I'm Jeff and this is my van Lucy.
I grew up playing hockey, like a regular family, lived in a
neighborhood and you know they encourage you to grow up, okay time to go to
university. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, ended up going to school
and I got interested in investment banking. I was wearing light-colored polo
shirts and suits every day and kind of spiraled a little bit out of control. I was
doing more investing online on my own than going to school. I didn't have any
passions or anything like that. It was I was literally just trying to make as
much money as I could and I got fat and I got really depressed. I don't know, you
just look in the mirror one day and you're sort of like, "holy shit, what am I
doing?" That was not how I wanted to spend my rest of my twenties in a suit being somebody's
bitch so I bailed. I sold everything, put it in one bank account, deleted Facebook and
email and just dropped off the grid. Moved to Costa Rica. I applied for a visa
in Australia and moved to Australia by myself. Was gonna go for three months and
make some more money and keep traveling and ended up staying for five years. I
lived in a van for a few months. When I lived in Australia, you're moving around
so much anyways, why don't you stop paying rent in one spot and then pay for a
car to drive around? So when I moved back here and I wanted to start a business I
wanted to be able to work remotely and have a cheap way to travel around and surf.
This is Lucy. She's a 2014 40-250 ex U-Haul van.
She's got 65,000 kilometers on her. So I got 2 100 watt solar panels up top.
They feed 185 amp hours of battery and an inverter so I have 120 volt
electricity in the back that also powers a water pump, charges laptops, phone
cameras, the whole deal. Seems to be more than enough electricity. Got the
companies Signia on it obviously. Got to represent. Roof racks, I got them for free.
Old ladder racks off like a tradie van. I grinded off all the attachments for the
ladders and unhooked them which left a whole bunch of holes in the top of the
roof rack so when you're driving down the highway it was like high-pitched
screaming van so I had to caulk all of the holes and then just spray painted
them all black to you know to make it not look like shit. Also back windows, took
inspiration from a sailboat which is kind of the end game one day so I put
portholes in the back windows.
So welcome to the inside of my home. Another wicked
van life hack is a changing towel. This thing is a lifesaver. I don't know what
I'd do without this. My sister bought it for me so it's literally just a giant
towel with the hood on it. Yeah, you don't have to flash any kids when you're
getting in and out of your wetsuit. Camelbak also an essential for hiking in
the country, got a little garbage can here, dry food storage.
Come on in.
Installed a light switch on the wall which also powers these. We even have a
little bit of mood lighting for guests. All my food storage and clothes and
everything is up here so cooking utensils, more food, storage. That's all my
clothes up there. Cooler, this is an electric cooler so it runs off of the
batteries as well. Works super good if it's sunny out it'll run it all day. If
it's not you got to buy ice because they won't charge up enough to power the
cooler for 24 hours. This partition was pretty tough to build. I wanted to block
off the back of the van completely from from the front because I knew I was
gonna be spending a lot of time in cities. I wanted it to be as stealthy as
possible and then right here is all of our batteries. I got one battery behind
the seat and one battery back here. Solar controller and inverter are all there. I
hooked up both batteries to the alternator and then put a switch in the
dashboard so when I'm driving I can switch it on.
I originally had a double bed in here. The more I travel the more I realized
that I didn't need a double bed and it was way better to have floor space and
easier to move around so ditched it. There's a piece that went down here and
then flipped up and actually made a couch and now we have a single bed. Under
the bed is just all storage so both my surfboards go underneath there. I left
this end open which was awesome at the start you're kind of like, "I might not
need it all", it'll just be for surfboards, but literally the more
you travel the more you realize every single inch of space and this is useful
so left this open and that's where I keep all fresh water. I also put shoes
underneath there, just anything that I don't want to clutter up more space or
get stuff dirty: fins, mask, wetsuits keep them under the bed so they don't
stink up the van. This is just a straight regular roof vent. I didn't get the one
with the fan which was a mistake. Definitely go with the fan. The best
setups I've seen, which if I did it all over again I would do, is have two roof
vents. One in the back and one in the front with alternating fans. It basically
acts like air conditioning. It keeps the air flowing in here.
It's summertime so we don't have it in but this is actually where my snowboard
hangs. It doesn't fit underneath with two surfboards, just two straps around the
bottom of the surf or a snowboard from there just hangs right over top of you
as long as you don't wake up quick it's perfect. This is the infamous salad bowl
sink. This thing is a lifesaver. I don't have to wash dishes outside anymore.
Inside there I have a dirty water storage tank, underneath here is all
storage for camping stuff: chairs, any big stuff, camera gear, everything under there.
Up here's my bluetooth speaker, water tank for the pump, wrapped insulation
around it, that's a good hack. If your water tanks gonna be anywhere near the
outside of your van wrap it with insulation because it'll freeze in the
winter or it'll become super hot and terrible-tasting in the summer.
In the back doors I have surfboard storage, snowboard storage.
Underneath the bed I also have a, my mom bought me an oven mitt, I'm still not
sure how I'm gonna use that, but I feel bad and I haven't thrown it out. Grill on drawer
tracks for barbecuing, propane underneath there. This was a post-trip install as
well. I originally was gonna cook up here... well that's one of those things you
don't really think through because then you're trying to cut stuff overtop of
where you're grilling. This is the water pump. This just runs off the DC battery
acts as a shower, also cleans dishes. Inside in the sink the water tank holds
about 35 liters total. I don't want to say what the name is because I
actually wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
It took me a while to actually get it to, I had to hang that up there so it didn't
leak. First time I did it it drained out all underneath the floorboards, a
disaster, but lesson learned. We got there in the end.
Sewed the curtains myself. This is a major hack that I haven't seen
on a lot of other vans is I installed a roll down screen so when you're
cooking out the back of the van or just hanging out and playing music
the bugs always get attracted to your lights and then it's a battle to go to
sleep if you're getting eaten alive so I installed a roll down and roll up
screen. Just glued it to a piece of trim, literally super glued to it and then yeah
those are shoelaces that's pretty much it. She's just small and beautiful.
Lifestyle Over Luxury is the company. We make eco-conscious clothing in Canada
and clean up a bag of trash off BC beaches every purchase. I
worked in retail a little bit in Australia. Everything that came with
sustainable attached to it was three times the price of anything else. I just
thought that the only way if you're gonna make a difference across the
entire industry is to make it affordable for the average person. Went in with
rose-colored glasses on and thought it was gonna be this like dreamy you know
live in a van and surf and sell clothes online but it's definitely not that. It's
definitely not that easy, but it's been, it's been awesome. I mean I get asked
this, a lot people hit me up, "I'm thinking about making a change in my life, you
know, how did you go about this? How did you go about that?". I think the biggest
thing that I'd say from the outset is always like, "what's your motivation? why
why are you doing this?" If you're just running from a problem, if it's an escape
then maybe that's not the right answer. If it's a desire then definitely pursue
it. Try it out first. Rent a van. Do it for a few weeks.
Make sure you can hack it. All these beautiful Instagram posts out the back
doors and girls and bikinis and yeah there's some of that, but there's also
like you know crapping in the woods and not having running water
freezing your ass off when it's you know minus two out. There's a lot of things
that you know don't get posted on social media that are like struggles. It's well
worth the freedom for sure. Life's pretty precious and it can be
taken away at any time and I wouldn't be able to live wherever the last ten years
I dedicated to doing something that I didn't really like so I could get
somewhere. I like to think that if I died tomorrow I'd be happy with how I live my
life today.