Our Adventure Van Build and the Many Ways We Use It In Everyday Life

So how did it all start? I mean, when did we start to dream of building out our Van? And how did we turn those thoughts and ideas into a realty?

We get asked all of the time, what made you decide to build a camper van? We actually call our build our Adventure Van simply because it was not a van conversion specific to camping or living out of and we don’t consider ourselves ones who live the van life. Sure we can camp outside in it, but this conversion gives us many different options and therefore gives us more flexibility and enables us to hop on an adventure when ever the time comes.

Our Van Forces Us to Get Outside More

Running an internet business & physical storefront full time for our shirt business and our kids wanting to play every sport imaginable has our weekends and time VERY limited. And my wife, Melanie and I noticed since we didn’t have much time for leisure, most of our family’s free time was spent glued to our phones and devices. Not just throwing the kids under the bus, us adults are just as guilty as the kids when it comes to screen time.

Taking the Van Camping Enables Us to Enjoy Nature Like When We Were Kids

I remember growing up – my Dad and his friends taking all of us boys floating on the Buffalo River and then camping on the banks at night underneath the stars. My family had a pop up camper back then too that we would pull behind our old Chevy pickup truck and find different campsites around the State Parks of Arkansas. 

Awwww, the smell of mothballs in the pop up really takes me back to those days! 

By the way, have you ever smelled mothballs? 

If you have…How did you ever get their tiny little legs spread apart to smell them? 

Ha! Sorry, that is my dad joke that kills every time so I had to throw it in here. 

My wife, Melanie, also has fond memories of her parents taking her and her two sisters tent camping in Texas where she grew up. After Mel and I got to reminiscing and telling stories of how much fun we had as kids, we decided we needed to make getting outside more WITHOUT devices a priority of our family. So a couple of years ago we started going camping whenever we could. And when the pandemic hit, we started camping even more and fell deeply in love with the outdoors again. Once we built out the van, then we really had no excuse to throw out gear in the back and head out to secure a campsite. It made packing up and hitting the road for a camping excursion extremely easy.

Our Van Provides Space to Pack Whatever We Need for Camping

The past few years, we have been loading our Ford Expedition down with necessities. Tent, Firewood, Puppy dogs, Coolers, Bikes, just whatever we could fit in there! The back of our SUV is loaded up so heavy sometimes that I swear the back almost drags the ground.

For every camping trip, we were spending a few hours packing then half a day trying to tie everything in place on the car. Sketchy tie down job, here we come! Oh and don’t forget about yelling obscenities because I’m always an hour behind schedule, exhausted and pouring with sweat in the 100 degree Arkansas heat. And the kids are all like, are we leaving yet? 

Sometimes when we stop for gas, I sneak to the back of the car and sigh with relief that nothing has fallen off in my rush to get out of the house.

I kept trying to think of ways where we could still get out in nature, but not have to go through the hassle of trying to fit all this stuff into the space of an SUV. 

Maybe we could rent an RV or something? Maybe we could just pack up an extra vehicle and just both drive to the destination so we could have some extra camping gear there at our camping site? Maybe pull a small trailer? All of those options would have worked but the minute our small business started thinking of getting a vehicle to take to festivals, the idea of making it an adventure van started to haunt me.

We Use Our Van in Place of a Truck

A lot of families own a full sized truck for those rare instances they need to haul some firewood, pick up a couch or haul some bikes. I drive a lot for work anyways so the last thing I want to do is put mileage on and burn up gas owning a truck that I rarely even use for the bed. That is why I have a cheap gas saving car as my daily driver and use the van for those rare instances we would need a truck bed. I can fit anything I would ever need to carry inside of the van…and if it is something a little larger, dirty or odd shaped, most vans have more than enough power to pull a trailer.

Our Business Enjoys the Many Benefits of Access to a Van

Like I mentioned early, my wife and I own a t-shirt brand and screen printing company. We travel to a lot of festivals with our shirts and set up tents and sling tees. We had a van in the past for this business and decided we needed to invest in one again. The idea this time was to purchase a vehicle that we can not only use for work but can also use it for all of our adventures.

While Our Company Purchased the Van Our Family is Able to Use It For Our Many Adventures

We purchased a 2019 Chevy Express 3500 passenger van. This Haus can seat 15 people! Trust me, we looked at all different types of vans such as the Ford Transit, Dodge Promaster, Nissan NV and of course all types of Sprinter vans. We looked at cargo vans as well but ultimately decided on a passenger van as we knew we would be loading up tons of kids to take to sports tournaments and outings.

