Van Tour and Get To Know Me

Hey, I'm like hey some people are already here. Hi, it's such a beautiful night because yesterday it was already. Can everyone please let me know if you can see me and hear me well? Wait for a bit, I don't know if it's actually streaming. Okay great, you can see me and you can hear me. I hope you all are having a good day so far. So my idea. Hi, hi everyone. My idea is that I'm gonna show you a little bit around my van and feel free to jump in with any questions. Hi, George. Hi, Cherry. Hi, Xin. Hi, Morteza. I guess that's Morrie. That's you, Morrie. Okay, so I'm gonna show you around the exterior. Hi, Mark. I'm gonna show you around the exterior. So this is Dodge. Let me turn the camera around so you don't have to see me all the time. So this is Dodge Ram 250 and it is the 1994 model if you can see. I think this is manufactured in Canada. Yeah, it says the vehicle is made in Canada which I was quite surprised because I thought it would be made in America. And by the way, this is Marco. So he's always lazy. It was like he doesn't want to go to work and he's like he's already so cute sleeping anyway. So if anyone wants to see Marco, that's Marco right there. And let me show you a little bit in the back. Oh and by the way, this is my water tank. So I can if I want to fill up the water. So it goes in here like this. So I can just hook up this and fill it up. So it's about 12 gallon water tank. Hi, Warrior. Hi, Roddy Mort. Okay, so I have the propane now. I think it's about 30 pound propane. So it's underneath. And behind here is all the stuff for fridge and the sink as well. And I do have the power cord here. If I want to hook up for AC power, this is where the power goes. But I haven't used this ever for so long. So it's kind of stuck in here and I can't open it to show you. But basically, there's a power there. And I do have the spare tire in the back and it has a smiley face. So I guess it fits me pretty well. And on the sticker there. And I do have the solar panel on top. Do you want to see the solar panel? Should I climb up to show you? Or maybe I'll just show you guys about that later if you have any questions about the solar panel. And here is the inside. I know even the tire, it has the smiley face on it. Okay, you want to see the solar panel? It is the 50 watt solar panel. So I haven't cleaned it for a while. It's a sunny day today, so I should have quite a bit of power today. So this is the 50 watts from Renogy, which I purchased probably about two years ago. And it still works very fine. Two and a half years ago. I cannot fit 100 watts on here because of the rack around the side of the van. So it's 50 watts is the best. And I find that it's good enough for me to charge on my phone and my laptop, especially on a sunny day like this. Even though I haven't cleaned it for a while, it still absorbs quite a bit of energy actually. And I'm gonna show you the inside. Oh, and I think because of this sticker, custom suspension here, a lot of people would assume that like a big guy living inside a van or something. So sometimes I got people knock on my door randomly. And so this is the inside. I do have a three burner stove here and I cook quite often. It runs on propane. I cook dinner pretty much every night. And this is the sink. Hey, I actually bought this friend from Abbotsford, Mark. Avocado that I forgot to eat. And they all go right pretty quickly. So I need to go eat those soon. And this is the fridge. So I recently bought a lot of Asian food because I was so happy to actually found a Vietnamese grocery store in Niagara Falls. So I bought a bunch of stuff. And I do have the small freezer there, but it's very small. So I can only fit a couple ice cube trays and frozen bags and frozen shrimp there, but pretty basic. And here is the utensils and stuff. And I do charge my phone here from the cigarette outlet. And this is the controller pretty much for everything. So that is the battery controller, but I don't really read this. I normally read the battery from here. So this is hooked to the solar panel outside. So that gives me more accurate percentage of the voltage and the solar panel. And I have the, so right now it charges about 40%. And I'm charging my portable power right here too. And I do have a battery down there underneath my bed. That is my house battery. It's up to the battery because I would have to check my bed and everything. So normally I don't really touch it. And this is the thermostat. So this thermostat controls the heater down here. I have the furnace down here. But it runs, this furnace runs on propane. And hi, hi, Viking Venman. This furnace runs on propane. And also it uses the electricity from the battery as well because, I'm sorry, it runs on propane and it also has the fan that runs from the battery. So it consumes quite a lot of power. So this is the food pantry. Pretty much that. And I have some storage from here where I put pretty much if I cannot fit anything, I would fit it in here. And just some medicine cabinet. I love essential oils because I have essential oils diffuser. So I like to diffuse it before going to bed. So it's quite relaxing. But that's pretty much it. And for clothing, this is basically for my clothing here. Everything is one box and I got this from Ikea. And this is