This video is sponsored by RXBAR. For 25% off your first purchase go to
Hey, my name is Alex Jackson and
this is my little tiny home on wheels, Norton. That's short for El Norteño the
northerner in Spanish. I am Canadian and I'm down here in Baja. This is my little
dog Willow and we like to travel together. I'm minus my wife right now who's off
in Australia racing her bike. I have been building vehicles since I was I
think 17 or so. They've always been Toyota. Started with a 87 Toyota 4Runner
then it was an 88 pickup and then it was a 96 Tacoma and then it was a 2013
Tacoma. First it was a rooftop tent and
then I bought like a little bowler which to Americans is called a scamp.
The two main things that I wanted for a vehicle to live in was diesel and 4x4. I
drove with my truck on the trailer, dropped it off in Calgary, and then drove
another like eight hours, picked up the van, and drove it 12 hours back all in two
days and then I had the van I'm like. "okay, I'm gonna build this in a month and
a half before I leave for my like going south trip", and got to work.
A month and a half turned into this. It was like eight hours a day seven days a week.
This is my 98 Toyota Hiace. It is a four-wheel-drive diesel, imported
from Japan. This is my best answer to the 4x4 diesel question mark for vanlifing.
I've got a little 2.8 liter naturally aspirated diesel that gets me
roughly about 24 miles per gallon, but I don't ever go over 60 miles an hour
so roughly a hundred kilometers. I've learned through the years that having
exterior lighting is really really paramount and super important so I
mounted just a twenty inch light bar down here. I also put side mounted lights
up here and on the back so I can flick those on when I'm looking off to the
sides and when I'm backing up in pitch dark. Because the van is quite
small and I didn't want to have a ton of stuff on the inside I have this roof
rack on top that I store a lot of my tools, recovery gear, solar shower, solar
panel. You'll notice that because this is imported from Japan it is a right-hand
drive so I sit right here on top of the motor. This is the motor right down here
so far I've been loving this little van. It's gone everywhere I want it to. Points
for reliability. One thing I did right away on the van is I put BF Goodrich
all-terrain KO2's. I have this ARB awning from a previous build of mine.
Up until now I didn't realize how much of a lifesaver it is being able to like
have shade wherever I go is really really important. It's like I don't get
heatstroke every day from standing out in the Sun, yeah! One good thing if you don't
have a van big enough to have a shower inside build yourself a cheap
solar shower and it's absolutely fantastic especially when you're dirt
bagging the desert for like weeks on end and you're like covered in sand and grit
and your hair just like *makes noise* and I can just take an extension cord and go *bloop* right
there and then my batteries are kept at 100% as long as it's plugged into the wall.
Welcome to the interior of my van.
I wanted to be able to cook outside and inside so I did the pull up kitchen
thing. I got some 400-pound sliders and they lock and I have my kitchen here. I
bought a Primus stove. I got this stove because it's really really slim. It's
actually a two burner backpacking stove. Here under a bunch of food I have my
five pound propane canister just hooked right into my stove. I can turn it off so it
doesn't leak or anything. I got my pantry with all my food under here. I made a
hatch so that when I'm on the inside of the van I can just open it up and
there's my stove and I can cook inside if it's pouring rain outside and I don't
want to get out. I also made a little hatch here so that I can get at my food.
