The Wayward Home Podcast
The Wayward Home Podcast
63: Red Flags to Watch Out For When Hiring a Van Builder with Kristen Bor of Bearfoot Theory
An Instagram-worthy van only goes so far - you need it to be functional and reliable for an enjoyable van life. Our guest, Kristen Bor from the popular outdoor and vanlife blog Bearfoot Theory, has lived on the road for 7 years and undergone 3 different van builds. She shares the nightmare experience of her first van build and the tough lessons she learned about hiring a custom van conversion company.
Kristen walks us through the most important considerations when hiring a van conversion company. First, learn what to look out for in a builder, from asking for references to examining their work firsthand. Kristen stresses the importance of getting educated on van systems beforehand so you can assess builders’ expertise, and to make sure their construction approach matches your planned van use.
We also compare notes on the many van builds we've each experienced, uncovering some key insights on features, materials, and components that might look good but do not always hold up for real life on the road. This episode will not only equip you with the necessary insights for a successful van build but also avoid the potential pitfalls in the process.
Links mentioned in this episode:
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If you're thinking about jumping into van life, you might be wondering about custom van builders. A custom van builder works with you on design and layout and produces the van of your dreams right. However, sometimes this entire process can go horribly wrong. It happened to outdoor and van life blogger Kristen Boer of Barefoot Theory. She's joining us on the podcast today to tell us about her first nightmare van build experience and what she did right the second time around. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Wayward Home podcast. All about van life, boat life and nomadic living. We'll bring you tips, interviews and stories from the road and on the water.
Speaker 1:Now here's your host, kristen Haynes. Hey there, I'm Kristen Haynes with TheWaywardHomecom, and my partner, tom and I live half the year in our camper van and half on our sailboat in Mexico. We've been living tiny since 2016 and hope to inspire you to try something different too. So choosing a camper van conversion company can be challenging. How do you know if the company is reputable? Will you share the same vision? How quickly will your van be finished? Today's guest is Kristen Boer from Barefoot Theory. Kristen got her first custom built camper van in 2016 and has since worked on a builder on two additional vans, so it has some great tips and advice. So, kristen, thanks so much for joining.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks so much Kristen for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So first of all I just want to go back in time and talk about your first van and why you took the leap into van life in the beginning.
Speaker 2:Sure, so I started I run the blog Barefoot Theory, which I started in 2014. I quit my job to start this outdoor focused travel blog and in 2015, I found myself wanting to spend more time on the road, but I didn't really have the ability to work from my vehicle. I was traveling in a Subaru and one of my friends had said that, like oh, I just got a Sprinter van and it's really amazing, and I started looking into him and I thought, oh, that's exactly what I needed. I was traveling alone at the time and so I wanted something that was going to help me feel safe and I was traveling by myself and camping and then also give me the ability to work remotely. That's kind of how I ended up with the Sprinter van back then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how did you decide on like a Sprinter van over the other kinds of vans? What was that choice?
Speaker 2:I knew I wanted the four-wheel drive option, which at the time, the Sprinter was the only name in the game game in town. So that's how I ended up with the Sprinter. I didn't actually really even consider the others, because I knew I wanted something that was going to be able to get me off road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so once you decided on the van, how did you start that process of finding that first builder to work on your van?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so gosh, at the time there weren't as many options. Now, I mean, there's just so many. The internet is flooded with van conversion companies and social media, but at the time there really weren't as many. And I considered first working with SportsMobile, which I'm sure many of your listeners have heard of, and I went and checked out their facility and they make really nice vans, but I wanted something that felt a little bit more homey. They had not as many options. I think it's also changed for them a lot now, like they have a lot more options if you're getting a van from SportsMobile, but at the time it was kind of like well, these are the colors, these are the materials and I wanted something that felt more homey and just more like what I would want my house to look like.
Speaker 2:So I wanted a little tiny house on wheels, and so I went back to the drawing board and I started searching, mostly on social media, and that's kind of where I was focusing my search at the time.
