Vintage 1989 Dodge Xplorer Camper Van Tour - Van Life On A Budget

Being in ZEPP has just given me so many opportunities that I really honestly didn't think that I would have, you know, when I started this journey out two years ago. The reason that I'm in ZEPP is because I am collaborating with a YouTube channel called Zeppelin Travels, which they provided me with the van, and in return I am filming and vlogging my travels and my everyday life and what I do. I've been here for about over three and a half months and I've absolutely loved it. Alaska is like a playground. I've been hiking, I've been hunting a couple times, did a bunch of salmon fishing. It's world-class here, absolutely beautiful. This place is just mind-blowing. Alright, what's up guys? This is Brad again. I know you've seen me on some other videos, but this time I'm going to show you what I've been living in the last three months and I'll be in for the next three months. This is Zeppelin. This is a 1990 Dodge Explorer van. It's gnarly, it's awesome, it's got plenty of room on the inside, and let's go check it out. Alright, well welcome inside Zeppelin. The first thing you notice when you come in is this table. I spend a lot of my time right here in this seat as I work on the road. I usually just pull my computer out here and work, so this is like a mixture between my living room, kitchen, dining room, table, office, all right here. And then going around, this is my water. I keep my water here. It does have a water tank with the van, but the pump isn't working and I just haven't gotten around to fixing the pump, so I just use this five-gallon water bucket. It lasts me about five days, fill it up every so often. It's not that big of a deal, it doesn't bother me that much. This is my catch-all. Literally everything goes in here from books, tools, coffee, coffee makers, anything that goes in here, I just kind of like throw it all in the catch-all right here. It's kind of my go-to, just take it out of your pockets or whatever and put it in there. And then this crate right here, this is my, call this my AV department. This is where I keep all my computers, hard drives, cameras, all my equipment that I use to film and take photos and edit and all that stuff. So all that sits in here and it's right here because it's cool. I can just like pull my computer out and set it down, get to work. When I'm done, put it right back away. And there's a little lip right here that keeps the crate from sliding around, so it keeps it nice and safe. Right up here above is a another like metal drawer that it's just kind of like a junk drawer. It's a mixture between paper plates, books, mixed nuts, my kettle, fishing gear, more food, more supplies, medicine. It's just kind of a, it's kind of a junk cabinet as you will. Still in this area, we have these cabinets. They do lift up. There's storage underneath them. Under this one, I have two batteries that are connected to solar. I have 150 watt solar panel upstairs on the roof and then it's connected to this like little inverter that I have. It's I think a 400 watt inverter that I picked up at the hardware store here in Alaska. When you're out in the towns in Alaska, you don't have a huge selection of what you can get. So it's kind of like you either wait three weeks for a shipment to come in or you just go and grab what you can at the hardware store. So and then this one right here has storage underneath it as well. It's mostly just tools and miscellaneous things that I don't need all the time just kind of get tossed down there. Up here throughout the whole van and the whole sides of the vans have these like little like catch-all cabinets. Again, I'm not the most organized human being so just stuff gets thrown up there. I have organized chaos is what I call it. I know where everything is but there's really no rhyme or reason why it's there. So this is the kitchen. It's right across from where I my office and dinner table. It has a two burner stove, all propane. I do a lot of cooking. I cook just about every day because eating out in Alaska is very expensive. So the best way to save money in Alaska is to cook and so I cook a lot because I'm kind of always on a budget. It's the best way to live on the road and to save and invest in other things. So I cook a lot as much as I can. So this is my stove. This is just a cover to keep it while I'm driving. And then underneath the stove is a propane fridge. It's got this cool like stainless steel like rustic look. It shows the age of the van. Unfortunately right now the fridge I haven't been able to get it to work. It worked for about two and a half months and then about two weeks ago it stopped working. So it kind of sucks because I can't keep fresh food with me all the time but I make do. It works. And then I've got a sink here. There's a little cover so I use this to kind of like prep for food and whatnot and then when I need to clean dishes I drop them in in the sink and clean them there. Since the faucet in the water pump doesn't work I usually just grab the jug throw it up here and then wash dishes that way and