I have a fifty court ARB refrigerator in there that runs on 12 volt. I have two
AGM deep-cycle batteries under here underneath my refrigerator hooked up
into CTEK smart charger which basically takes power from my starting
battery and power from my solar and just combines it and makes sure that my
batteries are always kept properly charged at 100%. I did all the wiring myself
it was actually really easy. You just basically have to make sure that
everything is fused properly. I have a thousand watt pure sine inverter in here
for 120 volt power and then I also have like that's my like fuse block. It's a
Blue Sea fuse block and it just makes everything really really clean. I have a
really basic water system which is just a jerrycan, but I had pretty much all the
cabinetry finished and then I was like, "oh shoot, where do I put the water?" so I
modified this cabinet to store my water so there's just a big jerrycan in here
that I can like pull out like this and then I put it right beside my kitchen
and fill up my pots and stuff like that. I built this little shelf up here
just to kind of hold odds and ends. I wanted to maximize the storage so I
built like all these cubbies pretty much anywhere I could. I have kind of like
pots, cups and stuff, extra comforter down here. His-and-hers cubby. This is the
bedding cubby and then we have this little cubby down here that we put
important documents or we can hide our laptops and it's kind of hard to see. I
have a little control panel here of like USB ports and then if I turn it on I can
check the voltage of my battery. Next is the coffee corner as we like to
call it so I have this little fold down desk, but then we keep all
of our coffee in here. I also have these little Christmas light things up here
that when you turn them on you get like this really nice warm light that is
great for just like you know reading lights or setting the mood. We have a
pull-out desk right here, right in the wall, and this is great if you're
having coffee in the morning. My wife uses this a lot she loves this little
like a little nook. Next thing is the bed. Of course I need to sleep in the van so
I made it so that it folds out. So all I need to do is
move this. Also before I do this our clothing is accessible underneath our bed so I
have two drawers that you can access from the back but you can also get to
clothes underneath the bed. All I do now is boom. I have these here, these here
and then throw the pillows back there
and there you go. Got like a I think the bed is 6.5 f feet long by like
3.75 feet wide so it's actually like it's a bigger bed than we need. We
kind of determined that we could probably do 6 foot by 3 foot and be like
perfectly comfortable. All I need to do is just go like this.
There you go. You got a bench.
I am a heavy machinery operator on my father-in-law's
farm in Alberta so we have a large-scale grain farm with a bison component as
well. Basically for five months, six months of the year I bust my ass in the
sense that I sit in a cab for like you know maybe average 15 hours a day
but it can get up to 24 hours a day. Crops got to go in when its got to go in. When
it's got to come off it's got to come off and so I just worked really really
long hours in a tractor for six months, five to six months of the year. I really like
photographing I guess environments but more so like how a vehicle component
interacts with environments. I love taking pictures of my vehicles like out
in the middle of nowhere and I think I would like to display through my
photography that there's a great big world out there that you can go and
explore really really easily if you just kind of spend a bit of money, get into a
vehicle, and just hit the road. I think that people need to get
out into the great big outdoors and experience it for themselves instead of
watching it on the screen.
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. If you did
be sure to LIKE, comment and subscribe. If you want to follow my adventures on
Instagram you can find me @roaming_northamerica or @AJCMedia.
Peace! Have a great week.
RXBARs sent me a bunch of bars to
taste-test and they're giving you 25% off your first purchase if you use the
link in the description down below or if you go to RXBAR.com/dylan
and use code Dylan at checkout you will get 25% off your first purchase.
RXBAR has 11 different flavors. I've got 6 of them right here to taste.
First up Coconut Chocolate. RXBARs. They're gluten free.
They're soy free. They're dairy free. They don't have any added sugar, I really like
that. They don't have preservatives nor do they have artificial colors or
artificial flavors so they're pretty much like everything that you would want
in a bar. Here we go. Three egg whites, six almonds, four cashews and two dates. And no BS.
Chewy, coco-nutty and a little sweet. I like that one. Did I mention that they
don't have fillers either? So that's another thing. Peanut Butter. Tastes like
peanut butter. Peanut Butter Chocolate. Ooh this is gooey gluey. Egg whites for
proteins. This is the accessible protein for your body to digest. Dates to
bind them and nuts for texture. Next up we got Blueberry. All that's in here is real
food and it tastes pretty great. Okay. This is now the winner out of those four
Blueberry's the best in my opinion which is correct.
They're great for all sorts of occasions. You could you know toss it in your bag
whenever you're going on your next plane flight, if you're going to gym, if you're going
for a walk or if you're gonna go eat at the office.
There's Chocolate Sea Salt. I like the salt, I'll take a second bite. Last up is Mixed Berry. Mixed
Berry mmm... fruity and delicious. It's a tight race
between Blueberry and Mixed Berry. Blueberry's my favorite. If I were to
recommended a flavor I'd recommend Blueberry. Go to RXBAR.com/Dylan
or use the link in the description down below. Use code
Dylan D-Y-L-A-N at your checkout to get 25% off your first purchase. I'm gonna go
ahead and eat the rest of these and I hope you have a great day! Thanks for watching.