joyriver
New member
I grew up with long camping trips in an homemade Ford Econoline van with my family. We also did plenty of camping with our own family of 5 using mostly a van and tent camping. I have just now retired and want to fulfill my dream of travel but without sleeping on the ground! We have a business right now growing and selling heirloom vegetable plants that takes up most of our time with growing plants and building hoophouses. Plus our kids just all moved out and I have a lot of getting rid of stuff to do. We hope to start small next year with doing a build for our 2001 Grand Caravan and then hopefully move up to a van build once we are done with the business in a few years. So we have some time to learn.
I only found out about this enticing world a couple of weeks ago and I have spent WAAAYYY too much time watching utube videos and following tons of links to interesting sites. I guess you could say I'm kind of OCD when it comes to learning about things.
My husband and I both have above average DIY skills. (We built our own house using a kit for the outside and finished up all the inside ourselves.) My husband is more of a homebody but I enticed him in with questions about attaching a canopy to the Caravan and he spent the rest of the night figuring out a plan. He is a genius with Emt and anything else he puts his mind to. We are used to living on the poor side and retirement isn't any different for us so we will be doing everything ourselves and as inexpensive as we can. But that just makes it a bit more of a challenge.
I just wanted to say thanks for all of your sharing of knowledge. It is greatly appreciated. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions for you as we continue learning and exploring all the possibilities.
I do have a question regarding using the Caravan and ventilation. As you know, only the front windows go down and the way back ones just move a little outward. We are looking at rain guards for them. And probably some kind of screening. I know there will be a lot of moisture from sleeping in there. We are in Michigan so we don't have that nice dry hot weather like you have out west. More like hot and very humid - which means lots of moisture. Most of our camping will be done in the mid summer to early fall the next few years as we go non-stop from January until mid July with the business. So, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to have some kind of roof vent or wall vent tp help with both the moisture and keeping heat under control so we can sleep. I haven't found hardly any mention anywhere about adding one to mini vans.
Thanks and happy trails to you all.
I only found out about this enticing world a couple of weeks ago and I have spent WAAAYYY too much time watching utube videos and following tons of links to interesting sites. I guess you could say I'm kind of OCD when it comes to learning about things.
My husband and I both have above average DIY skills. (We built our own house using a kit for the outside and finished up all the inside ourselves.) My husband is more of a homebody but I enticed him in with questions about attaching a canopy to the Caravan and he spent the rest of the night figuring out a plan. He is a genius with Emt and anything else he puts his mind to. We are used to living on the poor side and retirement isn't any different for us so we will be doing everything ourselves and as inexpensive as we can. But that just makes it a bit more of a challenge. I just wanted to say thanks for all of your sharing of knowledge. It is greatly appreciated. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions for you as we continue learning and exploring all the possibilities.
I do have a question regarding using the Caravan and ventilation. As you know, only the front windows go down and the way back ones just move a little outward. We are looking at rain guards for them. And probably some kind of screening. I know there will be a lot of moisture from sleeping in there. We are in Michigan so we don't have that nice dry hot weather like you have out west. More like hot and very humid - which means lots of moisture. Most of our camping will be done in the mid summer to early fall the next few years as we go non-stop from January until mid July with the business. So, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to have some kind of roof vent or wall vent tp help with both the moisture and keeping heat under control so we can sleep. I haven't found hardly any mention anywhere about adding one to mini vans.
Thanks and happy trails to you all.
