In today's video we'll be touring Cass' really cool
Airstream Basecamp.
what is going on youtube i got a really special treat for you today
i've got cass her dog jasper her cat napoleon is in the rig
waiting for us to come on the tour cass is going to tell us her story today
and she's going to let us take a peek inside of her airstream
base and then she's going to answer some of the questions that you submitted
earlier so without further ado let's talk to
cass hi everybody i'm cass welcome to the video and thank you for
checking out our story i'm 32 years old can't even keep track
of my own age and i've been on the road now as a nomad
for about three years i launched from austin texas and i
didn't have an rv i bought a class b and it had some
issues a little broken so i had to sell it
and i ended up just having my toyota 4runner so we traveled the country for
about eight months between airbnbs and sleeping out of the
back of the forerunner and i was just sitting on my airbnb bed
one day waiting for the shower to clear up from everybody else in the
house and i decided it'd be nice to have my own kitchen and my own bathroom so
we ended up looking at rvs i wanted something i could tow behind the
forerunner which means you have to have something
kind of small so i started looking at the base camp i looked at it actually in
idaho found a better deal on it in new jersey
with a really highly rated rv dealer so drove out to the east coast
picked up and we've been living in this for
two years ever since so if you're curious what it looks like inside and
how to live in one of these 16 foot rvs with a dog
who's 85 pounds and a cat come on in and i'll show you around
so before we head on inside i'll tell you a few of the cool things about the
outside of the base camp and some of its specs
one of the reasons that i love it and but purchased this unit
is that it has two doors so the ventilation for having all the animals
inside is really great so it's got the side
entry door like your standard rv door and then on the back it has a rear hatch
door that's meant to put in bikes kayaks
things like that because it's a mini toy hauler
i always have the bed down so i just use the screen and the back door with the
latch to keep it open and then let the fresh
air come in so even on a really hot 75 80 degree day out here in colorado
with just the doors and the fan going it's cool enough for us to hang out
inside so it's one of the ways we can boondock and not have to worry about air
conditioning it has 160 watts of solar on the roof
and that helps us boondock and it really is enough to get by as
long as the weather is good i do have two deployable solar panels as
well so we can run completely off grid the
base camp comes with a little zamp plug right on the front
you can just get a suitcase panel plug it right in
and everything works it's really easy to use the other thing that's unique about
the base camp is it has a 26 gallon fresh water tank but then it
has a combined black and gray tank so anything from the bathroom the shower
the sink all of it goes into the same tank
it makes it so that the tank fills up a lot faster than when you have two
separate tanks but there's ways to get around that you learn to conserve water
there's little tips and tricks so we can still go about two weeks boondocking in
this rv the other cool features is it has an
outdoor shower that's how i give jasper a bath
it's just a feed through with the shower head from the bathroom but it's enough
that i can give jasper bath outside and not make a huge mess in the wet bath
so this is a 2018 airstream base camp at that time they
just sold the airstream base camp but in 2019 they came out with the x
version so i got a few of those upgrades added
on to this so it's a half base camp half x depending on what features you're
looking at so i got the solar guards put on the
front windows that helps when you're driving down these rocky roads if a rock
flies up you're not going to crack your windows
there are usually stainless guards on the front but i didn't want the extra
weight up there they were about 30 to 40 pounds
and that's extra tongue weight that the 4runner doesn't need to try to carry so
the other exhibition that i got added on was the three inch lift
and the larger wrangler tires the tires that came on the regular base camp
honestly were completely fine they were really good solid
street tires they're not your normal tiny rv tires so
even boondocking with the regular tires you'll be completely fine
the three inch lift is just a nice piece of mind so that when i'm driving down a
road by myself if there's a rock or something i know i can clear it without
having somebody to look at that for me and that's about it on the features
outside so come on inside we'll show you around
and uh you'll get to meet napoleon this is napoleon he is my 14 year old
adventure cat i've had him since he was a kitten and he's
hiked camped and traveled with us for the last three years
jasper is a four-year-old german shepherd husky mix
he's a rescue and i also got him as a puppy
he spent three of his four years on the road this is also
his moose if he has his mousse he's happy so let me give you a tour
of the inside we'll start over here on the kitchen area
the kitchen is a panoramic kitchen that takes up the whole front of the rv
you have your sink you have your two gas burner stove
and you have panoramic front windows which is actually one of the reasons
that i bought this rv you can't find a kitchen this size in
another 16 foot or smaller rv so it's really one of the big selling
features the other thing is when you're sitting on the bed or
at the tables and you're looking out the front those panoramic windows