Because we needed this van for work and would be packing tons of bins filled with t-shirts, we decided we wouldn’t make this a full camper van build as it would limit what else we could use it for and opted to have tons of seats for people and storage available instead. We knew we weren’t going to live in this thing so we decided to leave out stuff that would make it a true camper van such as a sink, stove, solar panels and things like that. But it had all of the room and storage space that we could ever ask for as a work and Adventure van.

Our Van Enables Us to Haul Kids to Sporting and Recreational Events

We are constantly on the road for soccer and baseball tournaments with our 3 kids. Just in the first year we purchased our van we took our family and other teammates and parents to Dallas Texas 5 times, Memphis Tennessee 3 times, Fayetteville Arkansas 6 times, Tulsa Oklahoma 4 times and Kansas City and Branson Missouri just to name a few. Talk about a gas bill! The great thing is that when we also hauled teammates and their parents they all threw in gas money.

We Have More Than Enough Room for Players and Gear

To say we are getting our money’s worth is an understatement. We take out the back seat and throw all the luggage, coolers and kids sports equipment in the back and load the chairs, tents and canopies on the roof rack and away we go.

We even filled our new van up with 13 soccer players for a trip to Lake Ouachita to enjoy a team building lake day.

It Sure Doesn’t Look Like a Normal Work Van.

It is amazing driving down the road how many white work vans you see passing by. We didn’t want to just blend in like the other white vans and wanted to catch peoples eyes as we pulled into these events and festivals. It was a win win situation because our family could enjoy the many uses of our new van while our company financed it for our work needs. Below I discuss the steps I took to transform it from creepy to badass.

Our Adventure Van Strikes Up a Conversation Wherever We Go

So the reason to transform the look of the van is more of a vanity reason but it is still important.

I was shocked to find that my wife Melanie was all about the idea of building an Awesome Van. Her only requirements were: 

1. it can’t look creepy
2. it has to be army green

I can swing that! So we purchased the plain white Chevy Express and immediately started to transform her into all the glory she is today. To transform the outside to fit our vision, we followed 5 simple steps.

The 5 Easy Steps to Transform the Look of Our Van

1. Change the boring white color – Dip Your Car
2. Add a 5 inch lift kit – Weldtech Designs
3. Install oversized wheels and tires – Discount Tire
4. Attach a massive roof rack – This was Custom
5. Install KC Lights on the roof rack – KC Lights

First step was to change the color from the boring and creepy white into army green. I used Plasti Dip and actually sprayed this myself in our garage. Next we got the lift kit from Weldtech and wheels and tires from Tiretrack, had them installed by a local mechanic and then finished up the outside with a custom roof rack and two sets of KC Lights. Here is a post I made about the process of wiring the KC Lights.

Do you Need a Little Direction on your Van Build?

It never fails but wherever we go we always get stopped by people interested in how we changed the color or where we got the lift kit or roof rack from. In fact, this happens so much I finally decided to create a simple eBook explaining all of this in detail that I can point people to. You can find it here if you are also interested.

What Does a Build Like this Cost?

The cost of vans over the last few months has increased like crazy, but the actual cost to convert a van can still be done fairly cheaply depending on how you go about it. We changed the color, installed a lift kit, new wheels and tires and KC lights for under $10,000. If we ever decide to add a fridge, water, electric system or solar then the costs are definitely going to increase. However, the things we have done to our van so far are more than enough for our situation.

Long Road Trips in Our Van.

Just 2 days after got the van complete we took her on her maiden voyage on our summer vacation to Gulf Shores Alabama. Me driving and Melanie riding shotgun. Then we had my mother-in law and 8 year old son Beckham in the first row. Our daughter Lexi had the second row all to herself and our 13 year old son, Hudson was in the third row. We took the very back row out and had more than enough room for everything you could ever imagine. 

Conclusion

Since that trip to Gulf Shores went so well, we are planning some bucket trips to Colorado and Arizona. We are headed to Miami Florida for a Thanksgiving 3 vs 3 National Soccer Tournament and San Diego California next June for a family reunion. Plus, just about every weekend that we don’t have baseball, soccer or basketball, we are taking the van to one of our lovely state parks to tent camp…unless the thunderstorms roll in in which we can throw our sleeping bags in the van.

Do You have to have an Adventure or Camper Van to Experience Life?

I mean, do you need a cool van to go out and create memories? 

Of course not, you can do it without. But we all do feel pretty badass when we pull up in it, have had tons of room to spread out and carry all of our gear. And that sure helps. 

Do You Have a Camper or Adventure Van?

We want to see your Camper and Conversion Vans! Drop your social links below so we can be friends! And stay tuned to see what adventure we have planned next and what modifications we will be doing to our van to make it more comfortable and convenient for our family of 5 adventures!