hey there jenna here welcome to my channel where i take you on tours of unique homes and
showcase stories of people living alternatively have you ever wanted to just take off and hit
the road in a retro vw bus well in today's video we're going to meet a couple who not
only did just that but also figured out a way to work full time on the road nowadays more
and more people are working from home so why not take your home with you and work anywhere
we really have gotten this value of time and we're in love with that
if you like these kind of videos make sure that you subscribe and hit
that notification bell so that you know every single time i publish a new tour
but right now let's take a tour of this vintage vw bus and full-time home on the road
hi i'm hunter i'm hannah and this is luna our 1974 vw bus
we've always been aware since the van life hashtag has been coined that something was going on
and that there was a movement you know happening outdoors but i don't think it was ever something
that really was actually accessible to us because our jobs weren't remote because of covid
and the majority of jobs going remote that is what helped us transition into a digital nomad job
we've currently been on the road for about four months in our bus we've owned the bus
for almost two years now we didn't initially get the bus for van life
we got it for weekend trips seeing other people doing the whole van life movement we decided that
we can do it in this like we don't need a large rig it took us a bit to kind of make that decision
that we want to go full time in such a small vehicle i've always been a big car guy i knew
getting into van life i needed something that i was really proud of and i wanted
something i could still take to car shows for me that was a volkswagen bus everyone
knows the icon of that vehicle it really is a symbol of van life it's a symbol of adventure
there's a reason that people love west folies they're campers that were built out in the 70s
and they're really the swiss army knife of vans so as far as us transitioning into it
we actually really didn't have to make much modifications to it our rig is a bit more on
the camping side than maybe a sprinter van with all full amenities but we make it work for us
we purchased the bus for twenty two thousand dollars and then we have also done about six
thousand dollars worth of renovations really just overall maintenance just to make sure
that it was road trip ready all in total or about twenty eight thousand dollars into it
so welcome to the outside of luna luna is a 1974 volkswagen bus with a west folly conversion that
means she's got a pop top and a full camper interior lengthwise luna is about 15 feet long
when you have the pop top you're standing around nine feet five inches when closed loon is about
six foot six so we can get into a ton of parking garages things that are actually pretty accessible
for us that wouldn't be accessible for larger vans from the interior perspective she's five
feet eight inches so it's really pretty narrow in there just like a lot of classic cars of the era
so over here on this corner of our bus we have our gas fill up our gas tank is about
14 gallons in capacity and we get 16 miles per gallon on a full tank of gas and get 220 miles
total so these right here are called jealousy windows and
they're on most volkswagens that have a westfalia camper conversion
we love it so much because if we open both sides we get a really nice cross breeze on a windy day
so luna's rocking some pretty meaty tires we do a lot of off-roading in this bus and it's really
important to make sure that we never get stuck so we run the general grabber all-terrain tires
they're 27 by 8.5 we get that question all the time and we love them volkswagen buses
are actually really good off-road reason being is because they're engines in the back over the
back drive wheel and so it keeps them extremely planted next we're gonna go to our luggage rack
our luggage rack is up here in it we store our go treads go treads are a dual purpose so they're
recovery tracks as well as levelers we level ourself out every single night pretty much and
then if we ever get stuck in some deep sand we can put these underneath our wheel and we can get out
of there this is the front of our bus first off the bat one thing you'll notice is we actually
changed out the old style of lighting we went to a newer style led lights another thing is we
have our spare tire mounted here we have massive tires there's no other place to really put them
inside the van and then of course the iconic peace sign no volkswagen bus is complete without ap sign
so next we're going to move to the back of our van in the back of our van or our trunk you're gonna
find our camp chef stove which we use pretty much for every single meal our spare parts bag because
no volkswagen is complete without a massive spare parts bag my hiking backpack that of course i use
to put our photography gear when we go on hikes and then lastly we have our drinking water it's
a five gallon jug and honestly we find it's good enough for us we actually have another