it's just incredible the views that you can see there's also a little
fridge there's enough storage i actually store my clothes in the kitchen
as well as my kitchen items on the other side as well
so there's a ton of storage and that's actually where most of my belongings are
next to that is the wet bath i know wet baths are
a little bit weird to a lot of people where the toilet is
in the shower but you actually get used to it really quickly
the other thing to keep in mind with wet baths is to make sure that you actually
fit in them so when i was shopping around for an rv
i was looking for something that i could actually wash my hair in
and really take a true shower in this one you have enough elbow room
it's tall enough i actually tested it out when i was checking out the base
camp the salesman was awkwardly sitting on
the benches while i was in there trying to pretend take a shower
and it was an awkward five minutes but i made sure that the bathroom
actually worked for me and you get comfortable with it and after a while
you don't even notice it's a wet bath anymore
in the back we have two benches which actually fold down into the bed as well
the bed when it is folded down is about a king size bed those are really
only the dimensions of the front and the full length because of the way
the air stream curves back it is a little bit shorter
than a king size so even as five foot seven female
i sleep at an angle and then that leaves enough room for jasper on one side
napoleon on the other then during the day i can take the
memory foam that i have on the bed just fold it right back
the table pops up and i can sit there and i can work
you can also eat there play games do however
you would like on that table the other place that i work is actually right up
on the front counter i have a standing desk that i just put
up there put the mouse right on the kitchen counter and that's where i work
and it's really comfortable standing desk you have those panoramic views and
it's really a beautiful thing before i filmed cass's rig tour i asked
her if she'd be willing to answer some subscriber questions she graciously
agreed and i asked you for questions and you
gave some great ones so that's what we're going to do we're going to do a
quick q a with cass the first question is why did you choose
the airstream over other types of rvs like a van
i actually owned a class b rv for about a month
it was a 2001 chinook concourse absolutely beautiful condition
it was a great rv i loved it but there was maintenance issues that even though
i got inspected were hidden and came out
during that month i also learned during that month of
owning it we didn't live in it at the time
i just drove it around was trying to move everything into it
that the cabinet shaking really scared jasper
so i have some funny pictures of jasper with huge eyes
completely freaked out driving it and i just knew that i couldn't put him
through that so that's one of the reasons i ended up
going into a travel trailer is both napoleon jasper know the is what
moves that's uncomfortable they don't
necessarily enjoy it but when they come into the base camp it's home
they feel comfortable and they feel safe the reason i ended up with the base camp
itself is because i was looking at rvs that
were under 5000 pounds but then i also had a really long wish
list of things that i wanted one of them was a really large kitchen a
really large bed and a shower i could actually stand up
in the other thing was a place for the litter box because you have to have
a litter box and there's a lot of small trailers
that literally don't have the room to put a litter box in so in the end when i
saw the base camp i had a measuring tape and it was the
only one that could actually fit everything i wanted
so we ended up with it how good of a tow vehicle
is the toyota 4runner so the 4runner does a decent job at towing the base
camp uh it does well enough that i haven't
actually wanted to upgrade it or really change it out i've gone up these
passes here in colorado wolf creek pass it doesn't overheat i can downshift
going down it tows the base camp very well with
that said it also is still an suv with a v6 engine
so when we're going up wolf creek pass you're doing 35 miles an hour in the
slow lane hanging out with 18 wheelers while everybody's blowing past you
i also don't like putting the engine really in the high rpms
so i usually say about two and a half three rpms when we're going up the
passes so are you going to be flying around the
colorado passes towing the base camp with the 4runner
probably not but it does a really good job towing it
especially once we go boondocking and then there's dirt roads you got to climb
over rocks different things like that the 4runner does really well there's
only been twice that i've had to put it in four-wheel drive
and that was to get up a steep really rocky hill so the rocks are sliding
underneath the tires and i just put in four-wheel drive for
safety i don't know if i actually really needed it but i wanted to do it just in
case how do you pay for your travel lifestyle
i'm a process consultant i work for a large insurance carrier
and basically what i do is try to make other people's jobs
easier and more efficient so i look at internal processes
try to figure out if there's a way to use computers or automation
to try to make somebody's life easier or even just look at older processes that
have been around for a while that might be inefficient
and see if there's a way to make them better isn't the aluminum siding
hot in the summer and cold in the winter yes the interior panels on the base camp
are aluminum so you can feel the heat you can feel
the cold if it's a really cold day and lean up
against the base camp you will let out a little sound
