Hey, what's up guys? My name is Michael and this is my van.
We got into van dwelling right when I finished college or towards the tail there I started to
travel a lot more and I just kind of got this craving for it I guess. I went on
one kind of big road trip over spring break. So I went on that trip and then I
graduated from school. I went to Europe for a couple months and then when I came
back was kind of when I found the van dwelling stuff. I kind of saw it on
Facebook, Instagram, kind of all over the social media and I that's when I
kind of got interested in it. I talked to a couple buddies who lived in vans that
I worked with and then when I got back from Central America was when I bought
my van and kind of fitted it out to move back out here. So welcome to my 2006
Dodge Sprinter camper van conversion. So first off over here we have the kitchen.
I got running water up in here. I've got 12 volt pump underneath that pulls it from
a five gallon tank and then it drains down to another five gallon tank and then this
is just a standard kitchen cabinet. Long-term I think I'm going to change it
up, but for right now it works perfectly. In here, down below, I pretty much have
all my cooking stuff so I have a Coleman two burner stove that you see that most
people have and then I got some like spices and my laundry supplies and stuff
I also keep under there. Kind of related to the kitchen area over here I have
my outlet that powers everything. Charge my MacBook off of it, my phone, my
Bluetooth speaker, my camera batteries, and stuf. Right now no need for an
inverter, but down the road when I get a fridge and stuff, I'll have to put one in.
I currently have three jobs right now.
I work at a ski shop. I also work at a restaurant in town. I also do
freelance photography just for different events, musicians, stuff like that. The
power and how I power like my fan up here and everything else, I have two 100 amp
batteries. One of them I actually got for free at the same time because one of
the terminals was broken off, but I still got it to work so that was kind of cool. I
have a relay isolator and then I also have two 100 watt solar panels up on top.
As far as why I chose to get the isolator, wintertime I don't have a
ladder on the back of my van. When snow and stuff piles up on the solar panels I
can't really clean them off. These lights they're twice the length of most of
them that you probably see so they're 24-volt so I have to get a
step-up converter for that so that's in there as well. And to continue with the
electronics I guess, up here I got my carbon monoxide detector, which everyone
should have, and then over here I have my smoke alarm and charge controller up
here. I put this over here separate from carbon monoxide just because if there was
to be a fire in here, even though all this is really low voltage and it probably won't
happen, if it did, it would occur over here so that way it goes off right away.
Down here I have my whiteboard, my handy-dandy whiteboard, that I kind of
map out stuff that I need to get done, my work schedule, and my grocery list. I
actually didn't think it was going to be that handy but it's one of the handiest
things that I actually put in the van. I really wanted something that would last
a long, long time. I have a couple family friends and stuff
that have businesses and that use Sprinters and they have upwards of
like 500-600 thousand miles so I mean it's a van that, if I want to, will last
me pretty much until I want it to. Alright, moving to the I guess the back
of the van. Here's where I keep my fly fishing pole. I love to fly-fish and
stuff so I keep this up here and then all my net and stuff is underneath
the bed here. My clothes and stuff are all underneath there along with some of
my backpacking and outdoor stuff like I said. It pulls out close to a
full-size bed. Just pull out and then this just flips down, push it down, and
there's my bed for the night. Continuing to the other half of the van. This is
where I keep my skis, the loves of my life. Obviously, as you can tell, I'm a
skier. That's why I live out here in Breckenridge so I can ski as much as
possible. Got Reflectix for the back windows. Down here is where I keep most
of my um I guess electronical stuff so this is kind of where I keep all that
like my computer related stuff I have a keyboard and just a lot of like photo
related stuff in there. A lot of it's not in there right now because I'm
actually getting ready to go on tour. When it's not all packed up it's down in
there. Moving forward right here I'm not gonna open it up because you don't want
to see it but that's where I keep all my dirty laundry. That's just a wheel well. I
just kind of built a box around it and I didn't really know what I was going to put in
there, but the dirty laundry worked out well. Moving up again
this is my handy dandy bag. This is what I'm taking on tour. Well, I have
another bag but this all my work stuff related. My camera, laptop,
everything goes in here. Alright. So here we are back up front. The only really
modifications I made was a backup camera, which was much needed with such a
large rig and I can't really see out the back most the time so I needed that and
then besides that up here I store my hats, my boots, and I put all like my
sweatshirts and winter clothing in my boot bag as well so that's where I keep
all that. It's not in here right now, but eventually I want to be completely self
contained and I'm gonna put in like a shower and composting toilet and stuff
in here. I would warn people against having this idea that you're always
going to be on all these crazy adventures. People think it's like
this ever constant adventure and you're always doing something crazy
every day. I mean you definitely do more than probably the average person who's
like living in an apartment or house, but there's a lot of times that you're just
kind of on the road and sleeping at a Walmart parking lot or a Lowe's or
something and not really doing that much. There's a lot of those days. People
aren't comfortable enough with failure. They have this idea of like this perfect
van. There's going to be things wrong with it. It's not going to come out
exactly how you want it to so you kind of got to accept that going into it.
Favorite thing about van dwelling is just having everything with me at all
time. Whenever I even just go over to a friend's house I don't forget anything
because I live right outside so I just go outside and grab it, whatever I need
to get. I can kind of go park wherever. I can go to a campsite after work or
something and I could get an early start of the next day. I can kind of go
wherever, whenever, which is why I got into it.