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Lessons
Why Van Life
24:42 2Understanding What You Want
03:02 3Breaking Down Your Budget
22:39 4Determining the Overall Best Layout for your Needs
03:52 5Bed Type
11:50 6Van Details: Bathroom or No?
07:37 7Van Details: Temperature Regulation
12:31 8Van Details: Power Management
14:05Van Details: Storage
07:02 10Van Details: Cooking
03:07 11How To Actually Live In Your Van
02:30 12Van Life: Where to Sleep
07:17 13Quin’s Sprinter Van Tour
37:11 14Quin’s Box Van Tour
24:55 15Van Tours: Keon’s Van
05:34 16Van Tours: Shaiden’s Van
11:19 17Van Tours: Brandon's Van
01:05 18Quin’s Van Life Tips
17:26 19Workshop Recap
00:46Lesson Info
Van Details: Bathroom or No?
So on my first van I definitely didn't think I wanted a bathroom. I don't know, it was just kind of like, didn't want the smell in the van. I didn't like the idea. I never had an issue finding rest areas or gas stations. We're always stopping for gas. I figured just kind of run in and use the restroom. And as my builds have progressed I've put a lot more thought and dedication into my bathroom space. Started out with, basically if there's a girl in the van and we're sleeping in the van the girl would need a place to go pee. Like if I'm in, if we're parking in the parking lot of some gas station or some, you know, grocery store I can jump out and pee in the bushes. A girl can't do that as easy. She needed a toilet. I got a really crappy, I think a hundred dollar toilet from Amazon. And I never actually used that thing but it was a game changer for her. And so that was my beginnings of a toilet. And then in my next build I ended up getting a Nature's Head composting toilet just because I...
had heard from a van-life friend that it was the Cadillac of toilets. So I kind of like that term. Yeah. Ever since I got the Nature's Head toilet, it's a composting toilet, it really changed the game for me. I don't wake up and need to use the restroom and then need to, you know, put everything away real quick and drive down the street or drive to the nearest gas station or whatever. It's just a self-contained thing in the van. It makes it feel a lot more like home and I've grown to really, really rely on and appreciate having a bathroom in my van. And bonus it really just never smells. 'Cause the toilet that I have is, it always has a fan going in it and it's vented at the bottom of the van. So any smell that happens to be there goes out the bottom of the van. We never really, never smell it at all. So yeah. A big question is, you know, if you want a toilet in the van, then you need to start planning for that. Where the toilet's gonna be. I, for instance, have my toilet right here. Open this door and then it slides out. And this space that I'm sitting in, so like the space on the slider-door which normally isn't used all that much is, kind of converts into that toilet space. And that's worked really well for me. I had a toilet on my previous build that was in the middle of everything. So I would pull it out, it was at the foot of the bed. It was right where I would be cooking. So basically if I was cooking or sleeping or anything like that, and the toilet was out then it would kind of disable all of that functionality. So I like the toilet to have its own space. To not be in the middle of the the whole van and to be able to like even pull it out and leave it out at night. That's a pretty big luxury that I've gotten to really like in this layout. Yeah. A lot of composting toilets back in the day used like just wood chips. Didn't really have a scent to it or anything. But like I just remember in Havasupai, it's like this track in Arizona, the toilets were composting toilets and you were supposed to like scoop out two scoops of wood chips after you used the toilet. It's not like that. It doesn't, you don't add in things after you use the toilet. What it is is you just spin it. You spin it, you churn it up. And I think also the fan in it really helps. Like oxygen helps to like basically turn waste into that soil. So they say that it actually helps to use the toilet more for it to work. Like if it's sitting there it's not gonna be functioning quite as well. So, you know, I actually opt to use my toilet inside my van even if I'm in a restaurant, lots of times. 'Cause it is my bathroom. That's what it's turned into, you know? And even when I'm parked in front of my parents' house they have a bathroom there that nobody else is using, I still use my van toilet. Might sound kind of weird, but I don't know. It's just kind of like, it's nice to, similar with just like sleeping in my van bed. It's nice to like, even when I'm at home to use this toilet, to use the same bed, and then when I take off it doesn't feel like I'm traveling at all. It just kind of is completely seamless. And so whether I'm in the driveway of my parents' house or like the middle of nowhere about to start a five day trek in the Sierras, it still feels like the same place, you know? It's a weird thing. I mean, sleeping obviously is probably number one, to be able to like have a consistent sleep space but to have a consistent toilet, it's pretty underrated. Like to have a consistent kitchen where you know where everything is. That's also really nice. Toilet, right up there too. Yeah. So eventually like, I would say I use my toilet almost every day. And it's probably like a few months of full time use where it eventually, like when you start spinning it it just gets a little bit more, just a little less easy to spin. A little harder to spin. And that's kind of the cue where basically I just grab a trash bag. I take it out. First off, I take it out and there's just these little screws that are easy to like unscrew. And then you take out the whole toilet, bring it outside the van. I grab a trash bag and kind of wrap it around the compost. And then I flip the whole thing upside down, pour it into a bag and just throw it out in a trashcan. I've also done it in the middle of nowhere where I just dig a hole, 'cause it's compost. So it's completely biodegradable. And the whole process takes probably about an hour tops. As long as you have that extra, you know like brick of coconut coir. So what you do is you you put the coconut coir in there and then you add water. Like I could do it on the road. I've done it on the road with just the water from my sink. And you kind of just get your hands in there and break up the soil until it becomes a nice consistency of soil basically. But people do kind of freak out about the sight too, because soil is brown. So it almost looks like my hands are in like a bunch of crap when in all reality it just smells like, it doesn't even smell like coconut. It just smells like nice, like soil. Like grain, you know, or something like that. So yeah, I don't mind doing that maintenance. It's a really nice luxury to have.