the other thing is the way that you see the bed
against the aluminum walls dog claws scratch it very easily so this lovely
tape on one side and then it's a padding on the other side
helps protect that aluminum so that is one
slight downfall to having the aluminum on the inside how do you keep your rv
clean with two pets the dirt from the pets you kind of get
used to it i have a little broom that i clean the
floor and wipe it down about once a day i have a little vacuum for the rug in
here and i vacuum about once a day as well
there's the litter that you also have to deal with and when
he goes to the bathroom he usually comes flying out of the litter box and the
litter goes everywhere so i usually end up sweeping
up right after him so it's a constant battle you're
constantly cleaning it up but the thing is
i can deep clean the whole entire base camp in
under three minutes so it doesn't really take that long to keep up with them
what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of a small
rv so the advantages of living in a shorter airstream
are it's very easy to turn this thing around so
i've done this a few times you can do a u-turn on a regular two-lane highway
so it's when you have four lanes together you can also
turn around when you're looking to go boondocking and you're in
a really tight spot so for example i was up in the grand tetons
started going up shadow mountain and it was too busy couldn't get around
so i was able to back into this tiny little area right off the road
turn around and come back out that would be almost impossible in a 30-foot
airstream the disadvantages are that you have less
room on the inside my bed is also my dining area it's also
my living area and you have to put the bed up
and down most of the time i just leave the bed down and you end up doing
everything in bed what is your favorite place
you visited so far so i have a few favorite places
um last year we went to banff and jasper up in canada and it is absolutely
beautiful up there there's so much to see and do the other
place i really love is i'm probably going to pronounce it
wrong but ooray colorado it's out near telluride they are the
most beautiful and spectacular mountains that you can see
in colorado i think and it's just a gorgeous area if you go there
in the fall you can see the aspens when they all turn golden
and it is absolutely spectacular what is your favorite meal
to prepare in your rv so my favorite meal is kind of a base it would
be fried rice um and then you can put all your
vegetables and seasoning right in that fried rice
and make a big batch of it you put in your fridge and then throughout the week
you just cook up different proteins between
eggs and chicken and steak mix it in with that fried rice
and you can take that one meal and make it last a really long time and also not
get bored of it if you could change one thing about your
rig what would that be so if i could change
one thing about my rig and if i could dream big what i would
really love to do is put a recirculating shower in since i
only have a black and gray tank combined
taking showers really fills that up very quickly so if i could put in a
system where the water from the shower just recirculates and filters
with an endless hot water heater then you could take real long
showers out boondocking and it would really be great
what have you learned about yourself living
as a nomad so traveling and being a nomad actually teaches you a lot
and it really can change you in good ways
i think the biggest thing is you learn to rely on yourself
and you become even more independent so even if you are an independent person to
start you run into situations where you have
to diagnose or react without anybody else
there and you really need to learn to rely on
yourself so you learn what your limits are
you learn what you can handle you learn what you like and what you don't like
and you really kind of understand yourself a little bit better
do you have any advice for solo female travelers so if you're a solo female and
you want to get into the traveling lifestyle
don't hesitate um go ahead and do it it safety is something that you need to
be aware of and you need to keep on the back of your mind
so trust your gut if you're in a situation or if you're in a location it
just doesn't feel right leave um keep an eye out you know don't
go blindly into something always make sure you're watching out for
yourself but honestly in three years of travel
i've never had anything that was really scary and that made me really
nervous when i go in here at night everything's locked up i have jasper i
have a can of bear spray i feel completely safe i can boondock by
myself i can sit in a walmart parking lot
and feel completely fine there's also really good communities out there so
depending on what you're interested in whether it's rving and you want to join
something like escapers which is where i met most of my community or if you want
to find hobby groups or if there's groups for
your specific rv type find a group get a community and
it's really great to have them to rely on
even if you don't travel with them all the time
if you're out there you're feeling lonely you're not quite sure if you want
to continue you'll have people who understand what
you're going through and they can really help you along
so give it a try and then always have a backup plan if you don't like it
you can always change thank you cass for letting us tour your really cool
airstream here and introducing us to jasper
and napoleon it's been awesome if you enjoyed this video
please give it a thumbs up and even if you didn't like me
and you didn't like cass but you like jasper you can still give it a thumbs up
so thanks for watching
life