Hey guys, Jenna here.
Welcome back to my channel about alternative lifestyles and creative homes.
Today's video features a professional photographer and outdoor enthusiast who
decided to make a big lifestyle change.
He converted an absolutely awesome sprinter van into the ultimate off-grid home
so that he could live and work anywhere while pursuing his passions and
interests.
I think it's so important that your home fits your particular lifestyle and this
video is the perfect example of just that. And Hey,
if you guys like what I'm doing here,
sign up on Patreon and you'll receive a free gift.
Hey guys, my name is Lear. We're here in beautiful Sedona, Arizona,
and I'm super excited to show you guys my van yacht.
Prior to the van I was living in Phoenix, Arizona. I was doing what I do now,
which is freelance photography,
but I wasn't necessarily satisfied with the type of work that I was shooting.
It didn't feel truly authentic to me.
So the van has really allowed me to kind of spend more time outdoors,
shoot more of the stuff that really fulfills me and work with brands that kind
of align with that better.
I've had the van now for exactly two years and I've been living in it full time.
About 18 months.
I got the brand new 170 4x4 sprinter,
which I actually got a really great deal on and paid $53,000 for.
When you talk about upgrades to the actual van itself,
suspension wheels and tires, the roof rack lights,
things like that is probably going to be like another five to 7,000 and then the
interior build out itself.
I think I have roughly about eight or nine
big motivation behind going with a sprinter or a van in general and building it
out myself. It was really for my bike storage, my toys,
I've raced bikes since I was six years old.
Everything from BMX bikes to motocross to mountain bikes and mountain bikes are
pretty much my biggest passion along with photography. Going from races to
races. I would always see people with vans.
They'd have all their bikes in them and all their weekends set up.
Living in a van has basically allowed me to wake up in my destinations,
which saves time. It saves money, it saves gas.
I found that for my work and for my passions.
I was basically traveling from home to a location for a weekend,
packing everything up at home, driving out there, unpacking, doing the event,
packing back up,
driving back home and living in the van is basically allowed me to do it all in
one.
So I really think for me it was more living out of the van and not living in the
van.
So what is the van yacht? Well,
it's a 2017 170 wheelbase,
four by four model sprinter.
And the reason I went with this model is I really didn't want to be limited by
anywhere I could go and I wanted to have plenty of room to live in it full time.
Some mods I've done to this thing to just make it a little more capable and go
anywhere is we got these massive all-terrain tires on here,
really smooths out the ride and kind of does really well on the snow and I even
upgraded the suspension, helps smooth out the ride,
helps keep all your dishes from falling out of your cabinets.
Just inspires me a little more to get a little bit off the beaten path.
When I got this van, it was a full cargo van. We added the CRL,
Lawrence windows,
we got this aluminous ladder leads up to an illuminous rack,
which is really nice for my solar panels. I store my snowboard up there,
extra bikes, max tracks, things like that.
These two little back windows are really nice for ventilation where your bed is
and you can crack the windows,
turn the fan on and in the summertime keeps it really nice and
cool.
So moving around to the back here of the van, you might notice these fuel tanks.
This is a diesel and this is gasoline.
It's actually because a lot of times I have a dirt bike on the back so they're
empty right now.
But a big reason we go with the sprinter vans is because it is the passage way
to the garage.
This really was where I started with my van build.
I really wanted to be able to keep two bikes inside the van,
prevent theft and keep them safe.
So I built this really nice bike slide here that I keep my mountain bikes in.
I'm able to keep two or three Tupperwares in the far back and that has
everything from recovery gear to extra camera lighting, my mountain biking gear,
backpacks, I have chairs,
full bag of climbing gear so I can really keep all the toys back here in my
garage.
Come on in and we'll show you a few more of the details.
Starting with the kitchen,
we got a 1800 watt induction stove and I only have a thousand watt inverter,
so I really can only run this at about half power,
but it seems plenty to cook with.
I combine this with one of those little butane portable cooktops and so I
usually set that here and then I can kind of get two cooktop surfaces going at
the same time.
I keep all that food cold here in this ISO therm.
I believe it's called a cruise, 130 fridge. Really nice fridge.
I haven't been super happy with it. It's got a little freezer space,
seems to keep plenty of food for almost a week worth of food.
And then I combine that up here with kind of my pantry area,
pots, pans, coffee making supplies, got to have that if you live in a van.
And then the rest of the kind of dry foods, this is the sink
it actually has been like a really good size sink, I think it's a 15 inch sink.
It's super deep, which I really like,
allows you to pile up some dishes in there.
The freshwater tank is underneath the bed,
but the gray water is right here underneath the bottom of the sink.
So I just kind of pull the gray water out and I can empty it.
So this space right here is kind of my eating, working space.
It kind of converts. So these chairs both have a swivel.
I have the lagoon table, which kind of stores right over my countertop here.
It gives you a really nice space to kind of get comfortable and get a couple of
hours of work done in between coffee shops or in between bike rides and things
like that. All right, so we're here checking out the shower.
This was definitely a big point of interest when I built my van.
I believe it's 24 inches by 32 inches wide.
Keep my towels, washing supplies.
I've got the shower head right here on this side and then I keep my little
port-a-potty curved toilet down here and along with my dirty laundry and then I
can seal all that off.
It's got this really nice just kind of screen that kind of closes,
keeps it all nice and sealed and I don't have water going all over my floor and
things like that. So as far as water in the van, I actually have quite a bit.
I have a 27 gallon tank that sits between the wheel Wells under the bed.
So I get about four or five showers plus a bunch of single out or I would say I
probably can go two to three weeks before I have to fill up my water tank.
So right here next to the shower I have this nine inch with space that is a
little bit extra that I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with.
So we did this nice little closet here and it allows me to carry quite a bit of
shirts on hangers, pants down below on hangers, jackets and things like that.
So it keeps everything from being folded up or just slammed in a drawer
somewhere, which I really like. Makes it easy.
Well this is where most of the days end here in bed. Uh,
this is a standard size queen length. Being six, three.
I needed the full length of the bed and then it's actually just a little bit
wider than a queen. I'm not sure the dimensions,
but I decided to custom order it to fill the full width. The back here.
It's a little tight for the head,
but it's the sacrifice that I had to make to be able to store the bikes in
there, but at least when you're getting up in the morning,
you're not smacking it on anything.
So I find it to be pretty comfortable place to hang out.
Being a very passionate outdoor person.
I'm really excited to kind of morph my career more towards those things and kind
of bring my two passions together.
It's been a really cool thing to be able to basically take my career and just
sort of morph it into something that kind of works on the road
for the future
I'm really working on doing more personal projects that involve bike riding,
that involve film,
involve traveling to really unique locations and just telling that story better
and hopefully getting my passion across to these beautiful places that we get to
be in and helping share that with you.