Speaker 1:And then so was this company. It was based in California, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I found a company in Santa Barbara that built seemingly beautiful vans based on the photos I saw on Instagram and reclaimed Barnwood tile which, in hindsight, I've now learned that those aren't necessarily the best materials to use in a van build, especially if you want to go off-roading, which was my goal but they were really pretty looking and very photogenic vans, and so I reached out to him and that's he's who I ended up hiring to do my van build, basically based on some photos I saw online.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I think what I read from some of your blog posts is you worked with them on a design that maybe didn't turn out to be quite right in the end, but what was the process of working with them and how would you do that differently, I guess, in the future? How did you do it differently with your next van build company?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So basically everything different, because the experience ended up being awful. And I hear so many horror stories from people and I just feel for people when they get taken advantage of or end up working with someone who doesn't really know what they're doing. So I'm like, oh, I've been there. It's just such an awful feeling to know that you hired the wrong person when things start to go wrong.
Speaker 2:So basically, like I went out to Santa Barbara, I met with him. We didn't meet at his shop, which I thought was a little bit weird. We met at a coffee shop and I'm thinking like, well, why wouldn't you take me to your facility to show me the vans that you're working on? But again, I was wooed by these pretty photos and he was a decent up salesman, but there were a few red flags like oh, not really being able to quantify like how many vans he's worked on, and you know kind of what the timeline was going to be. And but I just again, there weren't tons of options at the time and I think I had gotten so stuck on like the aesthetics of the van that I wanted that I just sort of put blinders on and I went forward with him. So we signed a contract. The contract was not very detailed, which you know I've since learned like that that was not, that was not good and acceptable. You know, it didn't really have like a delivery day, it didn't have like a warranty in place. Sure, there were other things that were missing from the contract that I can't even think of at the time, but so basically, like I, he got the van and we didn't even really like agree on a layout beforehand, which was also, you know it's kind of weird.
Speaker 2:I think you know when you're hiring someone to build your van, you decide on the layout. You're not making those decisions. But where is the battery is going to go, Where's the water tank is going to go? Like all of that should be decided like before you start the process and even maybe not before you sign the contract, because you know you make some of those decisions like once you, once you are like in that process, but definitely before the like the manual labor starts, and so we didn't really like decide on a layout.
Speaker 2:So you know, we're kind of he's like kind of gathering some materials and like we're constantly making changes to the layout, because I honestly didn't know what I wanted at the time. You know I was new to this like whole van life thing and you know I was changing my mind a lot, which I would definitely advise people to have, like a more solid plan of what you want before you hire somebody to build your van. But yeah, so, like I decided I wanted a full bathroom in the van. Well, he'd never built a full bathroom in a van before, which I did not know. I didn't know that until I was like actually picking the van up and he admitted that to me and but liked, but I think part of the job of a VM builder, whose experience should be to like steer you in a right direction Okay, well, you know you want X, Y and Z. Well, if you want a full bathroom, X, Y and Z, you're not going to happen, because this is what's going to happen this is where you're going to have to put your water tanks, or this is where we're going to have to put the water heater. So there's a lot of like that kind of thing going on. But like him not really telling me like, oh, okay, like you want to shower, well, then we're going to have to put a water tank outside and you live in Utah in the winter and a water tank outside is going to freeze and be unusable. Again, I blame myself partly for not educating myself beforehand, and that's part of why I've written so extensively on my website about VanLipe, because I want to help people avoid, you know, these mistakes that I made the first time around by, you know, getting educated, knowing exactly what you want, and then also like making sure you pick someone who knows what they're doing. So anyways, the sort of fast forward.
Speaker 2:There was also like lots of miscommunication about, like, when the van was going to be done. You know he's telling me, oh, it's going to be done next week. So I buy a plane ticket to go down there to pick it up and I get there and it's like in shambles, it's not going to be done. For, like it ended up being six more weeks and like every day it was like, oh yeah, it'll be done tomorrow, It'll be done tomorrow, and it just kind of like pulling me along and you know it's a very unprofessional and so, and then when the van was finally done, things were falling apart.
