Although we could sell all our possessions and live the vagabond lifestyle for a couple years, the idea of “fast travel” wasn’t something we were interested in.  A frenzied year or so hitting dozens of countries sounds like a blast, but in reality, we were concerned that we’d be so preoccupied with making the most of every minute, we wouldn’t be able to slow down and really experience everything a destination may have to offer.  Not to mention the financial downside:  Lots of money rapidly leaving our bank account, without any immediate replenishment.  Enter Van-life:  A slow-paced type of travelling that allows us to move at our own pace, and not necessarily have a week’s long itinerary we were forced to adhere to.  Not to mention it’s covid friendly, and Renny can tag along!

A little backstory here.  We used to have two dogs, but after an amazing 14 year run, Mya, the German Shepherd Rottweiler mix, crossed the rainbow bridge in May 2019.  She was a huge part of our lives and losing her was one of the most difficult things we’ve ever gone through.  We had been through so much together, and she was always there to help us through the rough patches.  In her later years, she was a very reluctant traveler.  Between being a nightmare on car rides, and being blatantly ready to leave soon after arriving at our destination, she much preferred hanging out at her retirement home – Our ranch house with a huge yard, equipped with a dog-ramp to the deck and zero stairs for her arthritic joints to endure.

       In the days following Mya’s passing, we were itching to get away.  Maybe we were running from the emotions surrounding the trauma we just went though, but the only thing that would be able to take our minds off it all was to jump in the car and drive to the ocean with Renny in tow.  In hindsight, it was Memorial Day weekend and the closest beach town was far from unpopular that time of year.  Thanks to Bring fido, we narrowed it down to Dewey Beach in Delaware due to their dog friendly atmosphere and “dog hours” on the beach.  The deal was if we could find a dog-friendly hotel within walking distance to the beach with vacancy, we could go.  We hit the road the next morning. For future reference, avoid beach towns on holiday weekends.  We knew it was going to be busy going in, but lets just say we made the most of it.  The bars were packed with college kids and traffic was bananas, but the beaches were mostly deserted during dog hours (before 9:00AM and after 5:00PM).  Renny had a blast running around unleashed on the beach and quickly figured out the tide pools were much more chill than the crashing waves.  We only had time to stay for a couple nights, but it was the exact distraction we needed at the time.  For more info on Dewey beach, check out this blog post.

      Renny turned out to be such a good passenger, that as soon as we got home, we started brainstorming ways to bring her on more trips.  We looked at truck tents, tow behinds, pop-up’s, and priced out consistently renting at Air BnB’s.  We were experienced tent campers, but we were really looking for a way to take longer trips and still bring the comforts of home.  The van idea wasn’t new:  We had a trip booked the year prior to head out west and rent a Dodge Ram Promaster RV in San Francisco and drive it up the coast to Seattle.  Due to some unforeseen expenses, we ended up cancelling the trip.  Turns out the week would have been leaving for the West coast was the same week Mya passed, so cancelling months prior for a full refund turned out to be a good move.

      Ideally, we would have been able to try vanlife before we were to buy, but a couple months searching for used vans led us to a deal we felt obligated to jump on.  Amazon hadn’t built out their fleet yet, so all of their subcontractors were buying up the used vans as soon as they hit the market.  We would have to act fast as soon as a new listing popped up.  We ended up being the first to call on a used 2015 Transit 250 High Roof and put a deposit down sight unseen, contingent on a test drive.  Turned out to be a good move – The morning after we called, they received six offers at asking price in the first hour the dealership was open.  We have a knack for haggling, and even with the other offers, we were able to get some money knocked off the sticker price and we brought the van home a week later.

It was July 2019 and although we were itching to start building, we had no idea how we wanted to configure the space.  We removed and sold all of the heavy duty aluminum shelves and cargo area partition (a $1600 “bonus”), threw in a piece of indoor/outdoor carpet, air mattress, and headed to the Adirondacks.  Over the rest of the summer, we were able to get a better understanding of what features we wanted in the new build.  After 15-20 nights in the bare-bones hobo van, we really started doing our research on layouts, materials, and components we wanted to incorporate.  Although we still didn’t know what we wanted for a layout, we started purchasing the higher dollar items whenever we saw sales during the fall and winter. 

2020 started off with a dining room piled full of expensive boxes: A Dometic fridge, a Yeti Power Supply, a MaxxAir Fan, an AirHead composting toilet, and a bunch of other miscellaneous components we purchased on sale, or felt we needed to buy ahead of time to build around.  After what seemed like endless hours of Youtube videos, blogs, and a to-scale floor plan taped off in the living room, we finally stumbled on a layout we felt best suit our needs.  A few scaled down sketches on graph paper later, we started installing insulation in late January.  Turns out, our timing was amazing:  A lot of the components we purchased in 2019 and early 2020 were quickly sold out due to the pandemic-influenced camping craze in mid 2020!

We kept detailed logs of parts purchased and hours spent, and about 200 working hours later, we had a fully-functioning van build we were ready to take exploring.  Summer and fall of 2020 was spent running the van all over the Northeast, enjoying the fruits of our labor and brainstorming the last 20% or so that we wanted to finish (cabinet doors, some additional shelving, a swivel seat, some night stands, and general fit and finish pieces).  Fast forward to Spring 2021, and although it’s not “done” (it may never be), we are just wrapping up some of the finishing touches. 

We’ll continue to update this post with new pictures as we wrap things up.  We’re also open to separate posts that focus on specific systems we designed and installed, so please feel free to give us some feedback if any of our readers are looking for additional details.  Oh, and the van also needs a name… Any suggestions?