VanLife

I got lost every where I went in my younger days... Always terrified I'd end up stranded somewhere, buying paper maps, stopping to check them constantly, trying to memorize the route back to wherever I messed up without messing it up again.

The world's a whole new place nowadays. Me and Phone B*tch (Google maps) hit the road in the spring, and don't look back 'til fall. I tell her to keep me out of the cities and off of the highways, and she sends me down the loveliest windy roads and into adorable small towns. If I turn the wrong way (like out of damn near every parking lot... why can't she say turn left instead of east? You'd think by now she'd know I don't know which way is east...) she figures it out and gets me back on track.

I go nowhere in a hurry. If I need to be somewhere on a specific day, I generally start heading that direction 5 days to a week in advance. I stop and enjoy small town museums, swim in the lakes, nap in rest areas, hang out in parks, shop in thrift stores, visit roadside attractions... I rarely drive more than three hours/day. Sometimes I spend two or three days in a pretty little town, just soaking up the atmosphere.

I'm seasonal, so I loosely plan next summer's adventures through the winter, using findpenguins.com to make notes of festivals, events, attractions, etc., along the way. Getting there is the adventure.Leer más

We set computer/solar fans up on boards for our previous car camping (kia niro) build. One of each for each board. They were transferred to the van as is.

They were intended to fit between the front seats and the doors, pulling cool air in from the slightly open front windows, but most often they were being juggled around while driving.

We kept the passenger side fan in place, as it needed to move less often, and moved the other board to the passenger side mid door, beside the bed.

The USB fans run off of our power stations. The solar fans can run off of either the power station or the small solar panel they come with. I love that I can leave them plugged into the solar panel, on all the time, and they will shut themselves off without costing us power at night. They turn back on in the morning as soon as the sun hits the panel, allowing me to sleep a bit longer, before it gets too hot.

We bought two additional USB rechargeable fans (Walmart - $12), which sit on the cubbies, pulling in cool air from the rear windows.

A rechargeable mini swamp cooler completes the set, providing cool relief on the hottest days.

Solar Panel Fan Kit
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0B82CN85L?ref=ppx_yo2…

USB Computer Fan Black
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B081SW238D?ref=ppx_yo2…

Portable Swamp Cooler
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BX8W5L5T?ref=ppx_yo2…Leer más