Hey there, Jenna here! Welcome to my channel where Ifeature people living alternatively.
As you can imagine, I've featured plenty of quirky characters on this channel
but the homeowners in today's video might take the prize for the biggest personality!
Their self-described hippie van is definitely a reflection of their eccentric character.
I don't care who you are, or if you're into vans or tiny homes or whatever, these people are just fun!
Let's take a tour of this vibrant van conversion with its fun-loving owners and an adorable corgi
hi we are Jorien and Sandra and together with our dog we traveled through europe
in our self-converted hippie van!
We traveled before with our tent but we are a lot more flexible with
our camper van, like this. So that's what's inspired us to travel like this.
So we like to camp in the wild since we are Dutch, we are cheap. No just kidding,
we really like to be in nature. We make a sport out of finding a camp spot for free,
which is beautiful, has water and no people! No people. So that's what we are
looking for. Where google maps stops the journey really begins! Yes, that's true.
So we really like the freedom that vanlife gives us, but
in order to enjoy the freedom, we need to think about quite a lot of things.
Finding a nice spot might take more time than you anticipated, but also do I have
enough food? Do we have enough water? Do we have enough shade for the dog, and for ourselves?
So this is a Toyota Hiace from 2005 it has 4x4 and a turbo diesel engine, so we can go anywhere!
First thing we did, when we bought it, we cut a hole in a roof for a pop-up top.
It's a universal pop-up roof and you have to customize this to your own curves of your car.
We only need to release two of these strips and then with one little push it will open on its own.
We basically did everything ourselves from insulation, to electricity, building cabinets,
name it! We didn't even know we were this handy. We learned quite a few skills along the way.
We bought this car for 4 000 euros and upgraded it for 5 000 euros.
Since we both are quite eccentric people,
we wanted a unique van and that's why we painted the exterior of the van.
We put a retro wallpaper inside, some decorative elements, lots of color, rainbows everywhere!
We have a fully equipped kitchen with running water, and we have a two burner
stove underneath this but we really wanted some large countertop space. So that's why we have
this - it's a cutting board, countertop space, and we can use it as a small table outside.
One thing is, I am banned from the kitchen because the first time I cooked in this kitchen I put the
pans too far to the back and I completely burned the back side. So that's why Jorien cooks right
now, and I have absolutely no problem with that! No, it's because you can't cook...
so it's fine! I fixed the back, because it was all black, and now we can cook properly again.
One thing we really like about our van is the possibility to cook inside and outside.
We have also a diesel heater, a usb socket, and a 12 volt socket on both sides of the car.
So this is our storage for pans, food, we even have a bottle rack on the bottom so
the bottles don't roll through the van. This is the tiniest fridge we could find
that has enough space and could fit in our van. It even has a very small freezer compartment
and we wish we could have a bigger one but it just wouldn't fit.
In this compartment, we keep all the kitchenware, from cups, to plates, to our very retro kettle,
and we have wine glasses which are safely stored in a pvc holder. So yay for that! So we have even
more space under the bed. We have a safety leash for our dog so he can't run around in the van,
and more storage room. We have a fire extinguisher and we have a gas alarm so we don't choke while
we sleep. Let's talk about business because we need to do our business too! And we do it
in a porta potty. We are really happy with the porta potty because it allows us to stay
off grid even longer and stay anywhere we want, and still respect nature and one thing we really
like is we don't use chemical fluids we use biofluids. So it's even better for nature!
We've made magnetic screens and we're really happy because we can slide them all the way to the back
and slide them in. So we have two strong magnets on the top and magnets on the bottom
with a weight and in between there's a strip and it works like this - So flip, shoo, and then
magic happens! So welcome to our master bedroom.
Not so master actually... we have a bed. But at the moment we want to
sit in our comfortable living room, so let me show you how we go from bed mode to sit mode!
We have a very nice table we can use so we can eat inside when it's raining outside.
Since we have a graphic design studio together we created two workspaces. I'm sitting in the back
and with my laptop over here, so in sitting mode. And Jorien is sitting in the front.
Hi, I'm making a city with a windmill! So for the cabinets we really wanted to finish them with some
nice retro touches and some nice door handles. For the closet I really wanted a nice space,
I didn't want to dig in some drawers. So we have a double closet, which I will show you.
So I have space over here, Jorien has space over here. We have some baskets.
So in the end we're really happy with it.
So in the back we have a lot more of storage. Over here we have the chairs, all the barbecue stuff,
shoes, food for our dog. And over here, even bigger storage and we have
bubbles!
We installed this 130 watts solar panel which charges our battery so we can have cold wine
in our refrigerator and a lot of other electric stuff. We are really happy with
the solar panel because that way we can stay even longer off-grid and have more cold wine.
And over here we have another sliding door which comes very handy for us. Here we hold our special
table - it's a rainbow table! The barbecue, and the safe to keep our stuff safe. Waste water tank,
another water tank for showering so we don't use our drinking water. Behind the water, we
have spare gas and diesel for the diesel heater, and also a little compressor for the refrigerator.
Van life made us realize - happiness is not in having stuff or a big house.
We really like to travel, being in nature, enjoying silence, and each other!
Thanks for watching this week's video. Make sure to like share and subscribe,
and I will see you guys soon with another video tour.