Inside Vinny: Our camper van tour

What is this? Let's go back to the garage. So you're probably wondering what's behind the curtains. What's a fuzzy thing? Hi I'm Darren and I'm Vicki. We introduced ourselves to in our last video and a little bit about our camper van Vinny Van Go. This week we're going to fill you in a little bit more about ourselves and talk a little bit more about choosing van life. So as we promised we're going to give you a tour of Vinny so you can see at least how our van is outfitted. We've been intrigued about what it would be like to travel in a van for years now. I've been watching YouTube videos and following van lifers since before the pandemic and I was inspired by their courage and I thought well maybe we could do that too. Yep it was her idea and I must admit I was a crazy sounding at first. Crazy maybe but an exciting experiment in our retirement. We want to do what we can to maintain our physical health and the health of our relationship. And we made it with the Lord's help. Not sure what God has in mind but we're excited about what the future holds in this next season. So we don't even know where we're going to go but we have a general idea of the people and the places that we want to visit. And another reason for the freedom that we have is that our children are adults. We don't have any grandkids so we're footloose and fancy free. To be clear we are no experts at this. We've camped a lot but living in a van is a whole lot different. You know we are really lucky to have YouTube to be able to vicariously live through other people's experiences before jumping into major decisions like building or buying a camper van which is of course a pretty major investment. So naturally it's important to start with the right mindset. Are you looking for luxury? Are you looking for simplicity? Because you can find both in the camper world. It all depends upon how much money you have. So we opted for simplicity. Yep. And one of the first questions we asked is travel trailer or van? We have had travel trailers and have friends with big RVs. We ultimately chose the van for several reasons. One of those reasons parking. General maneuverability. You know you can drive a van and sit through a city and find parking spots that are even parallel parking. I've parked this van in parallel parking in city streets. And also you know some national parks they don't even allow on some of their roads some of those bigger vehicles. And the flexibility of course of van life is so attractive. There's no setup virtually or takedown. There's no hitching or unhitching of trailers. There's no big slide outs to worry about. You park in your home. And there's the stealthiness factor. A van looks more like a personal or passenger vehicle that can fit in a lot easier in urban settings. And then there's the fuel efficiency and the maintenance to think about. While no RV is really great at fuel efficiency, camper vans do win in that category. That's a lot of reasons. So let's show you what we ended up with. It's a Ford Transit 2021 250 high top all-wheel drive. She did it. So let's give you a tour. So we don't know much about engines actually ourselves but it's just a standard 250. Okay put it in there please. Lift it up again. So yeah a standard 250 Ford Transit. We talked about Mercedes. We talked about Ram Promaster and Ford. But we decided that it's easier to have a Ford dealership work on stuff rather than say a Mercedes. That was just what you know online research told us about. So you know there's any number of ways you can go. We just personally chose the Ford Transit because they're easy to work on and there's dealers all over the place. Okay let's start on the driver's side of the van. The first thing you see is the big mirrors. We kind of like those Yes they help you see a lot because there's no rear view mirror in the middle of the van on the inside. So you have to rely on those side mirrors a lot. Okay so here's the gas tank. It's in a different location than what I'm used to. It's like you know behind the door. That's actually I think a security thing because you have to open the door in order to put gas in. So people can't siphon the gas out of it when you're when it's when it's shut. I think that's kind of a cool feature. What what is this or what's it called? That's the shore power. That's one of the things that we had Wayfarer install when we had the conversion done. That's how you can plug in electricity from the outside which powers the power system inside which we'll show you just in a minute. Oh that's cool. And right down from the shore power which is way up there this is an exhaust for the propane furnace that is inside which we'll show you in a second too. So these are the tires and the the wheel didn't have this cover here and I thought it looked kind of ugly. So we went ahead and got some a cover there and that I think makes it look much better. Initially the van didn't come with a trailer hitch and so I had this trailer hitch put on there. We don't see an immediate need for one but in case we wanted to pull like kayaks on a trailer or maybe a boat sometime it was just better to have it than not. Yeah I didn't really want one there because I was afraid it was going to smash my shins but it doesn't stick it out out at all so that's good. One thing also underneath the back of the van here the exhaust pipe is a little bit low. You can see that it comes really close to the curb that we're on here so it's a little bit problematic we just got to pay attention to it a little bit. We did bump into a curb once or twice but it didn't do any damage but something to be aware of. So one of the things that we added a big major thing was these windows. When we bought the van of course it was just a cargo van this was all just white doors and so these are actually vented so they can open from the inside and they of course are tinted and then over here is the sliding door window which is also a vented tinted window. So here is the step and a lot of people don't have a step on their vans and I'm very thankful to have that because it helps you step up on it and it helps them get inside and it also has another step on the inside so it just makes it real easy just like that. Well now that we're on the inside let's talk about the cab. First of all this Ford Transit is very passenger vehicle like we test drove Ram Pro Masters. Vicki