VAN LIFE CONFESSIONS…(a REAL LIFE tour of our converted van)

I've been begging Nate to make this video forever now. But he kept saying no because he said people were gonna judge us. It was too gross.

They are gonna judge us.

But I finally convinced him. You're welcome.

We are Kara and Nate. After traveling to 100 countries, Covid brought us back to the US where we bought a converted sprinter van that we had been living out of full time for just over a year.

A portion of this video is sponsored by the Motley Fool.

Good morning from our favorite roadside hotel.

We've gotten pretty good at not paying for places to sleep this year. It used to be really uncomfortable sleeping in random parking lots like this, but we've done it so many times at this point and nothing's ever gone wrong, that it's kind of become the default.

Let me quickly get us caffeinated, and we'll start the tour.

Coffee's ready.

Look at those views. Take this hand in here. Umbrella.

Thank you.

Do you have any raw thoughts that you'd like to share this morning? No.

I feel like you're bruising my intestines. I think my legs are too hairy to wear shorts today.

You make this as real as you want.

Oh, no.

Oh, tragic. Oh, no.

It does. At least it's on your side.

Feel like that was very fitting for today's video. Anyone who thinks I did that on purpose, definitely not. Not worth it. Better not.

I still can't believe I did that. I'm so sorry.

It's okay. Man, it's hot up here.

So if you haven't noticed yet, we're kind of disgusting. But as long as it smells good, then I'm happy.

I'm gonna let you in on a dirty little secret. Nate refused to hold the camera for me so I could share this with you. Hey, did you throw it away? Oh, no. We just bought these little pods on, like, day one of van life. I still use the same ones.

It's not the pods that I think are gross. Everyone uses a travel pod for their toothbrush every day. When it's your life, you're drying your toothbrush out with a gross paper towel.

Okay, listen, I don't like to waste paper towels, so, yes, I recycle the same paper towel. I dry it off.

Who dries their toothbrush?

Nate's side is all, like, soggy.

Comment down below. If you dry your toothbrush and gross.

We're not normal people.

Gross. What do you do to your toothbrush? Look at mine.

Huh?

Huh. Now look at Kara's. Weird.

How did that happen?

I'm kind of like a model with this van going. About a year ago, we posted a van tour video on our channel and we had been living in here for about three full days and thought we knew exactly what it was like to live in a van. Everything was pretty and clean and organized and tidy. And in reality, it has not been that way since.

This is too much. It's too much.

I really enjoy when people share just the nitty gritty, like I don't know, the relatable things in life.

No one shares everything.

I want to share everything.

Okay. We started watching our original van tour last night in preparation for today, and I literally could not stop laughing. So we stopped watching it because we thought it would be more fun to watch it today with you where we can show you an original clip and then fast forward one year and show you what it actually looks like. I'm so excited about this. This is our first reaction video. Oh, and there's an ad Tomorrow. We are finally pulling out of Nate's parents driveway to begin full time van life. Okay. When we did this tour, this was totally different. We had this really old school radio thing with this giant. Well, I guess this is giant too. But now it's like all in this sleek iPad looking screen. But I think the rest of the cab has gone downhill. Like the only thing we had in here was like our registration and insurance. Now I have. I don't know what that is. Spare napkins, tampon. Not one, not two, but three chapsticks.

If you want the real story on that. Carrie used to always blame me for losing her chapstick.

Nate stole my chapstick.

So I went into a store and I bought 20 tubes of chapstick one night. So she could never blame me again.

Oh, look, I found two more. This thing, this was empty when we left. We now have 700 masks, 804 pairs of sunglasses. Oh, five, two markers, stickers, papers, more papers, and.

Home protection. I have no idea how to use the knife. We have installed a swivel underneath the passenger seat. We actually do use the swivel seat. It's gotten a little funkier since we installed the heater though. All right, let's see what's next. We bought this lap desk. Never thought I'd be a lap desk kind of person, but here we are. Okay, so few things. I do love my lap desk. It's the best thing ever. Whenever we start traveling out of a suitcase again, I think I'm just gonna have to strap this to my. However I thought I was gonna work like this all the time, you know, like, in this position. But the truth is, I always sit on that when I work. Also, we've installed this headliner shelf because there was so much wasted space up here, and we have so much more storage space now. Right now, we just have our window covers up here, But I am sure it will be full of stuff in no time. Little did I know. We have definitely found more things to shove up here. My massage gun. 1, 2, 3, 7. Apparently, this is where we store our bags. The iconic fever onesie. I mean, where else is that gonna go? Our puffy jackets, which, thankfully, we haven't worn in a really long time. Tripod, Frisbee, golf frisbee that we've never used.

