Backpack 2.0 - An A-Z Campervan Adventure Mobile Build vandwellers

Hey /vandwellers! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Nate. My wife and I gave up the 'typical' american dream and a job as a career firefighter, and her an accountant, about 4 years ago to leave the state where the sky tried to kill us multiple times, the tornado laden, Oklahoma.

I hate when the sky tries to kill me...

Anyway, my wife and I moved to Denver to be closer to the activities we loved. Skiing, hiking, rock climbing, paddling, and biking.

Adventure!!

In the fall of 2015, I lost my dad to cancer. He had been a firefighter for 25 years, retired, and was about 2 years from being able to draw his retirement. He had planned on moving into an RV and traveling across North America.

I was actively trying to get on another fire department in the Denver area.

I don't know how much you know about cancer rates and fire fighters...but it's not too good. I was headed down the same path.

Struggling with the love of that job and wanting to try to live until I'm 100 and see every corner of this globe, my wife helped me pull the trigger...

In January of 2016, we bought a HUGE RV and traveled North America. We traveled from Colorado to Utah, Idaho, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Cali, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma (...and Nicaragua... but not in the RV)

We are hooked.

We loved the traveling, but HATED the huge RV we were in. It was geared more toward people who had conversations about portable dog fencing and residential refrigerators in their RV's rather than discussions about IPA's, climbing, hiking, and paddling, like what we seek out.

Anyway...

It was natural progression to want to try out the #vanlife.

We sold the RV, and JUST bought a van.

This thread will be it's story. A-Z, Beginning to end, alpha and omega... Okay, maybe I'm getting a bit carried away, but I want to share what we are doing with out van build. I'm sure we will do some stuff wrong, and some stuff right, but in the end, it will be OURS and I want something to be proud of.

This will be primarily focused around our Adventure Blog and our YouTube channel, but will be posting all of the text in this thread. For pictures, you will have to visit the site.

At any rate... Hello! and I hope you will follow along! :D

Submitted March 14, 2017 at 08:56AM by Nate_Yarbrough http://ift.tt/2mHQzrs vandwellers