No, I have no plans to live in a van.

When you buy one… that’s what everyone tends to assume. Most often, that van is assumed to be “down by the river”. Even my girlfriend told me that, before we were dating, she told a friend “I think he lives in a van”.

That said, I did buy a van. It was just over a year ago now… in January of 2021. It took me a while to decide if I wanted one, and then what to get. I eventually settled on a 2020 Ford Transit AWD w/ EcoBoost. And now the story…

Most of the local Ford dealerships were a far cry from helpful, so I would up buying my van from a dealer just outside of Denver, Colorado. This worked out great because it was delivered in early January 2021, just a few days before I needed to be in Whitefish, MT for a month of skiing.

I flew to Denver and the dealer kindly picked me up to pick her up. The first night was a snowy one.

That was enjoyable and the van performed great on the drive. Unfortunately, a plow truck kicked up a rock and cracked my windshield… literally the first time I drove it.

The van was my primary, and only, vehicle for the month in Whitefish. It had a very successful run through snowy conditions and only got stuck once when a friend (who won’t be named) backed into a parking space and got stuck in a ditch. During the trip, we visited Salt Lake City, Whitefish, Glacier National Park, Crested Butte, and the drive back east (and everything in between).

After getting back from the roadtrip, I was really excited to get started on the van. As you can probably guess because I am writing this blog now.. it took a while to make much progress… and even now I am far from finished.

That said, my return meant Christmas in March, April, May, June, and July as I started to order all kinds of components for the van. And lots of new tools.

I’ll break down my design and my approach to each of those in future posts, as well as everything I purchased along the way.

Last, I have to say thank you to the great folks at faroutride.com. Much of the process of building a van is completely new to me… especially things like designing electrical systems and picking the right parts for the job. I have found their website to be the absolute BEST resource on the internet. I also am very grateful to my dad and brother who have helped me with every aspect of the project every step of the way. I have learned a lot the last few weeks and am starting to feel comfortable with what I am doing, but I never would have known where to start without the help of these resources and family.