basically shoe box from Ikea as well. I just put my underwear and socks and hats and everything in here. And this is like everything extra that goes in here. Everything extra that goes in here. And I have this for the DJI as well. So that's what I use to record a video. And I find it's really good. I have a drone which I haven't really used it. I attempted to use it once and I almost lost it. And my camera. So I have to put my camera up here. So when I drive, it doesn't really shake so much and damage the camera. And I also have this. Let me take off my shoes so I can show you. I find this is a tip for living in the van. You see this? This is like a humid illuminator. So because when it rains, it can be pretty humid up here. So it absorbs all the humid and it drains down here. So I replace this once in a while when it gets full. So I find it helps a lot. It absorbs a lot of moisture inside the van. So I have it like in pretty much every corner inside my van. So I thought that's very helpful. And this is my bed. Pretty simple. So from side to side, it's about six feet. Hi, Viking Vinh Minh. I did come to the island, Vancouver Island, last year. I spent a lot of time in Vancouver Island last year. So the side to side is about six feet. I'm five feet one. So if I put pillows and a mattress and everything on, I'm just literally like fit of the van. So I mean, it's lucky that the van fits me pretty well, perfectly. And I have the vent up here. Oh, if I can reuse the dehumidifier containers. I don't reuse it. Let me show you. I don't think that you can reuse it. Because do you see that it has the beads here? So the beads would dissolve after for a while. So there would be nothing in here. So I don't think that you can reuse it. If you can find a place that only sells these beads, then perhaps you can just pull the liquid out and then reuse it. But then it has the kind of like membrane paper on top here. So if you refill it, you will have to cut it. And then it just doesn't really absorb most of that well. So I don't really reuse it. I just purchased a new one. And I bought these at the dollar store for only like about a dollar and 25 cents. So it's really cheap. You can also find these at Canadian tires. It's very much the same thing. But it's like three times more expensive. So I just go to dollar stores for these and just like get a bunch of these. Okay, I think there's another question. Couldn't someone just ask me another question or something? You can just post your questions again so I can see it. It just disappeared pretty quickly. Otherwise, I'm going to carry on. And I have another vent up here. This is the vent I talked in the video about Marco. So it has several settings. It can either suck the air in or let the air out. Oh, it's not running right now. Either suck the air in. Oh, I run it for a while. There you go. So where do I wash my clothes? I know. I know. I couldn't clean it. I don't know how to clean it. Where do I wash my clothes? I just go to normal laundromat. Pretty much everywhere around different towns, different cities. I have my laundry bag here. What are some inconveniences of van living that surprised me that I don't like so much? Okay, I'm gonna go to that question later. So I have my laundry bag here. I just basically bring the whole bag and just go to the laundromat. And oh yeah, this is my portable toilet there. So I think every lady needs to have this in the van because I don't want to go outside at night. It's kind of scary. Yeah, yeah. And I have the propane tank down here, but it's probably a little bit. You can see this. So this propane tank I use to run the small propane. So I have another wave three propane down here that I show in another video. So that small propane tank is for this. So basically all my storage like extra storage go down here and Marco's food and extra water. So this is great for emergency if I can't find water, which is a little bit harder these days because all the water tap, public water tap pretty much closed down. Okay, so the challenges about van living. What do I think about challenges about van living? So lately I would say having shower, but it's not really that difficult. I was lucky to find so many shower places along the way, even though during COVID and I was really surprised and because I visited a lot of friends along the way as well. So occasionally I stop at friends places and I just showers at their place. Other than that, I go to the drug store. So this is a good tip for you. Hey, I don't have Thai heritage. I'm Vietnamese. I'm like, I'm 25% Vietnamese and 75% Chinese, but I was born in Vietnam. So I don't really speak any Chinese. So a good tip for you to shower on the road. So either you can go to the campsite, which a lot of campsites actually close the shower because of COVID. However, some drug stores are still open. So you can go to, I normally go to Husky as well. I know that Chrome likes to go to Flying J, but Flying J you have to pay like $13 or $15 in order to use the shower. It's a little bit more high-end. It's a bit nicer shower, unless if you are a commercial truck driver, then you don't have to pay. At Husky, everyone can use their shower and you can get the reward membership. Everyone can get the reward membership and you can get free shower. Like when you apply for the