Couple Ditches House in the Suburbs for Travel Life in a Van with Two Dogs
Disclosure: At no additional cost to you, you can support FLORB by using the affiliate links below
Jayme and John decided to move into a van with their dogs Crow and Nymeria. They’ve always been travelers and adventurers, and actually met doing this program called AmeriCorps and Triple C. They traveled around the country in Chevy vans doing community service, working with nonprofits, and disaster relief. That kind of primed them for van life. They found themselves in 9 to 5 jobs and a house in the suburbs, the sort of lifestyle that you're just kind of subtly pushed into. They just woke up one day and looked around and realized this isn't what they wanted. They talked about doing one last hurrah before they had kids. A friend of theirs told them to look up the hashtag vanlife on instagram. They found that, and started just selling everything. It took them close to eight months, seven or eight months to sell everything. they made about $10,000 from selling everything, which they were able to put towards a home on wheels.
The van they got, which they’ve since named Nomi, is a 1996 Chevy Express 1500. They got him for $1500. He had about 100,000 miles when they got him, and they put 15,000 more on since. The build cost about $10,000 for everything. You definitely don't need to spend as much on the build as they did. They just happened to set a $10,000 budget and like with a lot of projects, when you set a budget you tend to spend that budget. So if your budget is less than you can definitely find a way to make it happen.
Nomi gets about 15 miles to the gallon, give or take, which is a lot better than they were expecting. Up top they have their Fantastic Vents which has a rain cover on it. You need a rain cover to have that thing open in a serious rainstorm. They have 300 watts of Renogy Solar Panel. They also have an SAE quick disconnect where they can plug in a fourth solar panel. They basically took a solar extension cord and cut the end off and put a quick connector on and they can just plug it right in. That's charging a 310ah battery bank made of two 155ah AGM batteries.
Since they have a lot of instruments and they have backpacking gear and tools so they wanted enough space to store all that so they built a pretty high up bed platform which gives them ton of storage underneath. They’ve got a banjo and a guitar as well as their spare water, tools, backpacks and a tent. Their extra solar panel is right under this platform so they don't have to move everything around to get it out, they just can pull this right out, open the PVC frame and plug it in.
When they were building the van they felt like the stairs area was just dead space, so they built these storage boxes on the doors. One holds their trash and recycling, the other is all of their dog supplies, food, accessories, etc. They built a little table that does not work outside yet, but when they’re inside it just props up into a little table. They also have a little broom and an umbrella that they literally never use, so they should take that to Goodwill. They have a Cajon which can double as both an instrument and extra seating. To store food they use an ARB 12 volt Fridge which holds about a week worth of food and a little bit of beer, or a weeks worth of beer and a little bit of food.
A pretty smart storage solution which they consider a godsend is a cheap shoe holder that holds all of their little tiny things that they don't necessarily have a home for and they don't want to make a large home for so it gets them out of the way and organized. In the kitchen they have a 14 gallon stainless steel tank which they can access through the top of the counter. They didn't really like the idea of their water sitting in plastic so they found this on a winemaking website.
They got a lot of boat parts for their van build since they're made for smaller spaces and they can normally move around. They got a foot pump for their sink, which they highly suggest because you are way more conscious of the water that you're using and you have free hands. Water from the sink then it drains into a greywater holding tank that they dump every four to five days.
Propane freaks them out a little bit. They don't have a lot of experience with it and it's a really small area, so they decided to get an alcohol stove instead. It runs off of denatured alcohol and it costs about $15 a month for them to run it. It takes a little longer to cook with than a conventional propane stove, but it’s a safer option than using compressed camping gas.
One thing that they did that was important to them is they have little cubbies on each side of their bed. There is a ton of room for a bunch of books and different journals. John also handmade cup holders to fit their Hydroflasks perfectly. They have their clothes in packing cubes to stay organized in transit.
They made these curtains out of insul shine, a reflective material with batting on the opposite side. They sewed dark fabric under the opposite side of the batting and they're on hooks so that they can be reversible and allow them to either reflect heat out of the vehicle during the day, or into it at night. It works extremely well, they estimate it maintains a 10-15 degree temperature difference during the day.
In general they really believe in this lifestyle. They think it's a lot of fun. It frees you up to pursue whatever other passions you might have. Once you really realize that within yourself possibilities are endless, you can do anything you want. Put your mind to it and take small steps each and every day to work towards what you want to do. If you want to run a marathon, just go run down the block and start there. A year or two down the road you'll turn around and you'll look in the rearview mirror and you'll see all these little steps behind you that led you exactly where you wanted to go.