it goes right out. This is where I keep you know spices and food, tea. This is kind of just like when I'm cooking and I just need to throw stuff in there. That's where that goes. Up here this is the paper towel holder. So I just slip on the paper towels and they stay right there. I do put sometimes paper bags to kind of keep it from rolling down because the other day I didn't have that there and the wind took it and sucked the entire roll out the window and so I caught it and I just had this like big mess of paper towels so I keep something in there to keep it from blowing out. One of the coolest things about the kitchen is I could stand up and cook and I could stand up and walk through the van. The way that this has been built is they like dropped the floor underneath the van around the drivetrain so it gives you an extra like foot, foot and a half to stand up and I'm six feet and my head touches the roof when I stand up straight so it's perfect for me. It's never been an issue sometimes I hit my head on these screws but for the most part it's great. So I have Reflectix here because this is just plain aluminum and it gets really cold in here so it keeps your feet warm. I probably should put a piece of wood on there but haven't gotten there yet. Alright so this is what I call the hallway. Leads from the bedroom to the kitchen area. There's so much storage in this van like there's almost too much storage. I have to just like randomly throw things around because I don't have enough stuff to fill all the space so here is where I keep my food. Mostly dry goods, condiments, all that jazz. That all goes in here and here is my utensils like recycled plastic bags, napkins and all that jazz. Right in here is this is my other junk drawer. This is all mostly fishing stuff so I've got like flies, reels, hooks, fishing tackle. So this is like my fishing tackle box. I think there might be some camera lenses in there or something too but for the most part this is my fishing drawer so everything stays in there. Here's a closet. I don't really put clothes in here other than up here. I put a little bit of clothes but this is where I keep like my secondary backpack, some rubber boots, some extra camera equipment in here that I don't need all the time. That stays in there and just stuff that I don't go and get all the time that stays. This is a Bluetti power bank. It's a lithium battery. I think it's got like crazy amounts of amp hour. I think it's like 240 amp hours on this thing. It's made by made by Max Oak. This thing's been great. It's got on this side it's got 120 AC power and then on the other side we've got like DC power and 12 volts so I can like plug in my phone, my iPad, everything right up here. I've really never run out of power while being in the van with you know charging camera equipment, charging computers and an iPad and staying on that so like my power system in here probably not the most ideal. There's different fixes that I can make on it but it works. I've had power and I'm not living in the dark ages. Welcome to the bedroom. This is my bed. Funny story. So when I ordered the mattress I asked Chris who has who owns the van and owns the channel that I'm filming for hey what size bed fits in the bedroom area so I can have a bed and he goes it's a full size. It's a full size mattress. Get a full size mattress. Well I don't know if you can see but this is a full size mattress and it like does not fit so there's like a huge ramp here. I think this side sticks up a little bit. This over here sticks up a little bit so I would definitely get a mattress smaller than a full size for this area. I may do it works. It's not the most ideal situation but I got this on Amazon. It was like 150 bucks and it's very comfortable. Again around the edges we've got these cabinets. I put my clothes in there like this side is my shirts. I put a sleeping bag up here. Some extra clothes. Just some random stuff up on that side and then this side is like my shorts and pants. Nothing too exciting just a little bit of storage to hold all my clothes and then on this side of the bedroom we've got crate system here so this crate is mostly just like my jackets and rain gear. I just mostly just throw all that and shove that in there and then this crate has been turned into my dirty clothes basket. So underneath here is my bedroom toilet. It's what I call it because it's pretty much in my bedroom but it's a nature's head composting toilet and it's the only place in the van that this would fit but honestly this thing does not smell and it does not get gross and if you do everything the way it's supposed to like I have a little vent that runs up to the top here and then I plug it into the blue eddy and to turn the fan on after I use it and it sucks all the smelly air out and it works the way it's supposed to. It's great. It's better than having to go dig a hole in the woods. I promise you that because that's what I did for like the first two weeks that I was in the van three weeks in the van because the toilet hadn't come in yet and this is luxury. This is like king's throne right