membership, you will get 200 points and each shower will cost you about 50 points. So you get four free shower along the road. And I just fill up gas at Husky station so I can earn a point and I can just get free shower that way along the way. And in BC, I know that a lot of campsites open for showers, but after BC, pretty much everything is closed for showers. A lot of places are closed for showers, like some private campsites do open for showers. Okay, and I want to show you more about sentimental things about me. Oh, something about my van looks like Thai monk. Yes, I have traveled in the U.S. I actually lived in the U.S. for 12 years before I moved to Canada and I got all my degrees there in the U.S. I got my bachelor and my master's degree there and worked there for like about three years or so. But yeah, it's a lot of because of the visa issue, I lost my job and then I had to go back to Vietnam and then after that I applied for my immigration to Canada and that's why I'm here. So Hi, Tony from Arkansas. Yeah, I used to live in New Mexico, Illinois, Texas, Massachusetts, Boston, Ithaca in upstate New York and then I went back to Boston and now I'm here and I lived in Vancouver for two and a half years and now I'm planning to stay in Montreal for a little while. So it's exciting to be all over the place. Saying so, I did my bachelor in chemical engineering and I did my master in biomedical engineering. So that was what I was in the U.S. for. Yeah, it is fun. I think life is pretty fun. Thank you, Maria. So okay, let me show you a little bit more about all the things that mean to me. I have a lot of mantra. I have a lot of mantra here in my vein because as I mentioned, I was working on my fears of not being good enough. So I post, I text all my mantras everywhere. So pretty much where I can lay my eyes on and that kind of helps me quite a lot here. And so and I am very big in personal development. So this is kind of like much which what I do right and I this is my tracking sheet. I do hypnosis lately and I check my sleeping time because I want to improve my sleep quality. Hi, I can't say my name, Red Coil. So I do a lot of hypnosis every day. Pretty much this is where I can imagine what my life would look like. And I have been doing that for probably four or five months now. And that's the reason why it gives me the courage to pretty much do the solo road trip myself. Because before that, to be honest, I was a little bit I wouldn't say that I was scared, but more like I was attached of life to be so comfortable and easy for me in Vancouver. So and I was scared of the fact that if I go to the East Coast, whether it would still be possible for me to live the van life because I love the van life so much and I didn't want to give it up. And so but then the road trip has been so amazing so far. And by the way, I'm working on the second part of my road trip. So it would be coming soon by the end of this week. So you should watch out for that. And I hang a lot of photos here. Basically, these are my either memories or manifestation of things that I want to create in my life. And this is my dream van. And Marco is always in the middle. He is very much in the center of my life. So yeah, and some motivational quotes. This is what I want to work on at the moment to be more disciplined, because I'm so spontaneous and it's really hard for me to to discipline myself and go through with something. And working on healthy diet. And this is something that I feel like I'm able to achieve right now. This is something I wanted two years ago. And now I'm like a full time nomad. So yes, Marco is really he was very different when he was little. He has like a black head and a white body. He looks kind of like a buffly head, kind of like floating on a white body. He was so funny when he was little. And okay, so that I feel like I already got to achieve right now. And this, this photo means a lot to me. It reminded me of an accident that I had in Vietnam. And this family, this farmer families literally rescued me almost because I was like in the mountain road and I was driving a motor motorcycle motorbike. And I fell off the motorbike two times. And I got fleeted. And it was pretty scary. And because it was so remote, there was really no hospital, there was nothing around. But luckily, I was with two other friends. So and I found that they happened to I, I saw the lights like a couple of meters ahead. And so I went there. And I happened to find their house just like in the middle of nowhere. It's really like in the mountains. There's nothing around. And this family helped me and let me and my friends stay for the night. It was like without them, I don't know what we could have done because we could have just like got stuck in the forest. Because we couldn't, I really couldn't move. So that picture kind of remind me of humanity and just was such an amazing story. It was kind of like a moped. It's not really like a big motorcycle here. Like it's too heavy for me. And obviously, I wasn't really comfortable driving it. And I didn't know how to drive it very well. That's why I fell up several times. But somehow I managed to to get back to the city and because the road was really bad in Vietnam. It's like a mountain road. And there was a lot of construction and it was raining and it was slippery and it was like and and it was just like gravel road. And I was going slightly downhill and it was at night too. So that's why. What a memory. I love traveling memories. I just have so many stories when I travel. And this is my family. This is my youngest sister that lives in Dallas. Everyone else who live in Vietnam. And let's see. What is this? This is my spiritual manifestation basically. And this is my favorite quote from Albert Einstein. Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. Because I love it. Because I love learning. Because I'm always curious about everything. And just go for a diet, health body. And this is a picture of Dalai Lama. So when I was in Kelowna. If you watched my last video, I was meeting some people in Kelowna. And Mary Lou, the lady that I stayed with, she happened to be a spiritual teacher. And I told her that I had a dream about the Dalai Lama. So she gave me this photo as a memory. Because she actually took this photo. And so it was really special because she actually stayed in an ashram in Nepal and India. And she literally went there and took the photo. And she gave this to me. So yeah. I think this is pretty special. And here are some of the things that I'm working on right now. About all the bad habits that I know. Time management. Time management and procrastination are very big. If I'm shy and talkative and outgoing. You know it's really funny because I I really don't know. Even though I took the MBTI test. And the MBTI which is it's like a personality test. I think the other name for it is Maya Briggs. You're so good at procrastinating. So it's like my extraversion and my introversion is almost half and half. So O-U-R-I-N-F-P. I think I'm E-N-F-P-N-I-N-F-P. So my extrovert and introvert is kind of like half and half. I enjoy to be by myself. I love being by myself. But if I'm around other people I don't feel like I'm drained so much. It's more like I need to juggle my time to balance. To balance my time and all the things that I want to do. But as far as I know with people that are introverted they feel drained when they hang out with other people or go to parties. I used to love parties when I lived in Boston. I used to go to parties a lot and I used to love it. But since I started living in a van I don't feel the need of going for parties anymore. And I guess that that part of my life it felt like because I was so insecure and I always needed to be around other people and I didn't want to be alone. And so I enjoy to be... To be honest some of my friends I don't really enjoy to be around but it's just because just go out. Like go drinking and clubbing which I don't feel like at this stage in my life I don't feel like those are the things I like to do anymore. But rather I like to be alone in nature in the woods. And I just like it just helps me to like since I travel solo it helps me to be so much more comfortable being by myself. And especially when I'm in nature I just feel like I'm so just so much more connected with myself and with who I am. And so I now I enjoy to be alone and sometimes I enjoy to be with other people. It has to be yeah like I said in my last video it has to be like a balance for me. Like it's not like I want to be alone for all the time or be around other people all the time. Yeah okay so continue to shoot me any questions if you like. I see what else should I share with you oh and let me turn this around. Hi Sean you are happy to be alone. I know I oh yeah since I go in nature and be alone myself I do notice my thoughts a lot more. And that is something that I like to talk about in the future because it does help you to stay in the present so much easier as well. And I think like if we learn to be alone that would be such a benefit for us to get to know ourselves and get to know our thoughts. Yeah and so that's another thing that I want to show you. This thing that I find is really helpful to like organize to put like all the random stuff in there. And all Michael stuff is out here. All his food, his clothes and some bags. And here is where I keep all my cooking stuff. I basically cook very simple just a pot and a pan and a coriander and some water for drinking there. I have only a couple bowls and cups and that's pretty much it. Okay let's see what else do you want to know. And oh yeah I have my friend actually suggested me to get some flowers and I went to get this dry lavender. It still smells good and it was probably six or seven months ago. Like it doesn't smell so strong but if I put my nose closer to it, it does smell quite good. And I do have some sage. I just started to learn how to use sage to just clean the space in my vein. So yeah I haven't got to use much of it because it's a small space. So I guess I don't really need much. And some of my jewelry here. Oh and I do practice Reiki. So that's why I got this pyramid crystal pyramid for because it has the Reiki symbol on it. Do I mostly overnight in city or in wilderness? Oh I like both. I actually prefer really remote area because it's more quiet. It's harder for me to sleep at night in the city because it's very noisy. And so yeah this is basically for energy practice. If I park in the city, even if I park in the city, I would still go to area with a lot of parks because in my opinion is people don't