you didn't like the Ram Pro Master so much the way it drove. No it felt like a bus it was kind of nerve-wracking to me. But this feels more like a passenger van or a passenger vehicle rather so we like the layout of the Ford Transit cab. So also up here in the cab you've got your windshield and you've got your windows. A lot of people talk about privacy and of course about temperature control. Windscreens are a must in a van so we actually got one set of windscreens online initially when we got the van and they didn't fit. They didn't fit very well at all and so what we did is we sent them back. We got a new batch that included the driver's side, the passenger side, and the windshield and this is the one that really made the difference because the one we got this the first one we got would hang down here and it really wasn't very secure so we went to another maker, Night Vision Development, and look at this they actually have magnets that fit up inside underneath the rearview mirror mount and that holds it up. It's a game changer. Okay next, Vic, tell us about that. Well that is a foot cushion which I really like because I got short legs and I can just sit comfortably and not get soreness behind my knees and it's black so it just kind of disappears on the floor and then I don't have what Darren has which is an armrest. You're jealous. And I kind of wish I did because it's much more comfortable but if I flip back I can sleep while he drives. Of course one of the things about a van is space. You want all the space you can get. One of the most important things and biggest decisions we made was get both of these driver and passenger seats swivels so we can actually turn it into more of a second living room. It opens up this to the whole area of the van and it just it really has been a game changer. And we don't use this as much as we thought we would but this is a good temperature control thermal curtain that is installed in lots of vans between the cab and the back for keeping the air conditioning up there keeping it separated from here makes it easier when you're driving too. So in a lot of vans there's that what they call pizza oven above the driver and the passenger's head. This van didn't come with it and a lot of them don't come with it and so we actually took advantage of that and tried to be kind of use ingenuity which is what a lot of van people have to do is be ingenious with their designs. So we took advantage of the access here and we're just using that space to store both that curtain that goes between the cab and the back. How did you attach the strap? Oh I just there's holes to see these existing holes over here those went across there was four of them so I just took advantage of two of them and I put in a couple of screws and washers in there. And so now I just have some straps on there this is where we keep our windscreens so that we can have them out of the way. Well another drop-down curtain news today here's another one this is actually a bug screen we weren't sure if we were going to get bug screens initially we're kind of glad we did now there's a number of companies that make these and the company that we went through we're really pleased with this is actually a zip down but the side is magnetized so watch this it seals up perfectly all the way every single time this was made by night vision development and this company is also by the way who we went through to get our front window shades light sources and light options are always at a premium in a van so I think a lot of people come up with their own ideas we found these remote control lights battery operated lights online just velcro we put them right there and they're we mounted them here because when we come in the door here they're right there but what they do is they turn on the lights in the back which are also velcroed up by those cabinets for ceiling lights Wayfair actually installs these puck lights on a dimmer switch on the wall here that light up the entire van and also they're on a dimmer so at night you can turn them down and make some more mood lighting so the van builder has built more than a thousand of these and they have really refined their process they use composite materials that stand up to just about everything the ceiling is a wood decorative but it is a hard composite all the fixtures are also hard composite and the walls and the insulation let me talk about that quick all the entire van has been insulated with wool insulation behind the or in front of the wool insulation now as you can see is the is the composite walls which are very very hard they stand up to just about everything we mounted all kinds of things like these so they can come off and come on we'll talk about power system in a minute but the construction and the design of what goes into the actual build of these things is quite robust we did find that we wanted a little bit more light in the kitchen so Vicky went online and she found these cool things these are motion sensor lights that come on at night when we come in and they just turn on and they turn off and they magnetize against any metal surface so we take them outside when we want to too they're pretty cool so now that we're in the kitchen I'll show you what we've done in here up here is a mirror and we added that in just to make it feel more airy in here more spacious kind of looks like a window because there is no window on that side so here is the sink it's a pump hand pump this opens up and this is my collapsible dish pan I have a non-skid thing and just like that now under the sink we have this cabinet here and this is where I store my wrought iron pan and this is a electric induction stove that works great this is just extra storage comes in real handy down here in this skinny cabinet is the silverware drawer so I have this little plastic container for all of the silverware and another one for sponges and windex and things like that there's lots of storage in behind there and I have another plastic container for more stuff back there down here is where the water tanks are the big five gallon tank is our clean water and then this one is the gray water we put in a smaller one because it's easier to clean the bigger one was took up so much space and was not necessary we found so right here is a flip down table it adds extra counter space but when we need to get it out of the way it just pops down