theDangerz- still going, different rig, new adventures

RMP&O

Expedition Leader
thanks.
yes the drawings are mine...just an attempt to leave some ideas behind of projects for the next set of volunteers. was really fun because a few of the boys were sitting with us and would immediately shoot down the playground items they hated or make changes to the ones they wanted to better suit their dream playground (although anything was better than the cheesegrater slide we encountered when we got there!)

my background is a long story...
- educated as an architect, but loved the education/hated the field. walked away right after graduation and had not much to show for it other than 80k in loans =(
- moved into graphic design to try and make money with creativity but the company i worked for changed directions. while i was with them for over a decade only about a year in design
- i have always been looking for a way to make money from creativity, but it sadly its always just been something that happens on the side (when there happens to be time).
- now we have plenty of time, but little space to make art in the bus...still an issue we are trying to solve. always open to ideas!

Just an idea for you...

I met a guy a few years back while in Baja. He was/is hitch hiking to the tip of South America. He was on the cheap and didn't even have a camera. What he did have was a sketch book. Rather than taking pictures, he sketched. Three years later he is still hitch hiking and still drawing. He has gotten very good too. His blog posts are well written and complimented by his drawings. It is really cool. He also often trades a drawing for something, for example a ride or something to eat. Any ways, just an idea....a pad of paper and a pencil is cheap! No idea if you could make money off your drawings, I guess that depends how good you are!

Enjoying your trip report too!! Keep it up!

Cheers
 

dangerbus

BryDanger
sorry about the lag between posts...life keeps doing that.

if you havent been watching, we are back in portland.
funny thing happened on the road, we decided home was actually the place for us. what a fabulous realization!

so now 8months later were still intentionally unemployed and trying to figure out how to continue living the simple, free spirited adventurous lives we began when driving south...but hopefully permanently.

We're building a tiny home in our garage so we can live rent and mortgage free and then we will start focusing on how to afford more travel and adventures.

and as such...we've decided to sell our vehicle. its tragic and exciting all at the same time but we're hoping that the person who buys it shares our passions for design and for exploration...and that the bus will continue the journey even if it isnt with us behind the wheel.

if youre looking for a fully outfitted overland vehicle (that happens to already be in central america) let us know!!

for all the details, click here.
http://www.thedangerz.com/dreams-for-sale/
 

dangerbus

BryDanger
a new phase of our adventure and a new camper build!

Wow... haven't been on in a while. True testament to how much life shifted for a while there.

We spent the last year and a half working our tails off to secure/solidify our foundation so that we can keep living the life we learned we loved while on the road.
I honestly don't know how people return from life on the road and go back to their jobs and mortgage payments etc. We feel full on broken and like that's no longer an option for us.
Instead, we decided to build a small home out of our garage so that someone else could pay our mortgage. 480sqft that feels huge compared to the bus but probably looks crazy small to anyone else. We love it...its our perfect home (home base) and we wouldnt have it any other way!
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Once the mortgage was covered and we had a place to live (when in town) we really started to feel like continued freedom was a real option, so we started a few other projects to build up a bit more passive income (only a trickle, but far better than watching watching the money flow out every month!) and somehow even started a business helping other people design/build small homes, garage conversions, accessory dwellings etc.
http://www.zenboxdesign.com

Never planned on a business, but woke up at some point and realized i was doing all the work for free in the middle of the night for friends/neighbors... and if we enjoy it enough to do it for free maybe its worth doing for money.

Regardless...now our projects are mostly wrapped up and we're excited to get back to adventure/exploration/vanlife!
That said...we also had a bit of an epiphany over the last few months that the VW Bus was keeping us from travel rather than driving us to travel more. Read all about that struggle here if you're interested,

http://www.thedangerz.com/new-really-tall-member-of-the-family/
but long story short we now have a sprinter and are starting in on our second custom camper build (and couldn't be more excited)!!

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More to come!!
 

jkilgore11

Adventurer
My wife and I think you are an excellent writer. I just read your whole story to her. It is amazing! After our last trip of living in a roof top tent for 5-1/2 weeks, we came home and sold everything we could. We went from a 2500 sq foot home with a guest house to a 544 sq ft cabin built in the 60's. Everyone thinks we are crazy, but we couldn't be happier. We did all of this to pursue our dreams of traveling and plan to drive to Alaska this summer. Happy travels to you both!
 

dangerbus

BryDanger
My wife and I think you are an excellent writer. I just read your whole story to her. It is amazing! After our last trip of living in a roof top tent for 5-1/2 weeks, we came home and sold everything we could. We went from a 2500 sq foot home with a guest house to a 544 sq ft cabin built in the 60's. Everyone thinks we are crazy, but we couldn't be happier. We did all of this to pursue our dreams of traveling and plan to drive to Alaska this summer. Happy travels to you both!