complain so much if you don't park in front of their house because my vein is pretty obvious. It's obvious it's the camper van. So people are not really happy if I just park right in front of them. So if I'm in the city, I just find some neighborhood parks or city parks and I just park on the street that's still close to the neighbors. But then I don't really park around downtown. I go downtown area because it's often very sketchy. So I don't really feel safe being around downtown areas in most places. So I just go like a little bit in the suburbs and yeah I just stay at the parks. And because I like to be close to nature as possible and because it's nice to walk Mako in the morning as well around parks area with a lot of trees and greens and all that stuff. And Mako's bed is down here. So that's Mako's bed. So when I drive, this is the setup for the day when I drive, his bed goes here. But at night, I would put his bed back where the laundry is because he kind of like put half of his body on me and half of his body on his bed because he prefers to sleep with me. And by the way, it's Mako again here. He's just chilling. So yeah, I think that's pretty much it that I want to show. I don't know if anything else that you are curious about that you want to know. So Gore said, given the fact many nomad snowboards can cross the border, do you see more van drivers locally? Do I see more van drivers locally? In Canada, when I was around Banff and Jasper, there were quite a few of them. I know for sure that there's a lot of them in Vancouver. But here in Ontario, I think Crom was probably the only one that I saw. I don't see that many people here. Oh, and I think Dennis messaged me the other day. Dennis from Huey Billy or something. He said he's also in Ontario as well. But I haven't got to meet him. Okay, how much mileage you put on your van so far? I'll get to that question next. And when I was in Pruce Peninsula, someone actually messaged me that they saw my van and they're also traveling in the van as well. So I guess there are a few, but not that many in Ontario because it's getting pretty cold now. So I guess everyone is heading back to Vancouver. I guess I'm probably one or a few that's going to stay in the East Coast because I want to take as much of my time to explore the East Coast. And it's just no reason for me to go back to Vancouver because I know that place so well already. Yeah, I know Crom is already back to BC. So hi, Van City Adventure. But I decided for me when I travel, I like to take it really slow and I like to immerse into the culture. And I think that East Coast has a lot of culture. So hi, Colleen. And East Coast has a lot of culture. So I like to take my time to get to know the place. I prefer the heat or cold for van life. Not too cold and not too hot. Somewhere in the middle. And my mileage, I think Mor was asking about my mileage. Right now it is, if you can see it, let me show you. It is 244,200 kilometers. Wow, that's a lot. I think I put a lot of kilometers on my van since I started traveling. Because I was like driving everywhere. Do I like heat or cold? Obviously, I'm not going to stay in the van in the East Coast when it's going to snow. First of all, it's pretty dangerous and it's not going to be warm enough. My van is actually made for the summer. I don't know if you can see. It doesn't have a layer of insulation. It's decent enough for fall, spring, summer and fall. But it's not really livable. I want to live in this van for the winter. So I'm going to find a place to stay in Montreal and we'll see from there. I would probably have to put this van in storage. But I don't know yet. I will let you know if I know anything like what the plan is going to be when I get to Montreal. So I'm still in Ontario and still enjoy my time here. In terms of the summer, the summer in BC is not really bad. The highest is normally around 30 degrees. At max 33 degrees. That was the hottest that I experienced in my last three summers in Vancouver. But in central BC like Nelson, Kelowna, it can be a little bit hotter. And I heard that in the east coast can get up to like 40 degrees Celsius as well. So I'm not really sure if that does happen. I just may stay somewhere temporarily just for a couple days on Airbnb or something like that and then go back to van life. So that's kind of my plan. I just kind of like go with the flow and I don't really know I don't really know what I'm gonna do until I'm actually there. So 33 degrees I would say about I would say yeah it's more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I've been using Celsius now so I can still feel Fahrenheit. But I'm like since the last two years because I have to switch to Celsius in Canada. So I'm talking in Celsius now. And by November 4 I'm gonna be three years in Canada. I'm gonna celebrate my third year in Canada. So that's coming very soon. Okay do you have any more questions for me? Should we wrap up this live now? Anything else that you would like to ask? Oh maybe I can. Do you like Canada better or US? I really loved the US when I was there. Hey are you in Halifax? Yeah I'm planning to go to Nova Scotia next summer. To be honest I really love Canada. I think maybe I like it here a little bit more just because I have freedom here to do what I want to do which I