Hi! Welcome to my blog site! I'm getting ready to travel across the USA in a 2018 Dodge Promaster cargo van that has been lovingly converted into a camper van. We call her Vanna White the Camper Van. I bought Vanna from a retired gentleman in northern PA who was having health problems and could no longer travel in her. I saw her advertised on facebook marketplace and immediately arranged to go see her in a casino parking lot that weekend. We paid the asking price on the spot, knowing that we had found an excellent deal, about ten grand less than most similar vans posted on the Internet. The previous owner had done most of the conversion, installing full insulation, wood paneling, two 100 W solar panels on the roof, a Yeti 1000 lithium battery/inverter for AC, DC, or USB charging, a sink, a two-burner propane stove, and a raised twin XL bed in the back of the van. At the time, the van only had 13,000 miles on it and it remains under the manufacturer's warranty.
One of the questions I get most often is: "what attracted you to vanlife in the first place?" It's an interesting question with multiple answers, I guess. Ever since I was young and our neighbors drove cross country on a camping trip to the West and came back showing their slides of the trip, I have dreamed of seeing America for myself. In 1992, my wife, best friend, and I drove cross country for 33 days, hitting 27 national parks. It was the road trip of a lifetime. But it was not our last. We made it as far as the Canadian Rockies again on two further occasions, including a 38-day trip in 2010 with our young daughter. So there's the lure of the open road. The second reason is that as a non-tenure track professor, I have my summers free and I recognize that I am not getting any younger, so I need to make the most of my time. The third reason is the sense of freedom that you get traveling in a self-contained camper van. You can pretty much just pull up anywhere at the end of a day where it is legal and safe to park and you have a free place to dry camp (or boondock) overnight. The options are limitless from beautiful scenery on a lake in the national forests or BLM land to the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel. About a year ago, I started following several YouTube channels on people living out of their vans, including Trent and Allie, Eamon and Bec, and others. Their amazing vlog posts inspired me to try out living in a self-contained tiny house on wheels. I started casually searching for a van of my own, got a feel for the value and what features I'd want in a van, and then we found Vanna. We have made some modifications ourselves, adding a fancy faucet at the sink with a sprayer hose that reaches out the side door for a quick shower, an electric water pump in place of the hand-driven one, a microwave, and a bench with table that converts into a second bed. With these personalizations in place, it was time to try her out. In the beginning of the summer, I took a six-day trip to NC, living out of the van to test everything out. Now it is time to cast a wider net and just go for it!
So a little less than a week ago, I came up with a primitive plan--four or five weeks across the northern Midwest to Colorado and the Rocky Mountains and then north to the Pacific Northwest and back east through Glacier, Yellowstone, and the Tetons. We'll have to see how it goes. Only the first 4 or 5 days are planned and then who knows? I might just go where the wind blows me. Stay tuned. I hope you enjoy my travel blog!
Brian
June 30