like that and then it there's the refrigerator right below there okay so and let me show you what the inside looks like oh this this part at the top barely fits under the mirror oh that was that was kind of an accident but it was a happy accident that worked out and then so the inside has plenty of room for two people there's no freezer which is fine but plenty of room for food so this is the Dometic electric cooler plugs in to the power source right next door and just a quick word or two about the power system I'm no expert this was installed by our van builder this is a Yeti 1500 watt lithium battery system which has numerous ways to charge and to plug things in you can do the 12 volt for things that you know will plug into that we've got all kinds of outlets for charging phones and things like that and one of them is just a normal outlet so I ran a extension cord from the normal outlet that runs up into the rest of the van there and we can plug all sorts of other things into it in the kitchen area so this what I like about it is that it charges from the shore power that I showed you outside but it also charges from the alternator of the engine it charges up whenever you drive so if we go to a gas station or if we go anywhere it charges right back up to 100 that's one of the reasons why we didn't end up getting solar because we thought that we're just going to be going from place to place quickly and we're not going to need solar we can always add solar power if we want to we're also maybe going to consider adding air conditioning but those are the two things we didn't add because this power system charges up on the alternator which is a really nice feature I also mounted another surge protector on the side here so I have even more plug-in options and now next to the power system is the Propex propane furnace and the vent for that is right there the furnace is right behind this wooden boot box the thermostat for the Propex propane heater is mounted right on the wall just like at your house you simply turn it on and adjust the temperature once it's on you can turn the temperature up to your desired temperature you can turn the temperature down to your desired temperature and one neat thing about this is it's even got a timer on it where you can set it and then it'll turn on in the middle of the night now we haven't used the timer yet we're looking forward to that we have used the heater a number of times and it works just great it heats this little can up very very quickly it doesn't take up much protein to do that up here I have my two mugs which adds a lady's touch they're hanging from hooks which are magnetized they're real strong and they hang from that metal just like those which holds my fruit hammock so the top cabinets go all the way around the van in here I have my kitchen stuff it's a little messy but that's where I put all that stuff over here is my clothes I have these handy little packing packs and that way things don't fall out quite as easily and I have them labeled I have shorts and things that way I can tell what it is quickly and I don't have to spend an hour digging through there's more over there and then over there is Darren's and this is his side and he's got a junk drawer the coolest thing about sleeping in a van is that you don't have to stay at a hotel or an Airbnb you have your bed right where your home is this is our bed uh the mattress was came with the build underneath I can show you this is the main mattress and of course there's air holes down there so you don't get mildew or moisture and this is the memory foam topper that I put on which makes it very comfortable just as comfortable as my bed at home the mattress is actually longer east to west but we prefer to sleep north and south this way because we don't want to have to get up in the middle of the night you know crawl over each other to get to the body we didn't buy an expensive composting toilet there's a lot of those on the market out there we kind of went the um frugal route which a lot of van dwellers do we have nothing more than a glorified kitty litter box which works just fine for the middle of the night emergencies and that's pretty much all we use it for and before we show you what's behind the curtain completely anyway this is one more feature that was really impressive with regard to the Wayfarer build is this Lagoon brand swivel table you see them in lots of different builds and it's coming really handy we had it mounted inside for a while Wayfarer put it here when they did the build and it was in our way so we actually mounted it on the inside because it is movable that's one of the nice things about the Wayfarer builds is they're all modular everything is movable so we moved it in there to make more room here well then it it didn't work well for us on the inside so we moved it back out again where Wayfarer had it in the first place and yep they have those things figured out already we shouldn't try to second guess them one of the best features about uh the builds that uh from this manufacturer is that all of these uh cabinets the sink and everything are on these tracks and so everything is completely modular you can move it to the other side of the room you can you can completely take it out well that got me thinking if we could move things around we could actually have additional cabinetry too I wanted to get another one of these boot boxes because we wanted more storage space I couldn't get one so it was actually pretty easy for me to build my own and I'm not completely handy but I was able to just go to my local uh Home Depot store get wood that matched it and the way that these are designed with velcro underneath we kind of just duplicated it and Vicki put this all together so it fits just perfect on velcro strips and this boot box is now a whole additional area of literally room for boots or shoes or shoes or shoes that uh really takes uh takes all the the shoes off of the floor now so we've got a whole another boot box and we've also got another place to sit which has really come in handy for us we didn't have air conditioning put in we think that's going to be okay because of the kind of travel we're going to be doing but what we did do is we put in lots of different airflow options we talked about putting in the side window in the passenger door we talked about the back doors all of which are vented in addition to