didn't get to have in the US. But I because I lived there so long so I got really attached to the US. And I had a lot of friends there and people that I really loved there. And so I did love the US but I feel like it's like my life is in Canada now. And so that is my answer for that question. I don't really compare between the two. It's more like between the two countries but it's more like which life that I enjoy now. And I think the life that I have now I enjoy a lot more than the life that I used to have in the US. It's because I chose to do it differently and I chose to live differently. I didn't know much before. So is your life entirely dependent on the van itself or how do you earn the dollars? So this is kind of like my mainstream for trying to earn an income in the future. So lately it has been mostly on savings because I don't. What save me like go for coffee? I just spend money on food and gas pretty much it. So I haven't have like crazy expenses or anything like that except before I before I got on the trip and I had to do some mechanical work on the van. But that's pretty much it. So it really depends on you like how much you would like to spend on your van life. If you travel a lot and you have to pay a little bit more for gas. But luckily this COVID gas is pretty cheap so it's not like crazy expensive on gas. So I guess that's the upside for traveling during COVID. Oh and oh yeah I haven't show you my bookcase yet I think. So I have a lot of stuff here on my bookcase and I have this instant camera that I haven't got to use that much and just some books and journal. And this book is given to me this book is given to me by my coach so I need to read that sometime. And journal, Reiki book and this is my medicine card which I use to ask for guidance and my tarot card. I don't know if anyone in here use tarot and medicine card so because I'm very much interested in shamanism. So I'm learning a little bit here and there and I also use tarot for guidance if I need to make any important decision or anything like that. Do I have Patreon? So this is where you are the third person that actually asked me that. I'm looking into Patreon right now and see whether it is a fit for what I want to do in the future. It sounds like a really good idea like to have a community and I actually thought about that. I just didn't know that Patreon is a site for building the community. Do you prefer Patreon or do you prefer Facebook? I'm gonna probably ask around and see what people think about it because I haven't used Patreon so I don't really know how it is like. I need to get outdoor and go winter camping. Okay excuse me one minute. Okay so you guys prefer Patreon because you don't have Facebook. I do have Facebook but I'm not really active. Hi Gerald. Okay so Patreon for monetary contributions. Is there a way to send a super chat? You can DM me on Instagram if you have an Instagram account. That's where normally people reach me because I'm pretty active on Instagram because I like to take photos and that's where I hang to post all my photos. Yeah so you can DM me there. Okay so I guess let's just wrap up this live. Thank you so much everyone that joined me on this live and asked me all the questions and I'm so happy to get to know you. This is actually very fun. This is more fun than I thought. Hi Craig. So I guess this is this probably tells you a little bit about who I am and the person I am at this moment and I think that the year 2020 is like the year of change and I don't know who I'm going to be in the future so but this is where I am now and you see like all my dreams and my manifestation and yeah I don't know who I'm going to be in the future but I'm pretty happy to be like who I am and where I am right now and I know there's gonna be a lot of there's gonna be a lot of growth and a lot of change because 2020 is all about change and like the universe has to change and so is us and it's just up to us to make the choice whether we would want to grow and change in a positive way negative way or not doing anything at all. Do I have cash app? No I don't have any cash app. Thank you so much for your support. I will let you guys know soon when I have a site that you can actually donate like a membership for a group or something like that so but just enjoy all the free content right now and I'm actually happy to help people and inspire people because other has helped me and inspire me as well and it's hi Tammy I hope you get to see Marco because you were asking about Marco and here Marco for you again like like I said like I said he doesn't like to work a lot so he just sleep most of the time yeah so I will let you know if I get anything for a money donation or anything like that but I will try to set up something when I get settled in Montreal because right now I still don't know what was going to happen yet so so I'm gonna just live this life here and again thank you so much and I hope that you do make a good choice to improve your life and live the best life because I can see that's the trend for 2020 after 2020 because we all are being forced to change right now and have a better life than the life that we had before and so I wish you all have a wonderful day and live your best life and I will catch you later in my next video okay guys thank you so much bye