[BajaGringo]

I would have liked to see just a bit more from their travels north of La Paz but if you stay with them during their time spent hanging around La Paz and parts south you do get a feel for what the Van Life experience is like. I know several who are thinking about this and looking at the options on different van conversions. I suggest to everybody that it would be wise to invest some time looking into what it really is like as it’s definitely not for everybody, but I can definitely see the allure.

If you do decide to go the Van Life route, take a lot of time to investigate what other have done for ideas to see some of the very creative innovations you can incorporate into your rig. With some small changes and rethinking your space and layout you can make your van seem a lot larger inside and much more comfortable for cooking, living and sleeping.

[JuanSoler]

I could do the van life thing if it were only for a weekend, maybe up to several days but probably not a month. Being as tall as I am it would probably get old quickly I think. I also have friends who recently built out a new(er) Ford Transit they got at auction in San Diego and they are out almost every single weekend in that thing. During the week he’s inside it working on adding stuff and making modifications on most nights after work.

[nashsimpson]

Did you actually get inside their Transit? I am tall (6’3″) and can easily stand up inside a new Transit with several inches to spare. I think that RAM’s new van and the Sprinters as well are pretty tall inside as well.

[BajaGringo]

Here’s a pretty good video on van conversions – I like it because these guys are a professional van conversion company and rather than just show you what they did, they discuss their process and some important points for you to take into consideration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-yfoaRW59g

[mikel]

I did a conversion back in the 70’s when I was still only 16 years old. There was an old delivery van that wasn’t running that I had kept my eye on, sitting for over a year in the back lot of my dad’s employer. His boss agreed to sell it to me for $100 on the condition of agreeing to tow it off of his property within 48 hours. So we hired a tow truck to bring it home and while my dad was busy fixing the engine and replacing the transmission, a buddy and I began cleaning out and prepping the inside. When my dad got it running, we drove it over to the body shop of a family friend who agreed to paint it inside and out for a very good price if we did all the tape work.

My dad helped me come up with the overall design and we began sourcing cabinets and parts from garage sales and Goodwill as well as a lot of parts and fixtures from an old sailboat that been sitting parked on its trailer in a neighbor’s backyard under the promise we would make it all completely disappear when we were done.

My conversion included a full kitchen with a stove, oven and sink from the sailboat, lots of secure storage compartments we salvaged from the sailboat as well as its dining area that could convert into a double bed. I had plenty of room left over to build a dividing wall that created a large space behind where on one side we built a small bathroom completely lined in stainless steel with the sailboat’s toilet and pressurized flush system and overhead shower system mounted inside the bathroom with a floor drain. On the other side of the van behind the division we mounted the LPG tanks, fresh water and drainage pumps from the sailboat along with 6 batteries to run the pumps and lighting with a standup cabinet space left over for surf boards, etc and a tool storage cabinet. I would modify the space a bit to accomodate  the storage of a small generator. (solar panels would have been nice but they were something I could only read about in Popular Mechanics)

We pulled all of the teak decking off the sailboat to get to the fresh water storage and the drainage tanks which we creatively mounted underneath and then to finish it off, my dad helped me to lay the same teak decking back down onto the plywood floor we had installed inside the van and then sanded, stained and sealed it. It really was a unique camper van that you could stand up inside with room to move about.

The perfect ending to the project was a member of our church agreeing to take away what was left of the sailboat in exchange for its trailer. I only wish I had the foresight to have documented the conversion process, from beginning to end which cost less than 1500 dollars including the engine/trans but hundreds of hours of our labor, sweat and blood.

That van served my friends and I well all through my last year in high school and 4 years of college. We made a lot of trips to different places with that rig and spent one entire summer camping out, fishing and surfing along SoCal beaches, starting out at Pismo and then down to Santa Barbara, Camarillo and Ventura, then Malibu and Santa Monica, Huntington, Newport, Laguna and finally San Clemente and La Jolla.

Out of college and with a new job in Pasadena, I got married and to help us make the down payment on our first home, we sold that van for $4500 back to my dad’s employer, as a HS graduation present to his son. It was in primo condition and my dreams of taking my family camping in the van were dashed by the reality of SoCal housing costs.

And so the story of my van had gone full circle and as much as I hated to lose it, it left me with some amazing memories as well as opening the door to the next stages of my life.

I would give anything to be able to do it all over again.

[BajaGringo]

Sounds amazing! Got any photos?

[mikel]

Unfortunately no. Our home was badly damaged by fire in 1988 from our neighbor’s house next door that completely burned down and everything in our den and my office including nearly every one of our photo albums. We wouldn’t even have any wedding photos really if the photographer hadn’t kept the negatives on file. My brother inherited our dad’s old BetaMax tape collection and we’re still waiting for him to get them converted – somewhere in that collection lies some good footage of my van and I would love to have it back.

[mx-rider]

I think these guys can help you convert those Betamax tapes

https://www.imemories.com/

[mx-rider]

How awesome is that? You were lucky to have such a supportive dad. When I was in high school everything was either “no” or “maybe later”, so I ended up having to do everything on my own with zero help. What great memories that left you with.