We FINALLY bought a van!

We finally got a van! And now we're out and enjoying the wild, fresh, crisp fall air in BC. Absolutely beautiful. But I bet you guys want a tour. Let me give you a tour of the inside. Maybe we should go back to the beginning. This all started when we went to Baja back in 2022-23 and realized that our trailer was a bit bigger than was really convenient there. We saw so many other types of rigs on that trip and loved how easy it was for our van friends to set up and break down camp and get into smaller areas that we couldn't fit into with our trailer. Once back we started looking for a van but the post covid market was slim pickings and prices were sky high. We waited for the market to cool a bit and after a final winter trip with our truck and trailer, this is the coldest and windiest beach I've ever been on, we sold them in spring 2024 and started searching for a van. Of course we thought we'd have lots of time to find one by winter. After looking at many custom and mass-produced vans we came to realize that we need to take matters into our own hands. We are on our way to get our new van. I'm just so excited but it also doesn't quite feel real and I don't think it's going to feel real until it's in the driveway. There's always a bit of nerves with a big purchase like this. Like it's all kind of worked out but is it going to work out or is something going to go horribly wrong? It kind of feels like it's too easy. If this is another we didn't get a van video everybody's going to unsubscribe so it has to work. What's your first impressions? It's so shiny and new, I've never had a brand new car. All right we're about to take our very first drive in this van. This is still a test drive, it is not ours yet. But we are using this test drive to go to the bank to get the money to pay for it. I do really like how these things drive. Oh we got brakes. Despite the size of them yeah they ride and drive like a car. Really nice visibility with the mirrors. It is a comfortable van to drive. Oh look. You think you've never seen an armrest before. I'm gonna try parking in a regular parking spot. Oh my gosh we're in the whole site. Look at this and we're not even all the way pulled up front. That's wild. We've got it. A very large bank draft. Kind of scary. Now we're gonna do our formal test drive. All right first time backing up. It's got a backup camera. It's got pretty good visibility. Let's see how it goes. Right there. Oh there's a car behind us. That's like high quality too. Yeah it's a good size. It's pretty nice because when you look back there. We got nothing folks. Oh man it's gonna be so hard to get getting used to like looking forward when I'm backing up. That feels so weird. All right test drive time. Now for the highway test. Gonna go fast. Tracking straight. Well everything seems to be working. I think we're gonna buy a van. We got Jason and Melissa here. They just purchased a 2025 brand new chromaster 2500. Oh yeah. Well I just backed the van into the driveway for the very first time. It was so easy. The backup camera and the mirrors. I used the adaptive cruise control on the way home and man that's amazing. I had no idea. I think I'm gonna miss it not having it in the car now but that's gonna be super great for long journeys. I'm also really glad I waited to find a van that had the cruise control on it. I think we're just gonna really love this van. We're at the very beginning of this journey. Very empty right now. It's gonna take quite a while to build this out but I think it's gonna do us really well for a long time. So why did we pick this van? Let's talk about the pros of the promaster. The first thing that I love about the van is the size. This van is less than 20 feet long so it fits just about anywhere. This van is only six inches longer than our pickup truck and is actually shorter than some pickup trucks out there. Also it's only 8.6 feet high. This van is small on the outside but big on the inside. It has a beautiful boxy frame that's almost straight up and down. That makes it nice and wide so you can actually get your bed lengthwise like this. Your side to side bed length can be over six feet. The promaster is only available in front wheel drive. Now that is not as good as all wheel drive but I feel like it's better than rear wheel drive especially if you're in snowy or slippery conditions. That way you can power yourself out of things instead of rear wheel drive that just kind of slides around. And since there's no rear drive shaft it actually allows the floor to be quite a bit lower than other vans. It also makes for way more space to mount things underneath like a gray tank for instance. The drivetrain is simple and inexpensive to maintain. It's a non-turbo six-cylinder engine that just about any mechanic can work on. Thankfully we won't have to worry too much about repair costs since we have a three-year comprehensive warranty and a five-year powertrain warranty plus roadside assistance. How good is that? We'll go into much more detail in another video so make sure you're subscribed. We've hired Good Times Van Company, a van upfitter out of the lower mainland, to build our dream van. We're so excited but they're super busy which means we can't get our van started until March 2025. But in the meantime we're going to be sourcing out a whole bunch of the different components so stay tuned. We will have some videos coming up on that and likewise if you have any suggestions on particular components like fridges and batteries and things then let us know in the comments or get in touch through our social media pages. Now here's what we're thinking for the layout. Starting behind the driver's seat we're going to have a bench with a table and then right behind that is shower followed by the bed which will have some storage cabinets on one side probably this side and then coming along the passenger side of the van we're going to have our kitchenette area. So fridge, cooktop, sink and it's all going to be electric my friends. Running on solar this is going to be awesome. Yeah we're both really excited to start this project and bring you along with us. And this winter we'll be posting every two weeks so we will see you in two weeks time and we might be planning some little mini adventures with the van. You'll have to wait and see. We'll see you then. Bye. Bye. You'll notice we don't have a fire. I have no idea where this goes. Right where the camera is. Can you please go back over there? Got that on the first take. Good job. All right now what? Make sure you don't miss the next video by liking, subscribing and turning on notifications. Oh and don't forget to check out our website and sign up for our weekly email blast. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you in the next one.