The BEST Mercedes Sprinter Camper Van For Full Time Travel - Van Life Tour

Hello, my friend. Today, I'm going to give you a full tour of the 2025 Winnebago Echo that I'm moving into for full time travel. So let's check it out. This is built on the sprinter van chassis. So is this RV life or van life? I'll let you be the judge of that. I will tell you this, though. It has way more living space and amenities than any van I've been into while still maintaining similar ease of drivability and footprint. When I'm done outfitting this for overland use, it should have similar capabilities to most sprinter van builds. And the fact that it is all wheel drive, which means it should be fairly competent in snow driving, forest roads and mild off-roading to off-grid remote camp spots. In fact, some have been calling this a mini Earth Roamer. If you've been around on this channel, you know that I love Earth Roamer and I would never do them this disjustice. The two should never be directly correlated or compared in quality or capability. While there is some cozy comfort to this, there's also a pass through from the driver's area to the camper portion. And it is all wheel drive. There is just absolutely no way you could ever compare a Winnebago to an Earth Roamer. Popping the hood, this has one of my favorite small engines. It's the high output twin turbo four cylinder diesel engine. It's small, but it's mighty. It almost reminds me of that book. What's it called? The little engine that could and only has 208 horsepower and three hundred and thirty two pound foot of torque. But pairing it with that nine speed transmission, this thing rips over the Sierra mountain range. It doesn't drive like an RV. It's even got paddle shifters. So you could pretend like you're a race car driver. I was passing cars and SUVs going up the mountain with no problem. Everyone was like, let's not get behind the RV. But then I just left them in the dust. I've driven older RVs and they just hunt for gears the entire time. This is nothing like it. They do make this in a Ford Transit version. And if you've been here for a while, you know that I'm a huge Ford fan. But the Ford EcoBoost V6 gas engine is probably one of my least favorite engines. And that's what's in the Eco Transit version. Now, if it had come with a V8 Coyote with a supercharger strapped to the top, then maybe I could have been persuaded to go with the Ford Transit. But there are other reasons. In addition to that, that I decided to go with the Mercedes. One being that it is a little bit longer and more spacious. While the length could be a problem with parking, I still really like how open it is inside and the Ford Transit. You can't lift them nearly as high as with the Mercedes chassis. I haven't seen a single rear wheel conversion done on the Transit either. When I was referring to the lift on the vehicle, I meant basically you can put better suspension on here that lifts the body up several inches and allows you to put a larger single rear wheel on the back compared to these dualies. It's got around 30 inch tires right now, but I think you can get up to a 35 inch tire or close on the back here. While dualies can be capable off road, they're certainly not ideal because they can get stuck in between those tires and increase your chances of flats out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe you're not interested in doing more modifications to this to make it better suited for off roading and overlanding. And that's OK, because right off the lot, this thing is pretty much ready for adventure. It's already got the all wheel drive. It's got a higher lift or clearance than the Transit right off the lot. It also has really nice tires. It's got these all terrain three peak snow rated and it's got method wheels. I couldn't help but notice that the tires are Hankook's. What does that sound similar to? Hannah the kook. In addition, you can also add a front winch bumper, so it'll help you get out of those sticky situations with this all wheel drive. Truly, it is not comparable, in my opinion, to any four by four truck platform, but we're going to work with what we got in this compartment. You'll find 320 amp hours of lithium battery from the factory. You can either do 320 amp hours of lithium battery and a generator or 640 amp hours of lithium battery. But then they delete the generator. In addition to the generator, there's also 530 watts of solar panels on the roof and an alternator charger that will charge the batteries while you're driving down the road. And here you'll find the generator, which runs off propane. In this compartment, you'll find the gray water tank pump, which basically pumps water from your shower and sink into the gray water tank. Not much storage here, but at least easy access. This compartment holds the five gallon cassette toilet. Moving on to these little doodads, you have the 30 amp power plug if you want to hook up at the campground, then an additional solar input plug in case you have extra solar panels and your furnace exhaust. Inside this compartment, you'll find two large propane tanks. I really like that these are swappable and the fact that once this is empty, I can pull it out and swap it with a full one. And it powers the Truma hot water heater, which is instant. And the furnace and the generator here is a hookup for external propane. So I could hook up my pizza oven right here and make a pizza right outside the RV. Here's a quick glimpse of the Truma AquaGo hot water heater and furnace system. I personally am not a fan of this because on a brand new system on my truck camper, it broke multiple times and had to be replaced. Ultimately, I would like to switch this to a diesel heater, hot water heater that runs off the diesel tank of the vehicle. That's for the future, because I think it's better for off grid living as it is. For now, it works because it keeps it pretty warm in there, but I just don't think they're very reliable. The compartment doors are all really thick. It's like driving around in a big refrigerator. Insulation has been really efficient so far. I'm interested to see how it does in snowstorms. Inside here, you'll find the heated water closet is what I'm calling it, because there are heater vents here to keep everything warm so it doesn't freeze during the winter. This is the freshwater tank. There's about 50 gallons. Water pump switch, outdoor shower hookup, the hoses inside. Here you have the freshwater filling, the valve, the inlet. This and this deals with winterization. Here's the low point water drains and the gray water tank drain, which is also about 50 gallons. You can't lock this, so nobody messes with it. That was the outside. Let's check out the inside. Welcome inside the Spreco. It's so spacious in here. There's a working area, a sitting area. There's a kitchen. There's a whole bathroom and a huge sleeping area. There's really so much more living space compared to