Hi, I'm Anna French and this is my dog Cagney and we live in my van Casper.
I spent the last seven years travelling around the world, living on five
different continents, really just trying to explore other cultures and I was
really focusing on sort of the health care systems and I was working on
different education and health care projects in different communities. Did a
lot of backpacking along the way in Africa and South America, Australia, New
Zealand, a little bit in Europe. I was doing that for work mostly, but it's
always my passion. Van life idea kind of helped me find a way to be able to
keep traveling, but also explore my own country because I felt like I hadn't done enough of that.
This is Casper. Casper is a 2016 slightly
used Ford Transit cargo van with a low top and a standard length.
I bought Casper for about $24,000 with 18,000 miles on it and I've put about
10,000 on it in the last few months. I installed a Fantastic fan onto the
top and I also installed two 160 watt solar panels. My battery I have a Yeti
1400, a lithium battery. This is where I keep all my camping gear and my chuck
boxes where some of my more like valuable electronics and things are
stored. So I kind of created the design so that I could have access points from
three areas so from back here, there's two points of entry inside. I can get
things out from in between and on the other end.
Welcome to the inside of my van.
This is my kitchen slash bathroom area. I've got
this fridge where I store some of my perishables. This is my pantry and inside
just my dry food and behind this is actually a breadbox that I stole from my mom's
kitchen and behind that, got my pots and pans, my kettle, so it all fits pretty
snug and the tension rod helps keep it in place while I'm driving. Also have the
tension rod on the outside of my fridge and inside of my fridge. Up here I've got
my really useful three-in-one coffee pot, toaster oven, hot plate, which I use on
the daily. Just a little bit of storage up here, things I use everyday, and I got
some of my air plants just to give the area a little bit of light energy. This sink
I installed in, it's got a hand pump and I've got a 5 gallon water storage system
under here. This is for the input and then I have the output rigged underneath
here also just kind of have some of my cleaning supplies and cooking utensils
and things like that back there. Here is the Yeti 1400 where I directly plug in
all of my things to charge. Currently it's running the tube lights in here and
it's also charging right now from the Sun and it runs my fan. So underneath
this section of the bed I have my stool and a little bit of my wardrobe.
This is what I use while I'm cooking or doing anything really in here, working on my
laptop sometimes because I can't stand up so this helps with that. I also
store some of my clothes in there and so it's got a few purposes and then behind there
I've got my stove which is the one burner butane stove. Behind that is another, my
larger pantry, got dry food and then my dresser behind that and camping gear so
it's fully stocked. I made like the structure of the bed frame exactly so that
it would fit this in. This is my bathroom area which I use in emergencies and I
just store some like toilet paper and cleaning supplies back there and I made
a special compartment, so this is separate, there's a wall around the whole
bathroom area so that if in case something happened it would not get on
anything else. So this is my living room and bedroom area where I sleep and Cagney
sleeps as well and it also converts into a table, the bed like couch area so I bought
a six inch memory foam mattress, cut it up with a bread knife so it's kind of a
puzzle to get it in here. It's five separate pieces
and it was a queen-size mattress originally. And that is my dining room.
These are two separate storage areas that I built and that is the output of water
and my tent and sleeping bag. My insulation I used Reflectix. On the floor
it's just Reflectix and then about a half inch of plywood and then this vinyl
on top and then the walls are a layer of Reflectix and then R14 fiberglass and
then just these panels. So in my cockpit area I have my world globe, which
reminds me and keeps me grounded in my roots, which are in Arizona.
I think it's really important for females to travel by themselves and I think we're living
in a time where it's the most doable. There's this misconception that it's
really dangerous or scary, but it's not really either of those things and I
think traveling around the world as a solo female really helped kind of give
me the courage and the knowledge that it's a lot safer than the media
would have you (think). While I was a little bit nervous to travel in a van by myself I
kind of just went for it. I've never felt in danger. I think it's important to kind
of do it on your own. You shouldn't wait until you have someone to do it because
you never know what's gonna happen in life. Everything changes in a second and
you don't want to like lose your opportunity if you're in a place in your
life where you can do it now, I think it's a great way to get a better idea of
what you're capable of and once you can live in a van by yourself or travel to
another country by yourself you have this courage, this strength, that no one
can ever take from you and you feel like you can do anything. You realize
what you're capable of, how far your mind can take you. I really want to inspire
other people to take more risks and go out and try that thing that they've
always dreamt about doing. Not waiting because life doesn't wait for you. You
have to just kind of make the decisions and the rest kind of falls into place.
You don't have to have it all figured out.
I hope you enjoyed this week's
episode. If you did be sure to LIKE comment and subscribe. And if you want to
keep following my journey in the van with Casper, be sure to check out my website spintheglobeproject.com
or follow me on Instagram @spintheglobeproject
Peace! Have a great week.