Thanks for the kind words!
Most of the world thinks we're crazy too...but if that's what it takes to be immensely happy i guess we'll take it! :)
 
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dangerbus

BryDanger
our new van life (4x4 sprinter build)

Wow...it's like I took a (long) hiatus from the interweb or something...

How exactly do i provide an update for a year and half?? Yikes.
Maybe its best if i start a new thread, or maybe this is simply the furthest possible stretch of "and beyond" in the thread title... not sure.

In a nutshell... we're still out there convinced we can make this full time travel and nomadic living thing work longterm and refuse to believe anything else (we've now passed the 5.5year mark on the road and arent looking to plant roots anytime soon)!! :wings:


Okay...details
We outfitted our 2016 sprintervan (4x4 2500 high roof) with a temporary camper setup to test our build plans and lived in it for almost a year or so making sure we knew what we wanted long term. That temporary setup ended up sticking for that long only because we moved in (making it really difficult to finish).

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We tested that system hard driving around BC and Alberta for a few seasons and logging almost 15k miles on the back roads and crown lands...
trying to see as much and get as lost as we could in the new rig and with our new ability to get further out than most.
Certainly one of if not the best summers we can remember, yet somehow our list of things/place to see and do in the PNW keep getting longer rather simply checking items off the list.

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We also parted with E the bus. Never formally listed E for sale on normal listings but through word of mouth found a family who seemed a good fit and would make sure E was still finding adventure and seeing trails rather than rusting out in a garage somewhere. Sad to part ways and see that chapter close, but have to admit that standing upright in the sprinter and all the places it takes us (without breaking down every 3rd day) have made the transition easier than i would have imagined.

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Last october we finally went forward with the full build, after a year of me trying to redesign every last component in an attempt at engineering the system in a way that it was mostly plug and play (uses only factory holes and bolts rather than turning the van into swiss cheese via screws) so we could remove it as needed for upgrades, enhancements, etc...but also so we could easily use it as a template for future builds as needed.

After 2 months in the shop we called it (mostly) done and took off for an epic winter road trip thanks to our having purchased the mountain collective pass. Odd for us to not be heading south and rather assumed we would only survive a week or two but ended up having one of the best winters (despite a few weeks figuring out the vans' systems in temps as low as -28F. Gulp.

All in, our winter included about 7000miles, 16 different resorts, about 40days on the slopes and tons of days hopping around from mountain to mountain and hotspring to hotspring (not bad for a couple of self-professed beach bums)!

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Since then we've just been doing more of the same.
Living in the van, stealth camping about 80% of our time and drifting to whatever fun event our friends have going on, or whatever place we decide to check off the list that day/week/month. Started a few businesses that mostly fill my creative side but also occasionally add to the travel fund.

If anyone wants more detail...just ask. Or, do a bit of reading up on the blog i guess. While i haven't been at good at updating there as often as i would like either, i di do a pretty good job or wrapping up each year around the holidays, for at least a bit of a quicker read.
http://www.thedangerz.com/category/year-in-review/

Ill try to do a better job moving forward of making updates here... but for the most part i update every few days on instagram... simply because its the easiest thing for us to do from pretty much anywhere.
https://www.instagram.com/thedangerz/
 

Forrestvt

New member
Sprinter in winter

I live in Ak and realized, that although an amazingly capable package, a truck n 4wheel camper were not going to cut it for my four season travel/camping needs. Short of an Alaskan Camper there are not many options for a four season camper other than the gigantic pick up bed campers or a converted 4x4 van suitable for winter travel/camping. The 4x4 Sprinter is as an appealing option with diesel mpg but I have been concerned about diesel in the cold temps and the van freezing. If you would please share your experiences and lessons learned on winterizing your van.

Thanks!
 

dangerbus

BryDanger
I live in Ak and realized, that although an amazingly capable package, a truck n 4wheel camper were not going to cut it for my four season travel/camping needs. Short of an Alaskan Camper there are not many options for a four season camper other than the gigantic pick up bed campers or a converted 4x4 van suitable for winter travel/camping. The 4x4 Sprinter is as an appealing option with diesel mpg but I have been concerned about diesel in the cold temps and the van freezing. If you would please share your experiences and lessons learned on winterizing your van.

Thanks!

We were thrilled with the way the sprinter handled most of the way, and we slept in the van over 90% of the trip.
Definitely had some learning to do (did i mention we're beach bums?), but nothing that couldn't be overcome:

- We travel full time with our dog karma and wanted to ensure her comfort in the van even when we were out boarding all day. The Espar D2 heater (and thermostat) did a perfect job of ensuring a decent temp while we were gone and allowed us to crank the heat to warm up after a cold day. We were toasty warm even when outside temps were in the -20s... just didn't want to leave the van!!
What we didn't realize was the need for a high altitude kit to keep it running above 4900'... until after it stopped working in the middle of a very cold night.

