VAN LIFE TOUR | Driving Converted Ford Transit Van Across Canada

I think this is the most snow that I've ever been in in my entire life. It's got to be at least a foot of snow. So incred.

Stretch for it.

Good morning from Cold Kelowna. It is day six of our road trip through Canada, and we are loving the van life.

Before we hit the road this morning, we wanted to give you a full tour of this van behind us that we have been living in for the past six days. Okay. We are going to start this tour in the front of the vehicle and work our way back. This is your standard driving cabin of your.

According to the owner's manual, your 2018 Ford Transit. Nothing super special about the front, except it is very new and nice. We have some USB plugs up here, 12 volt charger, and that's pretty much your driving setup. And then whenever you're ready to go to sleep at night, you have this nice little sunscreen. So nobody watches you sleep at night. Now we'll move back in the van. And welcome to our living room, kitchen, dining area, office, all of the room that you have to live inside of a van. And if you come inside, I'll show you our seat setup. So underneath the sink here, we have your stand, standard trash can, a propane tank that we use to make coffee in the morning. And then you have two water tanks. One is gray and one is whatever the van lifers call like clear, fresh water. So both of these run up into the sink. We can turn the pump on.

The clear water obviously runs up through the hose. That's what you drink, that's what you wash your dishes with. And then the gray water is the water that has been used, and it drains into.

One of those two buckets. We still need to figure that out. One of the things that we really liked about this van as soon as we picked it up was just like the overall design and aesthetics. You've got the nice wood trim, and then you have the clean white cabinets. And it really feels more like we're living in like a sheet designer home as opposed to a van. But the thing that we were most excited about when we picked it up and the thing that surprised us most was the amount of storage that we have in this place. This van is super well designed. There's a ton of cabinet space that keeps all of your stuff nicely organized. For instance, we have all of our cooking stuff up above the sink. So there's like cups and plates and bowls in there. We're keeping all of the food that we bought at the grocery store. In this cabinet, everything fits up there nicely. Then down here, you have your, like, silverware and your knives and all of that kind of stuff. And then down here in the bottom drawer, you have your pots and your pans. So that's where, like, all the food cooking storage is all nicely organized on this side of the wall. And then for clothes. Clothes and stuff like that, I'm using this drawer for, like, all of my packing cubes and toiletries. So, like, underwear, toothbrush, stuff like that. And Kara's storing all of her stuff in this drawer. That's, like, all the little things that would just completely spread out over the van if you didn't contain them in one place. So if you don't normally watch our videos, we're full time travelers and we both live out of a Carry on backpack. And then we have a backpack like this that we store all of our electronics in. So electronics are staying stored in the bags, which we usually, like, put up in the front seats when the van's parked. And then if we move back here to the bed, we have this shelf that's made out of a tree, so it looks very fancy. And then we just have, like, our T shirts and jackets and everything up on the shelf. And that's literally all the stuff that we own. And it fits very nicely in the van. Moving on to the bed, which is actually the best part of this van, I think it's like memory foam. It is so soft.

We have been in here for six nights, and I don't think either one of us has woken up during the night at all in the past week. It's always nice to have somewhere to charge your phone right by your bed, so you can look at Instagram, like, as you're falling asleep at night. So each side of the bed has two USB chargers. I feel like I've said, like, four things were my favorite part of this van. But seriously, probably the most important, considering that we are heading to Banff today and the weather is going to be absolutely freezing and there is a heater in this van. And I'm not exactly sure, like, all the technology, how it works, but apparently it runs off the gas. All you have to do is hit this button twice. You can turn it up or down using these buttons, and it heats the whole van up in, like, two minutes. And we have stayed super toasty. But let's assume that not everybody is used to living this, like, minimal lifestyle that we are, where we're constantly traveling. You might have a lot more stuff that you need to store in this van and I'll show you where you can put it. When we first opened the back of the van, we were shocked with how much space was back here. The entire area underneath the bed is all just completely open. I mean, if you wanted to fit four people in here and have some friends come and camp, they could just throw two sleeping bags in here and they could come sleep underneath the bed with you. Right now, we're just using it to store our cooler, our stove, two empty suitcases, and two camp chairs. So that's pretty much the back of the van. But I did remember there is one more thing inside that we need to show you. These are two outlets where we can charge all of our electronics, which for us as full time vloggers is really important. And that about wraps up the van tour.

We're definitely no van life pros, as you can tell, but I think we could do this for a season. Like, I think I could live this life for a while.

I've been thinking about it. If we were going to live in a van full time, I think there's three things I would need that this van doesn't have. First, I need a way to make coffee so I don't have to get outside every single morning in the freezing cold and, like, start a fire and boil water. That just feels a bit primitive. We need a fridge so we can actually store cold food without having to get ice for the cooler. And there's one more thing.

The bed. We think we would want to convert it to like a couch or a desk because we've just been editing vlogs in bed all day, which I kind of love.