Speaker 2:Like literally the day I left his shop, Like that night, the shower handle fell off on my drive home, like my two hour drive that night. The first time I took a shower, the water leaked all over the van because the shower pan wasn't sealed, my solar panels stuck working, like on my first big trip in the van, and so there were just a lot of things that went wrong, and then I ended up spending so much time fixing those things and money as well, beyond what I had originally budgeted for this van build, so it just really felt like a disaster. It felt like a huge mistake, and you know, ultimately, like I still enjoyed my time that I did get to have fun with that van, but I knew that it was not the van for me, and so once I was able to fix everything, I decided I need to sell this van and start over. I decided I wanted a completely different layout no shower, platform bed. You know I really wanted to.
Speaker 2:I learned a lot about what I wanted with that first van, and so I decided to go back to the drawing board. But you know, in that process working with this guy, I just learned so much about what to do and what not to do when you're trying to figure out if you're going to hire, especially now that there's like, like I said, you know hundreds of companies and you know a lot of these guys are probably learning on YouTube as they're building your van. They're learning how to build your van based on someones YouTube videos that they're watching. So you know, I think that there's that's an issue when people are charging you top dollar for your van. So I just want to make sure that people don't like fall into that trap like I did.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so hard to know. Like you said, even now there's just like these van companies are popping up all the time and it's like how do you know, like, who's doing a good job, or you know who these people are? Like, what tips would you have for people that are researching and trying to figure this out? It seems so challenging. Yeah, well, I think you know.
Speaker 2:The first step, like I said, is to get educated, because the more educated you are, the more you're going to be able to tell whether someone is embellishing their knowledge or not. So if you go online, you read about water systems, you read about solar, you know what kind of batteries or at least like how much battery power you want, you have an idea of the layout you want, and then you go talk to them and it seems like maybe you know, maybe more, or you know, have some different understanding of things than they do. Then you know that's something to consider, because someone you're hiring should be able to steer you in the right direction, versus like feeling like you have to come in and tell them, like everything, and when I think it just helps you kind of weigh how much they really know. So getting educated first, I think, is like the very first tip. Obviously, how much experience they have is really important. You know there are new builders who are talented. So I don't want to say that like, oh, just because you've never built a you know a young professional van before, doesn't mean that you can't.
Speaker 2:Vous origineriez, vous êtes oukie administrator. Have you lived or traveled in a van yourself? Have you built your own van? You know, I think that's how a lot of people do get started. But, like this guy that I hired, he had never even traveled in a van. Like well, like that should have been a red flag, like right off the bat, like he never even built a van for himself, so why would I think that he would have known how to build a van? For me, his building experience was based on furniture, which is very different. Building furniture in a house versus like in a moving vehicle on wheels. You know different materials different. You know the way that they secure face to the walls it all different. So you know someone's saying oh, I'm experienced as I build furniture. That is not good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 2:I mean, maybe they're experienced building boats or trailers or some other vehicle or like you know moving thing on wheels, that you know where the walls are vibrating and that kind of thing. Yeah, but furniture is not not good like furniture. Experience doesn't cut it really when it comes to, like building a van, you know. So you want to know how much experience they have and you know, if they don't have tons of experience, well, like what qualifies them? I mean, you really need to dig in and ask lots of questions and, you know, trust your gut instinct as well. Like I said, there were red flags for this guy and I just sort of said, oh well, but it looks nice, so it must be good. But you know, now, luckily there's so many more, so more options. So if the person that you're interviewing like something's not right, well then run away and find somebody else, because there's so many more people doing this now. So I think that's kind of where I would start, at least with you know, trying to set somebody out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very true. It is like a long interview process trying to figure out, like hiring someone for a job. It's like you're hiring them. So it's good, like you said, to ask them questions and I wonder if it's often possible to see what they've done in the past, because you were saying with the first van bill you couldn't even see his warehouse. Like is that something you'd recommend is like ask for a tour of other vans or their warehouse?
