solar panel so this is my extra backup solar panel it is 100 watts and it's from jackery and it goes to my jackery electric generator so this is a thousand watts so this will power everything for days like i think i'm still on the first usage so like when i'm outside i'll use this for my laptop i'll use it for my phone i'll use it for a blender or anything like that oh my gosh if i could tell you one thing i want to be get the get the kettle that collapses but it is put all of your stuff that you want to take to the gym in your bag so you're constantly not having to grab anything from your kitchen area or anything like that so this is my toiletry bag this is my shampoo bag this is everything that i would do to shower um or go to the gym so gym shoes are in here too so this is really nice and it's just so easy to grab this instead of like having to you know place it everywhere so that's that um this is a moon shade this is an awning you can attach the awning here and go this way and like sleep with the doors open or get a little bit of extra shade or i attach my moon shade um to the sliding door so the sliding door it goes above it i'll show you guys a video of it but that is my moon shade so this is an awning i've got my weights here i've got my extra tools i've got more cat stuff so this is where i put all my extra cat food cat litter and then i also have some of their like cat packs and then like some workout stuff now moving on to the outdoor shower so this is my water tank this is a 20 gallon water tank i do wish that i had a little bit of a bigger water tank i would have loved like a 30 gallon or 37 gallon but i also have a bosch 2.5 liter um water heater so how i turn the water heater on is when i shower which i'll show you how to shower in a second i just flip this switch and then in 10 minutes i have really really really warm water and then the outdoor shower is right here so this connects to my water tank and so when i want to shower i take my awesome picnic table it doubles as some storage so for my shower specifically my outdoor shower so i've got my jumper cables i've got my shower hookup i've got my water filter when i fill my water tank and then i've got my flexible hose when i fill my water tank but for the shower specifically we'll grab this we will put this and i won't do it now but you literally just like put this in here once you do it then this is cold this is hot and then you shower so this is really nice so for more gear in my garage um i have a kayak in here believe it or not so this is an origami folding um uru kayak i love this thing so much it takes like six minutes to put together it's only like 21 pounds i also have a yoga mat that is very dusty because i've been using it a lot i also have a tent and a sleeping bag in this like little hole area too but i'm not gonna get it out because it is really smashed in there i've got two of your um camping chairs in here which is really nice because as a solo person you always want to make friends or my cat alice likes to sit in them too and then finally this is my chakri so this is the electric generator that i was telling you about this is a thousand amp hours you can charge it with the solar panel or you can just like plug it in so i'm really appreciative for the jackery this is how i access all of my electric so i go through here and then this is the fuse box as well so if something's going wrong i'll go to the fuse boxes over here when i'm in the colder months i have a snowboarding attachment that i put up here and then i slide my snowboard but one of the things that i will encourage you guys not to do is don't overfill your garage like i have because when i go to place things like firewood i don't really have any room for any firewood but finally on the garage section is i have these magnetic hooks everywhere so they're 100 pound magnetic hooks i even have them holding up my curtains as well so you can see that like on my curtains instead of like forcing everything in there they just are attached by magnetic hook and then it goes right underneath and so that's really um really helpful but i put all of my climbing gear on here my hammock my chalk bag and then i've got some of my winter clothes here these are just some of my best that i thrifted and then this is an awesome messenger bag from eagle creek and what's great is like it folds out so auto can sit here whenever i have it on my backpack so like my cat literally can just like perch up here and then he's good to go whenever we're in hikes but really that's my huge garage area so clearly i cannot have a dinette of any sort because i have way too much stuff welcome to my closet um i worked a corporate job prior to living in a van and i went from like having a huge wardrobe to 52 inches so this is how we do it i use these ikea they're around 11 and a half inches so i think this is 12 inches so these fit perfectly i've got eagle creek what are these packing cubes that are really really amazing i mean i probably have close to like i don't know 60 outfits in here and i pretty much wear the same thing every day anyway but i've got my pants all of my tops so like i have just a ton of tops that are all like this then i've got some long sleeves i've got some sleeping clothes and then i've got a ton of flannels and then i have a ton of leggings and spandex so literally like i've got a ton in here and i really didn't realize how much i had it in here i also have more clothes down here so in addition to this being a litter box this is also a storage unit so this houses even more clothes so how i do this is this is where all my shoes live so my shoes are underneath and then i've got all my eagle creek packing cubes so i've got and i label them so i've got my jackets i've got my dresses and jeans this is all of my electronics so this is a waterproof bag or water resistant bag that i really like and then all my shoes and some extra sunscreen and bug spray are right below it so i have tons of storage so one of the reasons why i picked a ford transit and there's a lot of different reasons is because of the height so i'm five nine and the high roof goes to six eight um when it's just a cargo van with all of the ceiling and the wall up here i could probably fit someone at six five and they're totally comfortable in here now another reason i picked it is because if i'm in the middle of nowhere and i have a mercedes or a dodge promaster chances are i won't be able to find a mechanic they're far and few between and the parts are a little bit more expensive whereas a ford everyone can work on a ford and there's four dealerships everywhere i've gotten oil changes in the most random place another reason why i purchased the ford transit is because i'm getting into a little bit trickier situations like snow and dirt um is i needed all-wheel drive so initially i was not going to purchase a new vehicle i've never purchased a new vehicle but i purchased a 2024 transit high roof new because i wanted the all-wheel drive um and i wanted the warranty now the last reason that i purchased the ford transit is because from here to here the length you can fit six three i'm five nine again and so when i initially because builders had built this out they had only done one of the cutouts on this side and so when i initially got it fit my mattress it was it was right at five nine so i needed some additional space because my foot was right at the end of it so what we did is i worked with the contractor to insert this cut out now i had already cut the mattress so this mattress is six inch memory foam and i love it it's literally one of the most comfortable things that i've ever slept on and i'm so comfy here but this was already pre-cut to five nine and so when we added the four additional inches what i ended up doing i didn't want to get a brand new mattress is i put my laundry here and then i put all my sweaters in the crack since my feet are right here when i sleep i don't really feel any of it and it's extra storage so like honestly like i loved this solution and i think it would be awesome in other vans it's like some secret storage that if you are a little bit on the short end like cut part of your mattress out and just like put some um sweaters there because like i don't feel it and my cats honestly love it so hey why not okay guys that is it that is the full van tour if you have any questions please ask me i'll respond to everything if you're interested in all the products they're all linked below um if you want to follow us on social media my instagram is at quinn gable and my tick tock which i post a ton of videos on how to travel with your cats as well as travel as a solo female is at queen gable as well but seriously if you have any questions my dm's are always open but um that's it so time to put the boys in close up shop and we're heading off to utah thanks [Music]

Channel: Quin Gable

Views: 819,225

Keywords: VAN LIFE, VANLIFE, VAN LIFE CAT, VAN LIFE CATS, ADVENTURE CAT, CATS HIKING, SOLO FEMALE VAN LIFE, FORD TRANSIT 148, FORD TRANSIT VANLIFE, VAN TOUR, CAT TRAINING, CAT ROADTRIP, VAN CONVERSION

Id: C8kEGe6cRIs

Length: 30min 35sec (1835 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 18 2022