tank inside of our van that's seven gallons but because it's 50 year old plastic we
don't actually drink from it because we don't know the quality of the plastic
this one we know is safe to drink and honestly by the time we have to go refill up our ice in
our cooler or go to the grocery store we refill up our five gallon we find it's plenty enough for us
so on the left side of our trunk we have a table that we use to set up we have our yoga
mat got to have that and then we also have my closet in my closet we have all of my clothes
hannah's are stored up in the front of the van all my clothes are packed away in packing cubes
packing cubes are a must-have for anyone living in a tiny space so next up we're gonna get to our
engine bay all volkswagen buses have the engine in the back so it's just under this rear hatch which
makes it extremely easy to work on we have our original motor this is the 1800 cc motor from 1974
that belonged to this bus from new it has been rebuilt it got rebuilt around 40 000 miles ago
so it's a pretty fresh engine we haven't had any issues with it on the left side we have our camp
battery our camp battery runs a couple things in the interior it runs our dome lights it runs our
head unit which is our radio it runs a couple things and we also plan at some point to start
tapping into it more we have a ton of power with this thing and there's so much more we could add
all right so if we come around to the driver side of our bus something that's really interesting
is we have an electrical pass-through this came stock on our west folia and so it allows you if
you're at any campsite that has rv hookups you can plug directly in here and then on the other side
of that you have a 110 outlet so any appliance that you want to run you can run directly through
all right let's check out the inside
welcome to the inside of luna this is our main living hanging out kind of space we
have our kitchen table couch and most of our storage since we have such a small
amount of storage we make sure everything has a place and everything has at least two uses
we use jackers for our power systems instead of running an electrical system so we have two
jackers that's more than enough power for what we need and we just have a 100 watt panel that we pop
outside just to charge them up one of us can work inside and the other has the option of working
outside setting up at a camp chair somewhere in the sun just to be outside and have a little
separation of space behind the couch is where we keep our cooler we've opted out of a fridge
because of minimizing the electric system cooler has worked great for us we only have to fill up
our ice every few days and we actually put our ice inside a dry bag so that when it melts all we have
to do is dump out the water from that instead of have floating stuff in the cooler all the time
under the bench we have a ton of extra storage where we can bring lots of gear
this couch even pulls out to a bed if we cannot sleep up top the only
reasons we don't sleep up top is if it's too cold
canvas lets in a lot of cold air or if we have friends over and want to do a bunk bed situation
my clothing storage is down below the bench in these pull out drawers
on top of that i also have this cabinet that opens up
we keep some of our food here spices seasonings coffee that kind of stuff and then anything else
we have a bag down below that keeps larger items directly across from our pantry we have our sink
our sink runs with electric power and it runs from a seven gallon tank that was built in
to this whole design it fills up really easily through this little spout right
here we just run a hose right into it and fill it up from any campsite or water source we get
all right let's show you the bed
welcome to our bedroom this is where we sleep every night it's also where we can just kind
of hang out relax have some time to ourselves sometimes i sit up here and play video games
sometimes i'll read my books i love that we can have these windows open to the side and it really
just feels like we're tent camping everywhere we go helps us connect with nature it is so nice
to wake up in the morning and with the canvas surrounding us you get that sound of the birds
or the environment everywhere that you are if we are camping in the city we definitely keep the top
closed we will pull out the bottom bed but we prefer to camp out in nature whenever we can
for a small space it's been very comfortable as a tiny home we've experienced more in the
past four months than we ever have together and that's completely irreplaceable there's no more
waiting for time off of work that we took two months out to be able to go on a three-day trip
yeah there's no more wasting days counting the days until you get to do something cool
i think the life experience that we've gained over the last four months has been so densely
packed it really has slowed our life down we really have gotten this value of time and
we're in love with that thanks for watching this week's video make sure to like share
and subscribe and i will see you soon with another unique home tour
you