- We have a lithium battery system built inside our van (built specifically to make sure it could survive/thrive in all four seasons without damage to the batteries) and these batteries cannot be charged before freezing temps. Luckily our cold temp cutoff worked as it should when the temps dropped that low, and we were able to keep using the batteries but struggled at first to get the batteries back up to temp so that we could charge off the alternator when driving. Had to do a bit more insulating in the rear of the van and added a 12V heat "blanket" to the batteries we could turn on a few hours before driving- from then on all worked perfectly.

- We did have one week in the worst of the temps where we experienced some freezing issues, but mostly due to our own lack of knowledge. We simply got fuel at local stations and didn't add any additive even at the worst temps (rookies). We also didn't realize until too late that the Espar heaters (both D2 and D5) have an auto shutoff and wont re-engage when the fuel tank in under 1/4 tank. Pretty much ensured a rough start for ourselves and one morning found our tank gelled. We had to put a space heater under the engine for a few hours to warm things up and get restarted... but even as stupid and inexperienced as we felt the rest of the town was also gelled up that morning, so the local mechanics think it was likely a bad batch of diesel, so maybe nothing we could have done would have kept it from happening... Who knows?


All in- I'd still say the sprinter was a great winter rig (and we'll be repeating much of that trip again in a few weeks!!)

That being said...building the perfect camper conversion is also a never ending learning process (especially if you want to do it full time and in all 4 seasons).
IF we continue doing this year after year, or if i ever build a van for someone else that was built specifically as a winter rig I would make even more drastic changes including:
- moving batteries to center of van rather than along the wall
- routing a heat vent or heat exchanger to that area to control their temps.
- route our hot water heater and a (non-factory) D5 coolant heater through the engine coolant as a backup method or heating the block
 

dangerbus

BryDanger
Wow... i clearly am still not doing a very good job of updating things here. Been a bit too busy I presume.

Since our last post in November we did a winter trip chasing snow to a dozen or so mountains in the west
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Turns out there wasnt much snow to be had...
at least not as early as we were hoping so we mostly ended up chasing hot springs instead (fine by us)!

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Then we returned to Portland for an adventure of a completely different kind.
We finally broke down after all the requests to build other vans and started a little business called ZENVANZ.
The goal was always to make our van interior available for others... but our business partners (at the time) convinced us we should build out a few vans at the same time.
What a crazy idea and a completely INSANE couple of months!!

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We are really proud of the builds we delivered...but also found ourselves with WAY TOO much time in the shop (I counted about 90straight days of 12+ hour days in the shop, not counting the marketing and other work before and after! Yikes!!) and losing that live/work balance weve fought so hard for over the years.

So, we have dialed the business way back and are once again focused only on the modular DIY cabinet kits so others can make their vans look like our (if they want), but can also hopefully save a lot of money in the process through sweat equity or acting as their our "general contractor" and finding other people locally to install the parts/systems they don't want to.

If youre looking for more details, feel free to ask... or as always we are (slowly) updating our blog with all the details of the insanity.

We are now off to recenter our minds and bodies... so we are acking up our newly outfitted van (somehow fit that build in at the same time) and are driving north to alaska and the arctic ocean. Ill try to update some trip pics along the way (but based upon my recent performance make no promises) ;)
 

TheBlueBus

Busdriver
Awesome! I've been following you on instagram for quite a while now, and i dig your posts! Funny how you wrote "if i ever build a van for someone else" and there you are with a business!
 

dangerbus

BryDanger
Awesome! I've been following you on instagram for quite a while now, and i dig your posts! Funny how you wrote "if i ever build a van for someone else" and there you are with a business!

Did I say that? I know. We fought it off and said no for a long time... then some friends talked us into it and it sounded like a win/win. As typical, nothing is quite that easy... ended up in a pretty stressful/chaotic couple of months but the ship has been righted and we’re focusing again on that balance we’ve worked so hard for (and working on another round of modular DIY kits for the fall).
 

dangerbus

BryDanger
Heres an update from the road. This trip north is turning out to be far, far better than i would have even imagined. The landscapes are epic, the wildlife is thrilling and we simply couldn't ask for more epic/remote campsites on almost a nightly basis.

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Seems the only thing we didn't allow enough of was time... although that might be because we find ourselves stopping for minutes/hours at a time overtime we come across a wildlife sighting. Sometimes because we decide to stop and watch., sometimes because they decide to stop us :ROFLMAO:
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