After their kids moved out, Rich and Heather decided to downsize. They renovated a sprinter van into their new adventure home on wheels. Come take a tour and see how they are adjusting to van life.
“I’m Rich, and this is my wife, Heather. We’re at Pastebin Park outside of Austin, Texas. We’d love to show you our DIY campervan conversion plans. About four years ago, we watched a documentary on Netflix about tiny homes, and that inspired us to start this project.”
It made us question why we were paying for a full mortgage and why we had so much stuff when we wouldn’t need a four-bedroom house and a swimming pool after the kids moved out.
So, we started looking into tiny homes. At first, we thought it would be hard to manage because of moving logistics, finding places to park, and it seemed stressful.
“We decided to downsize as empty nesters for a few years. There’s this time after the kids finish school and before they settle down. We wanted to be mobile during this time to see where life takes us.
Van life seemed like the perfect way to do that. We bought our brand-new sprinter van with a four-wheel drive package for about $55,000 from the factory.”
The cost to convert the van using only materials was about $22,000 to $23,000. It was a long and tough process. We figured it took about 900 hours of work between us, spread over 30 weekends in a year, to build it ourselves.
The first thing to think about is money: what can you afford? Are you ready to spend time doing it right and researching? If you’re willing to put in the time, you can end up with a really nice van.
We first sketched our ideas on a napkin, and then we made it happen. Now, looking at the van, it looks just like we imagined, and it feels great. Van life is about managing money and enjoying freedom.
We got married and had kids young, so we’ve been tied down for a long time. We want to have adventures now, before we’re too old. We don’t want to wait. Van life makes these adventures possible for us.