I think it would get old working out of bed, like every day of your life if you lived in a van full time.

But for this trip, this van is super cozy and I'm loving it. And now it's time to go to Vamp.

Today's drive is about five and a half hours, and we are so excited because we've never been a Banff before and it's supposed to be snowing.

For those of you who are more observant than others, you may realize that we skipped day five in the series and went straight to day six. And that's because we were supposed to be driving to Banff yesterday. But we looked at the webcams online and the roads were completely covered in snow. They got over 15 inches, so we were too scared to make the drive yesterday.

So today's supposed to be sunnier and the roads are a little more under control. But it could be an interesting day.

There's still a lot of snow up there, but from what we can tell, it's starting to melt off the road. So hopefully today's drive won't be too treacherous. Let's go.

That was weird.

I see we might have two heaters on right now. I think the heater in the back is on. And now this heater is on.

We're gonna get the hang of this Van Life thing before it's over.

Van Life.

Okay.

Is everything contained?

Also, if anybody was curious about what we do with stuff, like, while we're on the road, like the backpacks and stuff, our current plan is just throw it all in the bed, and it seems to ride pretty well. Basically, nothing white slides around.

Oh, yeah. And we're following our friends Heath and Alyssa, who are a little more professional at the Van Life thing, so. Which should be fun.

Oh, there's Starbucks. We're ready.

Okay. We are about an hour into the drive, we just pulled off at this beautiful rest stop called Morrow Lake. We're eating a quick snack lunch, and then hopping back on the road as quickly as possible. We should be getting into Banff at about sunset. We don't really want to be driving in the snow and at dark. So we're kind of trying to beat the clock right now.

And we're off, back on the road. How many more hours?

4.4&2 hours, which I think leaves us with about an hour of sunlight.

But.

I have a good feeling we'll stop and we'll fly the drone again, and we'll probably be there when they get start.

We just keep looking at each other going, wow. Because right now, we're still in fall. All the trees are orange and yellow and beautiful. But then the tips of all of these mountains that are surrounding us are all misty, and we're just going into winter. Like, with every minute, we're getting closer and closer to snow, and it's so exciting.

Oh, my gosh.

Shifting now.

I should know if you guys wanted to get any photos, because it was awesome.

This is absolutely incredible. We have officially left, left fall and entered a magical winter wonderland.

We are currently driving through Rogers Pass. This is the part of the drive that we were most nervous about. But the roads have been clear. They're just a little wet. Not dangerous at all. This drive cannot get any better.

I think we might regret. Oh, my gosh. It's so deep. It's so deep.

I'm really gonna regret this when my socks are soaking wet. Later, it's like up to my knees right now. This is magical. So magical. This is the only way you can appreciate how much snow there is here right now. This has to be over a 4 foot of snow. I've never seen anything like this.

Hope that was clean.

So much snow on my boots. Oh, my feet are gonna be soaked for the rest of the night. But it was totally worth it. We got the instagra.

We made it. Kind of. Kind of made.

Woo. It's cold.

Hey, want some dinner?

Technically in B, Are we in Banff?

Yes.

Bam National Park.

We made it.

He says we made it.

Yay. From Banff?

Not exactly at the campground that we were planning on making it to today. The one that we wanted to go to was about 50km further. But we have ended up at Lake Louise, which I'm not complaining about because it is a winter wonderland.

There's snow everywhere. I'm so excited. We're about to cook some dinner, but we're gonna call it a night on the vlog. If you enjoyed today's video, please subscribe to our channel so you don't miss the rest of our Fun Kano series.

We're gonna be spending the next few days in Banff. And I have a feeling it is gonna be some of the most incredible videos that we've ever made.

And the coldest.

It's gonna be great.

It's pretty weird. You can try it.

Go for it.

Yeah? Yeah. Okay. This is the last day.

This hand looks really weird. Will you put it on your head like this?

How was that?

Fall leaves look so cool behind you. Oh, no.

It's a lake. Wow.

Canada. Canada.

Look at these fall trees. And look at these mountains.

What?

This is nuts. Keith and Alyssa, y' all are doing a great job being our subject back here. Just keep driving.

Let's ask to pee.

I thought you were gonna tell me something exciting.

That drive didn't suck.

No, that was beautiful. Yeah.

And it's our first stop on the Grand.

I have an idea.

I saw some pretty legit sledding hills. Remember that walk we cooked on the other night?

I think we can make a homemade stuff. I don't know if it's a good.

Idea, but where would we sled?

It's a great idea.

Where there's hills everywhere and there's mountains.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. That was an accident. That was the tripod. It's dark and we don't know where we're going. I hit the horn with the tripod. Sorry.

I'm gonna go down here and look at sites. But I wonder if I went near the bathroom for you guys and it looked like that lady was walking back from the shower, so they have a lot of the sites blocked off because they're covered in snow. This road is super icy, too.

I'm not showering tonight, so.