Speaker 2:Definitely yeah. So if they have vans in the bill process, I mean even better if you can kind of see what they're doing with the wiring behind the walls and like how clean does the wiring look? How are they attaching the cabinets to the walls of the van? You know all that is like really helpful to see like a van in the process, I think. Also asking for references and making sure that those references are just like a family member or a best friend who's like obviously gonna get them, you know, a good recommendation.
Speaker 2:So for my second and my third van bill I worked with the outside van. They're based in Portland, Oregon, and I kind of went from one extreme to the other. Like this guy who I worked with were a zero experience and outside van is like one of the like best companies in the van conversion space with the most experience. So when I was deciding who to hire for the second van, I knew I wanted someone with a lot more experience who could stand behind their work, and so I went out to their facility and I saw the vans and I said, oh wow, this is like such a different experience than what I got with the first guy, and so I think seeing the work in person is definitely helpful if you can do that.
Speaker 2:Like, the pictures don't always show the whole picture, you know, when you go in person you can see kind of like how clean is the cabinetry? Like, you know, how does everything line up, Did the drawers close smooth? You know just. And like, where are all the systems and how like, are they easy to operate? You know, and a lot of times you can't necessarily see that in the picture, but if you can see it, man, in person, you're gonna get a much better idea.
Speaker 1:Right. So when you first started working with outside van, was that experience really different than the first guy? Like that they help walk you through layout ideas, and was that just a better, more professional experience with them? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:So the way they work is basically you know, once you decide that you're gonna hire them, you go through this like whole design process. You get a dedicated designer who's gonna work with you on like literally every inch of the van and you get like a 3D, sort of like your computer rendering of like what the space is gonna look like. I even went there and like we taped out the floor of the van because we were doing a layout that was sort of new to them and so we wanted to make sure that it was actually gonna work, and so they really like were able to go through that whole process with me and it was just so helpful. And another big difference was, once we finalized the layout, I got like an itemized invoice of every single line item in the van every light switch, every foot of cabinetry, every battery.
Speaker 2:And with the first guy I didn't get anything like that. I just got like a top line number of like oh, this is how much it's gonna cost. And then actually, like he was asking me for more money, like oh, like you know, this actually costs more than we thought. Like can you send me you know another tank brand or however much it was? And it's kind of like whoa, like that's not cool. And so I really appreciated with Outside man how I got like this, you know this like itemized invoice, so I knew exactly what every single component cost. And that's also helpful because when you are coming up with your budget for your van, if you're like maybe I don't need that on eaten or maybe I don't need that sidestep because I wanna, you know, I need to like cut the cost of the van a little bit here or there, and so doing it that way really allows you to see like, okay, what are my priorities in terms of like what I'm spending my money on?
Speaker 1:That is amazing. They gave you the line options like that and you can choose to delete things. I didn't know that that was possible, so that seems amazing. And did they provide like a warranty? Like you were saying the first guy, there was like no warranty involved. Is there one on the outside van?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so with the first guy, I was up in Olympic National Park and all of a sudden I noticed like my freezer, like my freezer had defrosted and there was water and like all over the floor from the ice in the freezer, and I was like that's so weird. And so, as it like turns out, my solar panels were not charging and I also he didn't hook up my batteries to my alternator, which I think is pretty standard practice now, because the alternator can charge your batteries so much more quickly than solar and it's also a nice backup if it's cloudy or it's winter or whatever. So so, anyways, my solar panels weren't working and my partner Ryan he's type one diabetic and we had his insulin in the fridge like the insulin's like getting like nothing in my fridge is cold. And you know, I was like in sort of a panic because it was like the first trip we'd ever taken. We like didn't have any service and he didn't give me any manuals for the van, for like any of the parts not that probably would have been helpful anyways, but so we had to drive into Port Angeles or wherever we were, and I called him and he like literally had no idea how to help me and his only option for helping me was for me to drive my van all the way down to Santa Barbara and he would take a look at it. Well, at that point I decided that this guy was just a crony, and you know I didn't want anything to do with him. And it really like he wasn't really providing any sort of warranty or assistance and it was clear that he didn't like if he wired it wrong in the first place, why would I trust him to fix it? And I ended up going to like an RV shop in Port Angeles and they said that he had used like completely the wrong type of wire to like wire up my solar panels, and so they got them working again. But I ended up having to replace like the whole system, which you know he did not help me with. And so having a warranty was like really important for me as I went into my second van build. So outside of the van offered a three year or 36,000 mile warranty where they just fixed. You know, I mean I really didn't have anything like major happen with my second van and I'm still under the warranty with my third van and but yeah, they just like, they just take care of it and that's what, like, a professional company should do.
