I'm Dustin. I'm Naomi and our van is Irie.
So we met seven years ago. Yeah. We talked about traveling since we met
specifically we talked about buying a van
traveling the country. We were living in an apartment in Uptown New Orleans. It
was about 1,800 square foot apartment right on St. Charles. a beautiful part of
New Orleans on the Mardi Gras parade route so it was party central during
Mardi here. It was a really good location and we managed to fill it.
We did an extended trip through California that was the trigger, that
spark that we needed. I think it was a fall day. I was at home cooking dinner
and he was at work and I called him and I said. "look, I really need to talk to you"
and he got home and he's like, "honestly, I have to talk to you as well." When he got
home we had this talk. I told him I said, "look, I think we should do it. I think we
should buy a van and pursue our dreams", and he said, "oh my gosh, that's exactly
what I wanted to talk to you about." It was crazy the magic that we had. We're the
kind of people you know, we would talk ourselves out of things so we had to
just like go headfirst into it. We gave ourselves two months to make it happen.
We searched and searched for a van. We actually found the van I think a couple
weeks before our deadline to get on the road which is crazy because we were
selling all our stuff. We found her in Mobile, Alabama about a two and a half
hour drive from New Orleans.
So this is Irie. She's a 1985 Volkswagen Vanagon aka Westfalia, mileage unknown.
The odometer doesn't work. We estimate about two hundred thousand miles, still going
strong. Starting in the front we got our bikes on the front. We got our high
bridge, we like to do a little trail riding. We mounted them on the front by
cutting a hole in the front bumper and welding a receiver to it. We upgraded our
headlights to jeep headlights, LED Gpad lights, which are super bright. Major
upgrade. The engine, let's talk a little bit about the engine. We've got a 1.9
liter super high horsepower engine probably get about I don't know
65 horsepower so she's flying. Probably not winning too many races, but it's this
way. We need to go up top. We have a hundred watt solar panel charging two
six volt 230 amp power batteries. That's our power source that charges our
laptops, our camera batteries, everything we need to keep going. Behind that we've
got our Yakima cargo box which I don't know how we would live without it. We keep
all our backpacking gear, camping gear in it, any extra necessities, wetsuits, all go
up top, surfboard. Next to it we put the roof rack on ourselves. ARB awning
which is a game changer. Honestly having an awning on there really
expanded our living room by about 64 square feet.
So we added some shocks which helped, still takes a bit for us to get it up...
takes both of us to get it up. We just acquired some shocks which we
have not yet installed. Back of the van we've got a toolbox as you can see. We
utilize the space to keep an extra three gallons of water and an awkward
brick. It's also got an awesome filter so we can get water from any water source.
We have a solar shower. This we've built ourself as well. It holds about five
gallons of water. It's got a pressure valve at the top so you can put an air
compressor on it and pressure it up and get pressurised showers so that's really
good to have.
Welcome to the inside of Irie. This is where the magic happens. I'll
start with our closet. This is where we keep all our clothes. We use these little
clothes bags to keep everything organized and here we have our little
cubbies. So in here we have just everyday things that we use. We took
the AC unit out, it never worked anyway, and this is where we store some more
toiletries and lots and lots of baby wipes. This is a necessity for the road.
We eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Before I had like the little hammock but
we go down a lot of gnarly roads and it would bang around and bruise the fruit.
This has been great right here where I prepare our meals to be well
for of our adventures. We have a two burner stove and we have our cutting
board over the sink. This has really helped. Before I didn't have a cutting
board here and it was like I'm on the floor chopping vegetables and all of that.
We have like a really awesome GoWesty faucet so it folds up and down and rotates. I have a
spice rack that I use magnets for this has saved a lot of our pantry space in
the van and our refrigerator it's an England. Over here is where we
keep pots and pans and knives and wine of course and our bowls, any utensil that
we use for cooking and eating we store it here. We have magnet strips for all
our knives so that's been, that's very pretty great so no shuffling of our
knives in the drawer. It's dangerous. And this is our pantry. This is what we eat:
so we have oil and figs and all the good stuff cereals so we store all of
that in here. Under the seat more storage. This is where we keep shoes and our two
batteries, a bookshelf that I filled. First we kept shoes here and then we had
like books that we read every day or journals and stuff like that and then I
got this design from Bound For Nowhere. And we have up top that's our bed
so let me show you how this works. So we usually store everything under there up
here but sometimes you know when maybe we don't want to like fold everything
down, we have to leave early in the morning, we'll just say, "okay, let's not
unpack everything and just sleep up top"
so this is our bed on top and this is how...here I am up top and it's pretty
it's pretty awesome. We normally sleep at the bottom, it's
much more comfortable. Everything back there we put it up top and you pull
it out like this and we have a bed to sleep on.
We also have like a Propex heater which helps you know if it's chilly but when
it's really really cold we head south. This is where we store all the stuff
that goes up top when we have to sleep. So back here we have blankets, camera
stuff, our Kelly Kettle, and just random everyday things.
My piece of advice would be to just do it. You'll figure it out.
We planned everything. We said, "okay we're gonna eat this. We're gonna
need that. We packed the bag with a bunch of the useless crap.
Then you realize that we have to get rid of it and we have to get the things
that we actually need. It's best to just jump in, see what happens,
see if you figure out your flow, you know? It took like six months for us to find
our rhythm on the road. We're still getting better, learning.
Yeah. We're constantly changing. The first step is always the hardest. One thing we
learned after a year on the road is take your time, slow down. It's easy to get out
there and say, "I want to do this. I want to do that." There's so many places
we gotta see and if you've rushed through it you
missed so much. Slow down, take your time, stay in a place
for a few days, a few weeks. Go slow and enjoy. I hope you guys enjoyed this
week's episode. If you did be sure to LIKE comment and subscribe to the
channel and if you want to see more about Dustin and Naomi you can find us
@irietoaurora on Instagram. Peace out guys!