here. This thing gets probably 10 miles of the gallon and it squeaks and creaks going down the road but it's gotten me everywhere I needed to go. It's given me some scares but this thing just keeps on chugging along. I describe it as like it's an old tractor. All right as you can see Zepp has one of the most beautiful pristine paint jobs of any vehicle in the world. It's this really matte black rusty silver color straight from the factory. This is exactly what you want in a paint job. Out here we've got an old busted furnace that doesn't work anymore. The vent for the stove that doesn't work anymore. This is where you put the water in that I have a pump for that doesn't work anymore and then this is my LP gas. I'm not sure how big it is. I think it's 20 pounds or however much I don't really know but I filled it up twice since I've been here and it gets the job done. So here's the back. I think the previous owner put like so much gunk in here because I think it was leaking water and on both sides all the external windows have this on them so you can't really open and close them because he's just sealed them up because he was tired of water getting in there. And then down here is the trunk but I keep outdoor supplies in there. I keep all my camping gears under here my backpack and my backpacking backpack and all that just like this is the toy drawer it's the garage that's what I call it. So here's the roof rack this is where I repurposed the crates that I pulled out from in the shelves. It mainly holds firewood extra water just in case I need it. I mostly just use this water to put out fires when I have them. So yeah this stays up here. I did add this piece of plywood to the build it was a scrap piece of plywood that a friend of mine had that just gave to me so I stuck it up here with some u-bolts and this thing has been great because it was really hard to walk up here and enjoy the roof rack without this piece of plywood. So that was one of my favorite additions that I've done to the van was this because I can come up here I like stand up here and take photos if I need to get something off the roof like extra gas or the firewood it makes it easy to walk around on here and you're not walking around on the the bars. This is the solar panel I think it's 100 and 150 watts and then I've got a spare tire up here. I've also got a secondary tire that's not the right size for the van that's up here not sure why but it came with it haven't got rid of it I think it's a brand new tire so if you need one hit me up I got one for sale it's a 22 555R17 so free tire or cheap tire let me know come get it if you're in Alaska. This is the area where the generator goes that doesn't work again all the gunk around the windows it keeps it from from leaking and opening and closing which honestly I'd rather have a window that doesn't open and close than a window that leaks. This is the water heater again which doesn't work and probably the most recognizable feature of ZEP is the zeppelin plate it's got the lead zeppelin zephyr and and the lead zeppelin font and it's on both sides underneath the underneath the solar panel and I get people all the time like yeah zeppelin all the time so it's super funny and it's a cool conversation piece that a lot of people like it's a it's a beast that gets down the road and that's the external part of ZEP. So I started traveling full-time two years ago because of photography photography is my passion it's my dream to do photography full-time and make my money 100% with my camera traveling my art has just gotten significantly better and my career is has grown every day I'm still not to the point that I want to be but I'll get there you don't have to have the sprinter van you don't have to have the following on Instagram to be able to go do these things like I left Florida with $200 in my bank account and a Kia Sportage and I just sent it and I made it work. Living tiny has been not only a crazy adventure but it's been life-changing I've met so many amazing people if you want to do it just do it like that's that's all it really takes it doesn't take a lot of money it doesn't take a big thing it's just like takes determination taking that leap and just doing it so I'll be in ZEP for another three months I would say and then I'll be passing ZEP on to another lucky traveler so if you want to get on the road and travel and film and make money traveling and see if you like the van life lifestyle let me know go on zeptravels.com contact them and you might be right here in this seat next so if you want to find me on social media my uh my Instagram is at the average brad my YouTube channel is the average sportage those are my two platforms that you can follow me also I've got a website bradboothmedia.com or bradboothphotography.com if you really want to support um I don't have a Patreon I don't have like stuff I don't want donations buy a print and that's how you can support me and support others on the road is buying their art I really want everybody out there that wants to follow the dream to do it because it's totally totally totally doable