Speaker 2:What you know outside of the van or anybody else you know. If you're spending top dollar on a van and something breaks within you know a year or however long the warranty may cover, like they should, they should take care of it. And you know, sometimes that means you know if you're in New York and you're conversion companies in California like you shouldn't be expected to drive your van across the country because you know something's not working right. So in that case, you know you can ask well, what happens in that case? Are you going to help me find a company nearby that can fix it or are you going to cover the cost? If you know I do have to go get somebody else local to work on this, or can they send me a part so I can fix it myself? And you know, do like outside of the van has like a full warranty, like department that you know will help you.
Speaker 2:So when things go wrong it's like one person that you call and they you know he helps you. So I don't mean to keep referring back to them because there are other, you know big players in this being conversion. You know space that I'm sure are comparable. That's just who my experience is with and it's like showing me. But hey, this is again like what a professional van conversion company can and should do and I think that that's sort of the difference between. Again, I don't want to knock the small guys, because I you know, or girls you know who are building vans, but a bigger company is just going to have more capacity and like capital to help you fix your van when things go wrong, where someone who's new and starting out they might not have, you know, the excess funds to just like replace your batteries or you know something, in the case that something breaks. So I think that's just something to keep in mind. You know, if you are going to work with a smaller company like these are important questions that you have to ask.
Speaker 1:Right, because you're really burned on that first guy that you had to put so much additional money toward things that were breaking. I mean, that sounds like a nightmare. Yes, oh my gosh, Were your like cabinets, were things like falling coming loose as you drove down four by four roads with that van?
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't really get to drive off on many four by four roads because I was so scared of things breaking. But like, yeah, the drawers like stopped work. You know, like the push buttons that you know people used to like keep their drawers put in. I know they fail, it's not like it's. You know, even in a really well built van, sometimes those buttons, you know things just get misaligned.
Speaker 2:But I mean, none of them were working and like a lot of the, because the wood he used wasn't like I don't think it was just like reclaimed wood, it wasn't like sealed, which with like temperature swings if you're going from a snow to like a hot, you know a hot summer climate like the wood is going to war over time. And so you know, just like, looking at the materials that these companies use as well, like again, like, if you're like tile has become kind of like a popular material and some of these more like Instagram worthy, pinterest worthy vans. But you know, if you want to drive off road and you want to go up mountain passes, like dirt road mountain passes with your van, like those materials probably aren't the best choice. And so someone who you know, when you're interviewing a company, like they should ask you what you want to use your van for and then be able to steer you in the right direction as far as like what are like the best materials for the purpose that you want to use your van for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very true. I have seen a lot of those vans you're talking about that look almost like a house or an apartment on the inside with the fancy materials and I'm like that's just going to jostle free, going off-roading If that's. But maybe people don't want to do that, like, maybe people just want to go to campgrounds and not do off-roading. But me and you love boondocking and getting into nature, so we need that stuff to be sealed down and the suspension and everything. So, yeah, it depends on what you're using the van for, I guess too.
Speaker 2:And exactly yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh my gosh. So good. So your experience with outside van was so good. You had your third van built with them, also to accommodate the newest member of your family, right? Yes, yes, I had a son back instead of you, larry.