Hey, I played with that in Colorado.

That we used once. And, of course, the window shade. We've used them, like, twice. Twice. Because this is just so much easier. This is just turned into, like, the black hole of the van. We just cover up everything, and it's like, it's not even there. Okay.

I've installed a safe that's about three times the size and completely customized the inside. So I actually drilled a hole through the bottom of the safe in order to get that.

Thumbs up if you want. Nate's curls back.

Not coming back. They were so cute. All of our electronics just have a home inside of that closet. I still have a home inside the closet, just a little messier. All right, I'll give you the first number. Also, I do hang the key on the side of the safe, but you have to have a code to open it. I'm not that dumb. Okay, so let's take a look in here. Up here on this top shelf, we have our zoom lens. We have a place for both of our computers. The second shelf is completely devoted to all of our drone stuff. And then down here on the bottom, we have a place for both of our big cameras when we're not using them. All of the dividers are still there. The stuff just didn't really stay where it's supposed to go. I think the drone's still in the same spot.

That's it.

I don't know where all of this stuff went. See, this is the problem. We started getting new stuff like this and this and backup stuff like this. I still think the safe is one of the best parts of the van. It's about the only thing that makes us completely comfortable leaving the van for long periods of time and having tons of electronics in here. But probably what I'm most excited about is I was Able to get a power strip in the back.

The charging station is everything.

Another ad, Karen. Nate e. Unsubscribe.

That's okay. Read your negative comments. It's kopi mechanism down here where the old safe used to be.

We've installed a.

I literally have one of our frying pans in the cabinet with our bedding. I thought that was bad. Okay, so we did not lift a finger in preparation for this video. Everything you're about to see is just how it is. I'm so embarrassed.

This is what embarrasses you.

I do still have our pots and pans in here. In addition, external hard drives. I put some of my electronics in this little drawstring bag so they weren't like in the pots and pans. Next to the strainer is a curling iron. Guess how many times I've used it in the van?

Glasses, more stickers, Computer charger, power bank. So it's like junk drawer.

It's pots and pans and electronic drawer, because everybody has one of those.

Also, in our last van update video, Nate was like, oh, I'm gonna fix this drawer so it doesn't slide out anymore. And it looked like he did. And to be fair, he tried.

These little latches are how we keep our drawers closed or driving so they don't slide open. But this part keeps.

Keeps breaking off. And now we just have this little latch. So we take a corner. Boom, drawer doesn't go anywhere. And then we just left this bottom area down here the same. Because we thought it'd be nice just to be able to, like, kick off our shoes and throw them somewhere. And this was a major update. Not.

Not this muscle update.

People may never watch our channel again after this video.

We used to just kick our shoes. Or I would move Nate's shoes that he would kick off elsewhere into this little area. And then I bought this basket. It's prob. Favorite update we've made in 2021. All of last year.

We got a hot spot and a new bed. Top three favorite things, hashtag prowess. I'm becoming a different person.

So I'm very excited to give you a tour of our bathroom. The toilet is in the shower, so it's a trash can. This is trash can has not remained in the shower. So the trash can is now here. It has been smashed in the door more than once, but it works.

It rides well here because it can't go anywhere. This is what it did in the shower when we drove.

And that's why the trash can lives by the door.

Liquids go in these front two holes and empty into this tank. And when it's full, but not too.

Full, I feel like we shouldn't have filled it up all the way. Oh, there's pee.

We haven't made that mistake since day one. And then you dump it in a trash bag. And since it's compost, you can just put it in any trash can. And then on the other side, we just don't use the solids very often because it's a small space and we seek alternate toilets when nature calls. I can't tell you how many mornings I've walked into. All right, so our shower, we still don't use it. It is completely converted into a closet. This is like my face towel, where if I wash my face, I dry it with this and then this is like the dish towel. What? You don't do that.

I just thought we both dried our face with the dish towel. Ew.

Okay, we're even now with my paper towel and your dishy face. We have a two burner stove that runs off a 10 gallon propane tank under the sink. So a lot has changed. In the propane area under the sink, we have a safety box now that's airtight. So if this does leak, it always stays contained in here.

I took all the safety stuff pretty lightly when we first bought the van, but I quickly learned my lesson.

I did not think that was going to happen.

It's leaking. This was so clean. It doesn't even look like the same van.

Our gray tanks are completely full right now.