Hi everyone! I'm Lacy and I'm Brianne and this is our self converted van, Flipper.
We were kind of at a crossroads in our lives. I had finished grad school and we
both had full-time jobs and were like, "Okay, well the next step is to get a
bigger place and set ourselves up for a kid", and we were like, "Well, we can
either start paying $1,000 extra a month to have a bigger place or we can get an
RV and or a van and start traveling." We decided to stick with like a small our
small apartment and guest house it's like 400 square feet and instead get a
van. We're both teachers so we get holidays and summer break and winter
break and all that so we go and do it for a couple months at a time and then we do vacations.
So this is Flipper Flipper is a 2016 Ford Transit.
It's a 148 high roof. We have 200 watts of solar on top with a fantastic fan. We
have 420 amp hours of battery storage which actually is about 210 usable and
it also charges with the alternator on the van. For the water we have a 15
gallon freshwater tank and a five gallon gray water tank which we don't use very
often. It's actually a six inch PVC pipe that we makeshift it into a gray water
tank. We no longer use gray water tanks. We just kind of let it float out because
we don't put anything down the sink really
except for water. We decided to put our dining area on top of a platform because
we wanted storage underneath. We have about 13 inches of storage space under
here. So this is the water fill. It holds about 15 gallons of fresh water and
depending on how much we use it it'll last probably four or five days. We cook
a lot so that means dishes and if we really
conserve then that is about four or five days. We also installed this window so
this was a regular cargo van and we were like, "we need a window" so we actually got
this window installed. A tip on this I probably would not put another window on
the driver's side. I would put it on the passenger side because the view is that way.
Welcome to the inside of Flipper. So we'll start in the kitchen. This is
our refrigerator, it's a truck fridge. We have a little mini freezer. It's perfect
for ice cream if you just eat a little bit and then smush it, sticks on in there.
And then we have our toiletry cabinet that our friend made for us for
California and love for San Diego. We would normally put our fruit bowl up
here. Here's our upper cabinets. We have all of our dishes and our cookware
and then we have our spice rack right here. We like the backsplash touch
because it makes it a little bit more homey. We have our cook top and our sink
for running water and then just some more storage down here. We don't
have the propane tank right now but that normally goes right here and we can
stuff some stuff in there for when we go on a trip. The propane tank is five
gallons and it lasted us for, when we were in it, consistently for two months
road trip it was still like half-full when we got back so it lasts a long time. Moving on over
we like this little setup here so we can keep our coffee and popcorn for a movie
night. If we need to look at ourselves we have a nice mirror. Over here we have our
window and our dining area that nicely turns into a bed very easily.
All of these benches are storage except this point. This one has all of the
electrical inside of it. That bench we normally keep our outdoor gear. In that
bench we normally keep all the bed sheets and pillows and then this one is just
extra storage. We have a drawer here so we keep all of our clothes
in there and then you can access a little bit of the storage underneath
here. This converts into our bed and I can show you
so we unlatch there and it's actually spring-loaded, come on around and I can
just push it on down and then you latch it back up otherwise it will pop up on
you and then you take the board so that you don't fall through and then put that back there
take this like that, match it up, and we're short so we can sleep this way and
this actual, this window, gives us like two more inches which is actually a
little bit more perfect because otherwise we would be more touching.
Putting it back up is just as easy, if not easier, than setting it into the bed
unlatch it and then it's just spring-loaded so it pops on up there for
us and we can entertain and we can sit about six people really comfortably for
the dining experience. Over here is our bathroom or a seat and it's one of
the most important things I think in our van. It's very easy to use you just
detach the top and you can take it like a suitcase whenever you find a nice
truck stop and you dump it in and bring it back, clean it up, and it's actually
pretty simple. We have outlets here that we can charge
our phones or laptops. We have this alarm in case any toxic gases are
leaking. Brianne and I like to kind of have an in night and lay down and you
know watch a movie and make popcorn so what we do is we set this down here and
we put our laptop there and when the bed is made we can watch a movie and have an
in night and that's really nice as well. So we have these that we made and it's
just reflectix that we cut into the shape of the window and then we've
painted it black so it's a little bit more stealthy when cars drive by with
their lights they don't see the flashing silver and know someone's in there so we
take the, I never remember which one goes on which, but we also put magnets on
there so that it easily just pops right on and that keeps it more insulated
and then the black out curtains keep the light out but we have one for every window for
this window and for that window as well. So this is our fan. We pop this open
twist, twist, twist and we can allow air to come in or if we're cooking allow air
to go out and a really cool feature that I like is to get a cross-breeze you like
you make it go out and have a window that opens up over here and so it pulls
the air through and kind of circulates the air. This is where we put the light
switch. It's nice to have it close to the center because if it's too far away
you'll have to get up to turn it off or get up turn it on so but this is nice
because it's right by the bed and we can just flick it off or click it on or when
we're cooking same thing so it's a very convenient location. So this is the first
van we built specifically to be a rental. It's got the same wattage and same
everything as Flipper. It does have lithium ion batteries so a little bit
better there. Full twenty gallon water tank. We call it the Adventure Model
because you can fit your bikes and your climbing gear or whatever you need in
the back. It's got the platform bed. So you have this bench right here half of
it is battery storage and the other half is just regular storage. Got your
refrigerator, your propane stove.
We just got Lady. This is our new van and we're converting her. She was a passenger
van that we're now converting into our next home on wheels and this is our new
personal van and Flipper is gonna be a rental. So this is our newest venture. We
kind of just got lucky and fell into this. Our whole mission is to make van
life more accessible and this is a perfect way to help people try it out
because these rentals start from like 80 bucks a night. They're small. They're not
stealthy because they're bright orange but there's five of them. They go from
like $80 a night to $140 a night. They're really just basic builds. They have
storage, a bed that converts to a couch. It's got a refrigerator, Dometic fridge,
and a propane or butane little stove that you can use, but these are really
just for like basic camping and then we have our other vans which are more like
luxury rentals. And then the fifth one is a larger van but it's the same type of
build. The nice thing about these is if you have friends they can sit in the
back because there's like four seats. With these there's only two or three. So
this is our warehouse and this is where we do our conversions for people. We
don't build and sell vans we do conversions for other people so you
bring us your van and we'll help you turn it into a home. We do a month
turnaround and our conversions for a standard one like the vans you've seen
start at $16,000 so comparatively it's very affordable and as you can see we
try to make it as homey as possible.
Follow your dreams, start your adventure
now. We're both teachers so we're in an industry that institutionalizes people.
It teaches them how to be part of society and I think that that narrative
of go to school your entire life, get a job, work, start a family, it doesn't work
for everyone and I think that we need to popularize other means of living and
like really living. Not just working, not just surviving, but like living, and I
think van life has changed our lives and that it shows us that money and work
isn't life. We have to change our priorities because life is more
important than how much money you're making and I think that's van life. Like do
what you love and yeah you don't need a ton of stuff to do what you love and you
can have a great life pursuing your dreams and also when you give yourself
the space to not have so many things and not have a full-time job you'll end up
finding passions and creative ways to make money that you never knew were
possible before.