Speaker 2:And so now it's three of us plus two dogs, and my second van only had two seat belts, so we had to sell that one, which I've learned with that van so much. But yeah, I had to sell that to accommodate a third seat belt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and earlier we touched on it very briefly that you decided to change some of your layout after that first van. And you know so many people ask me and probably you like why don't you have a bathroom in your van? I could ask that all the time and you had a bathroom in your van, so you've done both. I've never had one in my van. So I can't I don't know what it's like, but yeah, what was what made you decide on some of these layout changes after that? First van Sure.
Speaker 2:So the first van was like when you open the slider door there was like a convertible sofa against the wall behind the driver's seat. That was like sort of my work area, but then it pulled out into a bed and then behind the bed was the galley and then on the passenger side, in the back, was the full shower, bathroom and some storage space. And what I learned when I was traveling by myself in that van? It was fine because I could just sleep on the sofa as is. I didn't have to pull it out and make it. But I didn't like the convertible bed idea in general. I found it annoying to have to like find somewhere to store my bedding every day. If, like when Ryan, my partner, and I were traveling together, if I wanted to get up early and work while he was still asleep, I couldn't do that. I actually couldn't do anything because the bed took up the whole front half of the van, so I couldn't really even, like you know, get up to like. I mean, I functioned in the kitchen a little bit, but then I had nowhere to sit. I was like climbing over the bed to get from one side of the van to the other and then, yeah, the full bathroom ended up just being such a waste of space. For me it was like an expensive closet basically.
Speaker 2:And I guess, with the shower, my thought is, you know, with this, unless you have a duly and you can carry like a lot more water, you know most vans are only carrying 20, 25 gallons max, and so the shower that you can take with that water is very quick. You know, kind of military style, where you're like rinsing yourself, turning off the water, lathering up, rinsing, turning off the water. You're not like standing under a nice hot shower, like really enjoying yourself. And the space is so small that, like you know, I'm only five foot five, but it's not, you know, I still felt cramped in there and so like try to like shave my legs or something you know like bend over it in there. Anyway, sorry to paint that picture, but you know it's just a small space and I, you know, I imagine, for you know, someone bigger, like my partner, ryan, or like a larger man, it just doesn't really make a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:And there's just so many places on the road that you can shower. You like to shower at recreation centers. Those are kind of my favorite because they tend to be really clean and sometimes you can use a pool and hot tub and sauna or whatever if they have that. So you know that's one good option. You know every now and then we'll stay at like a paid campground that has a shower, so that's an option like visiting family and friends. I've never showered at like a truck stop, but that's an option. So there's so many different places that you can shower. It just felt like such like I could actually get an Airbnb like many, many times throughout the year and it still wouldn't be as expensive as it costs to like build a shower in my van. So that that was kind of that.
Speaker 2:And then so I kind of went from the extreme of having like the shower and I had like a cassette toilet to having no shower and no cassette toilet and just using like a P jar P bottle to go the bathroom, for number one, and then using like public facilities for number two.
Speaker 2:But then COVID happened and it was like, oh, maybe it would be nice to have like not be so reliant on public facilities. So now we have a like a Wagbag toilet, which the one we use is made by Go anywhere. It's like a little foldable, almost like a little foldable briefcase and the legs like pop out and then you just put a Wagbag in and it's really simple and easy to use and then when you're not using it, it stores away and it doesn't take up any space, and then we still use jars for going pee. So and that's what's worked for us. Now that I have a baby and like once he becomes a party training age, I don't really know what we'll do. You know, we're just going to have to kind of figure it out. I would like to test out like there's just like more new composting toilets coming on the market, so I'd be open to doing something like that in the day I have now or maybe a future van. But yeah, that's my thought for the toilet.
