#vanlife .

Choosing and building our van was a big step.  Critical items that might be of interest can be found below.  If you just want to see the finished van, click here.

An upgrade from a tent

We were tent campers for many years. We still have a great EMS 2 man tent and roomy Kelty 4 man tent.  But age and various ailments make sleeping on the ground and getting up off the ground more challenging. So we needed an upgrade that achieved the following:

  • A comfortable, real-sized bed to sleep in
  • A dry place for that bed
  • Easy way to carry perishable groceries for several days
  • Tall enough for my wife to stand up.
  • Room for all of our junk

We decided building our own camping vehicle in a Ram Promaster Cargo Van would be our best choice.  For more of our thought on this check out Choices and Everywhere a Van.

A dream given form

Turning that great white empty box into the travel vehicle of our dreams sounds great when you talk about it over a beer on a pleasant sunny afternoon. Turning that dream, or any dream, into a reality always ends up taking way more effort than you first think.

Every dream should start with a plan.  I know that is probably breaking some fundamental rule of dreams but I am an engineer and as a group we rarely start things without some kind of plan.

I would like to say we had a finalized plan before we bought the van.  We were close but we needed to have that big white box in our driveway to really work out some of the details.

Note from Mrs. Ram: If you are married to an engineer you understand what I went through.  He spent weeks just thinking about what he was going to do before putting it to paper.  Then weeks on paper and all the research.  Luckily for him I come from a family of engineers and have grown patient with their idiosyncrasies or at least somewhat patient!

To learn more click below

Ram Promaster Forum

Lots of good info on this forum.  Lurk for a while if you are curious but do not be afraid to sign up and join the conversation.