I am super new to all of this van life stuff.
I have been building a van in my head for 20 years now and I have come to the conclusion I want box, or step van only.
I live in Las Vegas and own a small air conditioning business and want to live and work out of a van with my dog.
I am looking for builders and also possibly something done or an abandoned project.
GUIDE ME OH SWEET VAN LIFE PEOPLE!!!!!!!
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2003, we converted a 1996 Ford CF8000 commercial truck to our concept of an ExpeditionVehicle.
Three axle, tandem rears, GVWR of someplace around 58,000#.
The original box was an 8.5w x 8h x 24 long reefer, a montrous cavern screaming to be filled with multiple tons of nincompoopery.
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After a few months, we swapped that beast of a box for a little cutie-pie, 7w x 7h x 12 long.
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With the living envelope shortened by half, we dropped an axle (one of the rears, we are fast learners).
We retained enough rear frame for:
* a rear entry, and
* a porch with roof, and
* a hitch area (initially a fifth-wheel, changed a couple-three years ago to a gooseneck ball).
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Why a rear entry?
Besides the utility of the elevated porch as a combination mud-room slash lounge slash kitchen slash shower slash throne, all protected by the roof?
We prefer the visual and visceral openness of the interior view from the doorway.
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Compare our long interior view to a RecreateVehicle side entry.
a)
For a floor as high as ours, over-landers and RecreateVehicles require steps or ladders.
While not in use, do those occupy scarce space?
That is the way I see it.
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b)
At the doorway, all I see is the opposite wall.
If that wall intrudes into the aisle with cabinets and built-ins, my eye-line terminates a few inches from my nose.
For me, this's unpleasant.
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Maybe I am weird.
I like going straight in, rather than one step, pivot left for groceries, pivot right for laundry... like some kind of partnerless square-dancing.
And if my hands are occupied with groceries or laundry, tottering up steps could lead to a nasty spill.
The wrong kind of nasty.
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With our rear entry, we use the existing structure -- wheel, tire, mud-flap hanger -- to monkey-bars up onto the porch ('monkey-bars' is a verb).
With groceries or laundry, we walk to the rig on flat ground, nice and stable and civilized.
We set the load on the flat stable porch deck, then monkey-bars right up.
We emplace our goods in the rig piece-meal, one at a time, civilized... instead of dropping the entire load on the bed or dinette as is standard for a RecreateVehicle.
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I am a semi-retired welder-fabricator, so we immediately ditched the roll-down cargo-box door in favor of a steel wall with a steel door.
The door is two parts, split horizontally at the top eight inches to form a Dutch door, handy for secure ventilation, bringing in light... or hollering "Get off my lawn!".
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We boondock exclusively.
Never been inclined to stay in a RecreateVehicles resort, thank you anyway.
Our favorite spots are in the back-country, miles from noplace with nobody around.
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Some boondockers need a spot with a good cellular telephone signal.
We hear tell of cellular telephone signal boosters and other technology marvels.
Fact is, we seek places without a cellular telephone signal.
Weird, eh?
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Our prior conversions included curve-wall patience-tryers, busses and vans.
We never got the hang of perfect matches, our interior to the curve walls.
Looking back, I think we saw those rigs as temporary, so some gaps were fine.
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Our ExpeditionVehicle has square walls, square ceiling and roof, and as I discovered building the rear wall and door, the heavy steel frame -- engineered to support the roll-down cargo-box door -- is massively over-built for our use.
It would probably function as a safety roll-bar if we decided to go inverted.
[ExpeditionVehicle laughs derisively at RecreateVehicle staples into particle-board.]
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And my final point after nearly two decades full-time live-aboard:
* Doing it over, we would change nothing.