Speaker 1:This is totally digressing from our original conversation, but everyone always asked about toilets. But I tried a composting toilet and it like really grossed me out. It was like it wasn't big enough for two people to use every day, like I think it'd be fine for people to use in an emergency or like once a week or once a month, but we tried using it every day for a week and it did not work at all. It was like the grossest experience in my life and I'm like I'm never. I think like definitely for you know, having a once in a while emergency toilet in the van, you know, like year ago, anywhere a chair which my dad also uses. He loves that thing. He digs a hole in the earth and puts it over that. But we could do a whole episode on toilets, oh for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's interesting that you didn't put one in your other vans and like did you put anything else in there that used that space that you just found was a better, better living area?
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely, yeah. So I'm all about the platform bed. Now I think it's not like that to say that's like YOU're calling for some kind of that. I just like having storage under the bed for all of my outdoor gear.
Speaker 2:We travel with backpacking gear sometimes. Sometimes we have pack rafting gear. We've had stand-up palliboards. We swap things out based on where we're going, or up until this year was the least amount of time I spent in my band. Up until this year, we were spending anywhere from about eight or nine months a year in our band. Then we were coming back home to Utah this year because of maybe we spent a lot more time at home and lost him on the road. But when we're going to be gone for eight or nine months, we have a lot of different gear we want to bring, because we don't know where the road is going to take us and what kind of outdoor adventures we might be having. We had bikes, backpacking gear, palliboards, just all kinds of stuff. That really a convertible bed. You lose all of that storage space. You've gained some living space because you have a nice dinette that you can sit at and eat at and work at, but you lose all the storage for all the gear and whatnot.
Speaker 2:I'm a big fan of that. I switched from a gas stove in my first van to induction, which is way better. Even in my second van I was able to have the platform bed and still accommodate a small dinette for working. Since I work from the road, when we're in our van I have stuff I have to get done. I really like that. In my second van I had a dedicated dinette working area in addition to the bed. I didn't have to set up my workspace, take it down when I was done. Now in my third van, because of the third seatbelt chair, I don't have a dedicated workspace anymore, which has definitely been a little bit harder If I come to work outside.
Speaker 2:It's hard to work with the baby anyways in the van, which we could do a whole lot of sort of mess, just travel. The platform bed is probably the biggest change. I just like being able to if we're driving. We've driven across the country several times. We've just stayed in rest areas because we're just trying to get to New York where my partner Ryan's from Just being able to drive until we're tired and then get in the bed and go to bed versus like oh, I've got to get off the seats in the pillows and make the bed and go through that whole process. I just love being able to just hop back there and not having it be a big process.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Yeah, I'm totally with you on that. We also have the platform bed, and too much outdoor gear to even talk about is ridiculous, but these are our outdoor haulers. They call them gear haulers. They help us get into nature. That's what's important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. I mean, everybody's done this van life for a different reason, but for me, I started van life because I wanted easy access to the outdoors and to nature and to be able to camp in places that I wouldn't have been able to camp otherwise, and to be able to travel long term in my vehicle without feeling like too cramped, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really wonderful thing to have a sprinter you can walk around in, because we started in an Astro and that was way smaller mini van which is a convertible bed. But having these large vans with a full bed is just a wonderful experience. I'm very thankful for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. It definitely feels like the luxury, I think, to be able to travel in that way and just the freedom that you get from traveling in a van and the ability to be spontaneous. I just think that there's no other form of travel that provides those benefits in the same way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. It's your own tiny home. If you work with a good builder, it'll be the right one. With not-stop-breaking constantly, that was a pretty crazy story that you have.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Have you heard that from other people too, with bad builders?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sadly I have. I think people read, they come across my blog and they're like I get a lot of emails from people that are like, oh my gosh, your story is so familiar. I wish I had read your blog before I hired so and so, yeah, it's just really unfortunate. I think the van life industry just has exploded. I think a lot of people have seen opportunity in creating businesses around serving the van life community. One type of those businesses is being a van builder. Again, I think people are like oh, I built furniture, I can build vans. I think so.