that we put in not one but two of these max air roof vents they can either draw or they can blow and they're on a remote control so we can kind of control these even laying in bed if we want to they're multiple adjusting their remote control and they really make a great airflow inside the vehicle even without air conditioning we have these covers for the ceiling fans to keep the cold out and keep the temperature steady and also to block the light at night or in the morning and so they just slip up like that and then they take down just like that and for a place to store them i put a piece of velcro right behind this boot box and you just slide it down and stick it to the velcro and that's where we store it and it's good to go for the next time so to be honest with you i didn't particularly like the floor when we first got this van i'll show you here it's got this texture to it and it's as you can see it's so my solution was to get a rug this particular rug i think works well to make it comfy and cozy and warm and i managed to find one on amazon that is exact size that i needed for this particular space and then down in the aisle the narrow part i got another long kind of runner that fits in there so you're probably wondering what's behind the curtain and i have back here is some plastic bins and i've got them all labeled nice and clear and that comes in really handy however i wish that i had ordered drawers plastic drawers instead of the bins because as you can see they're piled up on top of each other they're kind of tricky getting in and out of that stuff but drawers would have been easier now one of my favorite parts let's go back to the garage this has a lot going on in it uh most notably as you can see is the bikes we have two electric e-bikes that we absolutely love they're foldable they're transferable they they come you know constrict themselves down into a very small space and they work like a charm vicky and i have enjoyed these e-bikes so much over the last couple of months and we are thrilled that we have them and we're really thrilled that they fit in the back of the van because we wanted to stay relatively stealthy and we didn't want to have a bike rack on the back of the van we wanted everything to be kind of enclosed and so this fits our needs very very well and here you can see a continuation of vicky's brilliant design of these bins we have everything labeled and it has really been a space saver for us because we have tools and we have our hiking and biking stuff you can see we have camera gear in here um we've also got things like a propane tank uh in here we've got a propane tank holder this is actually a beer cooler a beer can cooler but we keep our butane uh fuel fuel cans in there so you got to be kind of resourceful but you take advantage of all the space you can and vicky did a really good job in creating all these bins to help keep everything straight both up there as well as back here let's talk about awnings for a minute uh there's a couple of different ways to look at awnings for vans a lot of times people have them built right onto the side of their vans we've seen those we kind of thought we were going to do that but then we also read a lot online about people who like the idea of having their awning not be attached to the van because if they wanted to park in the sun but they wanted their awning over by a picnic table they couldn't detach it so we thought you know what let's just start with a portable awning which we have put up at various campsites that we've gone to and we really like it it's a 13 by 13 awning that is freestanding and we can just pretty much put it up anywhere we want so in this little hole here i keep all my tools or a lot of them anyway uh in addition to my actual tool bin here that i have i've also got leveling blocks in here and this is something that came recommended to always carry with you a portable jump starter in case your battery goes dead and there's a little bit too much stuff in front of this so you can't see it but behind that is the propane tank so we have two small propane tanks that run the furnace they're behind this in another cabinet that you can't really see but they're back there trust me i'm going to show you the bed next but let's get this out of the way these are nice features that you can swing these completely out of the way in case you need to load anything up in here but so the beds are on platforms that are held up we actually ended up getting a four uh no a two and a half inch riser on our bed so there's a little bit more garage space but we uh take advantage of the bed by putting things underneath it like the uh the shades for our back windows and things like that so we kind of hide those underneath and you might be wondering this is a good way that we fill in this space when we sleep we put these great big pillows here which actually extends the bed so as we sleep north and south like this this is where our heads are and then we actually have quite a long bed that is this way because we kind of extend it with uh with two big pillows back here so it you know improvisation is something that you get really good at i think when you are a camper whether you're in a travel trailer or a van or an rv and these are just some of the ways that we've improvised it's getting late honey we need to wrap this up i know the sun is actually going down here behind us um thanks for coming along with us today we hope you uh maybe learned a few things uh got some ideas maybe for your own uh van adventures if you're thinking about those sorts of things if you did enjoy coming along on today's adventures we ask you to give us a big thumbs up and uh consider subscribing to our channel if you haven't already happy trails see you next time hi i'm darren and i'm vicky there's lots of ways you can um take uh i don't even know what i'm saying i wasn't ready and we know most van lifers are pretty good at improvisation is that the word i'm still not ready on the road that is so not right i guess i wasn't ready either what's that fuzzy thing it's the windscreen you said we needed a windscreen which i don't think we do because it's a beautiful day so as we promised we're going to give you a van beautiful we opted for can you wait can't wait till i sit down three two what did we opt for okay i don't know what i'm talking about i'm i'm tired blah blah blah we're finally done