Speaker 2:I do think it happens, and I think also, like, just with the cost, I think a lot of people, a lot of these new builders, couldn't get in under their head because they don't realize how much it's actually going to cost to build a van, how much time it's going to take, and so you give in this person your money, but then they're like run out of money because they underestimated how much it was going to cost or the amount of time it was going to take them, and so then you're kind of left with a van that's not done or something that's just really subplor or just a person who's really difficult to work with.
Speaker 2:So I think you also need to make sure that your personalities mesh, that you like them as people, because you're going to be in touch with them a lot during the process of building your van and have to work with them on the layout and all that. So you just want to make sure that it's a person that you actually like, might enjoy hanging out with, even if you will never actually hang out with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good tip because you are working with them for many months on your van and you want to like them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good to keep in mind, cool.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, tell people more about your blog. I know I found you in I don't know if you know this, but in 2015 when I was planning my John Muir trail hike. So you were like the top resort or the top results on Google, and I read all your stuff and it helped me plan it, so that's how I found you. Oh, amazing, awesome. Yeah, a long time ago. I've been following you and your van build, so, yeah, your blog is fantastic, so tell people about it, what they can find over there.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, so I. My blog is called Barefoot Theory but it's spelled bear, like the animal, because I have a great bull dead dancing bear tattoo on my foot, so that is where the name comes from, and I write about van life. I have like probably 70 different blog posts on my site of all aspects of you know choosing a van, having a van built out, like all the decisions that you have to make, and then just tips for living, traveling, working on the road. I also hike. That's like my favorite activity when I'm on the roads. I have tons of hiking content. I'm trail guides, tips, gear and I'm seeing, with backpacking and car camping and road tripping, lots of itineraries. So that's kind of what I do and, like I said, I spend normally a lot more time in my van. Hopefully I'll get back on the road soon, once my baby's a little bit older, but, yeah, so that's what I do, and you can find me at Bearford Theory on the internet and on the socials and on YouTube, yeah, so awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, definitely link to all your stuff below so people can go click over there and find it. And yeah, if you, I know you have some van life specific email list, so if you know what, we're going to add a link to that as well, so people can come join your email list. You send out good stuff. I'm on it, so yeah thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also mentioned I don't know what the future holds for this that I do put on an event called the open roads vest. I've done it twice in McCall, idaho, and last year we had like 450 people come in, all different types of vehicles, vans and even tank campers coming to learn about van life with workshops. We also have mountain biking and paddleboarding and yoga and live music and it's just amazing gathering. I don't know what I'm going to do next summer, but just to put it on people's radar to keep an eye out in case I decide to announce any future dates. You can find that at openroadsvestcom.
Speaker 1:Very cool. Well, yeah, also link to that so people can stay up to date. But, yeah, thank you so much. Is there anything we missed on choosing a van bill company, that we talked about a lot of things. No, I think that's it.
Speaker 2:I mean the people can reach out to leave their questions.
Speaker 2:I mean I hesitate to like ever recommend, like specific builders just because, like a blog will email me like, oh, do you know it's so and so, and it's like I can't say yes or no because I haven't traveled and lived in one of their vehicles. So it's really hard. I think the best thing that you can do is find somebody who's built you know, who owns a van by the company that you're seeing about hiring, and like really, really talk to them. I think also, like a lot of the you know, there's so many like industry events now, like the Overland Expo and the Adventure Band Expo, like a lot of the companies are there. So that's a great place to see lots of different van van builds in one place and then you can kind of compare and contrast. I mean I think the more built lands you see before you go into this process, you know it helps, you know what you want and it also just like allows you to compare and contrast like quality from like the naked eye.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. You mentioned that. I also wanted to mention that too. So I'm glad there's all these events Adventure Van and the Overland Expo. I don't know if there's other ones, but it's a great place to tour vans. I've done that myself and it's fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like and I think the innovation is really neat. You know, people are coming out with like even your fellow, like wow, like you think every layout has been used by now, but sometimes you see see new things that you're like wow, I would have never thought of that. And so it's going to need to see what some of these people are coming out with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, cool. Well, thank you so much for joining the podcast. You have so much good tips and advice, so thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much Okay.