anything I've ever traveled in before. But will it hold up to off-grid camping? We'll find out. This is one of my favorite areas of the build, the sleeping area, where all the magic happens. First off, these windows are amazing. There's two very large ones that let in a lot of natural light. They're dual pane acrylic. There's not much thermal transfer when it's cold out or hot out. And there's a screen as well as a shade on both. And you can adjust them if you want half and half or none. Or you could just pull up to the beach, open the windows. They just hatch out and you get all this fresh crosswind. They're also window tentative, which is really nice. So during the day, people can't see in. Right now, it's set up as two single sleeping areas. Some may not like that. Personally, I love it because maybe you want to travel with a friend. You can use one side to sleep on one side to lounge on. It's really nice to walk right through the center in terms of accessibility. And this just flips over and sits right in the center to make one big bed. But when you're not using it, it serves as kind of like a solid surface right here in between. This is what it looks like when you convert. It's kind of like, you know, scooshed around nice and hard. And now I think it's about a queen size bed. You have two big storage cubbies on either side of the beds. And then you have outlets, one 10, 12 volt and USB right in the middle. There's also one up here. You also have two little lights. In addition to the fact that you have this nice little walkway for accessibility, it also allows you to access the space underneath these two beds. So there's a drawer right here. There's a drawer right here. There's also a wardrobe cabinet under both beds. So there's lots of space there as well. If you lift up these mattresses, you'll see there's this nice little spring system that Winnebago uses. It actually works pretty well. You can actually lift the bed up on either side. They're on struts. And this actually gives you access to a little bit of space here and there. There's really no reason, I guess, just that one. You really wouldn't need to get under here. It works on both sides. Remember, this is all accessible from the side as well, which is what I really love. If you spend a lot of time in truck campers, vans and RVs, often a lot of the storage space is under beds and seating areas. That may not sound very inconvenient, but once you spend some time in these vehicles, you'll realize that it's highly annoying because you're always having to rearrange, lift all your belongings up to access this space. So anytime you can access storage space from the side without lifting everything up, it's like totally amazing. There's vents all over the camper for distribution of heat. And then on the roof, you can also see the vents for the AC so you can direct airflow during the summer months so you can get it cool back here while you're sleeping instead of up front. Right now, I'm sitting in the standard Sprinter cab area that has these two swivel seats. You'll see this in most Sprinter vans. In addition to that, there's a seating area and a working area that can be converted into a sleeping area as well. There's also an option to set up this really nice sized table right here in the middle in case everybody wants to enjoy dinner together. It can swivel and push back and forth. I didn't know which way it went, but it is adjustable. It's a little creak too. Need some oil. I mean, grease. Over here, you also have the option for a nice workspace or even a place to lay back and watch some television, though I don't really ever watch television and I keep hitting my head off the soundbar, so I might actually remove it. Oh, yeah. Watch this. I forgot. This just drops down and then you just hinge this all the way up. Let this come down like that. And then you just reassemble the cushions. Check it out. Ta-da! And just like that, you have this nice, loungeable sitting area. So you could sit here or here, or you have two people sitting here. You have friends or family visiting. Everyone can hang out in the camper together. And now you have a third sleeping area. Basically, you just lay the tabletop down in between these two seats and there's ledges, and then you arrange the cushions as best as you can. What I've gathered is it's kind of like an origami puzzle that I haven't quite figured out yet. Whoever pulls the short straw gets this bed. Have one more sleeping space. I'll show you what that is next. Here is the base of the inflatable bed. Step two, the second layer of the bed. Now, if this isn't a creative air mattress, then I don't know what is. OK, you have to be a little shorter to lay here. So I probably wouldn't use this, but this would be great if you had kids. Just don't kick the steering wheel and honk the horn in the middle of the night. Welcome into the kitchen or the galley. If you watch my videos, you know that I really love good food, and that's why I'm excited about the kitchen area. There is a pretty decent size countertop space that extends. I'll show you how in a second. There's also a deep sink with a retractable faucet. Up above, there is a bunch of storage space and drawers down below. This big silver thing right here is a microwave. It says it's a combo microwave and convection oven. It also claims to hit a button and make pizza and cake. I'm a little skeptical about that. I may actually just swap this out for an actual pizza oven, but we'll see how that goes. There's also an induction cooktop. You just pull this out, slide it right here and plug it into the one fan outlet. But you can also slide out here and you have this additional little cutting area right around here. You'll find. That's my sound effect for this glorious refrigerator. It's huge. Do you see all this space? I don't even know how to use all these gadgets yet. It's way too complicated for me. It's a drawer. Check out this freezer. Oh, you can actually store ice cream in here now. Lots of door space. It's also a bunch of storage up here where you can find more power outlets. Down below, you'll find controls. You have the solar charge controller on the left with the battery monitoring system to the right. You'll find the temperature inside the cab, the generator controls, the freshwater tank level and the gray water tank level. And then here's the inverter controls. I think it's 2000 watts. But in addition to that storage, there's a huge storage bin up here above the seating area. This actually snaps up between the cab and the camper for sound light heat insulation. There's more outlets. And then one last cabinet right here. Here's the awning controls, the light retract and extend the coach battery. This is for the step so that it goes in and out when you open the door. Here's all the light controls and another 110 plug air conditioner for those really hot days in the desert, which is kind of why I got the generator, because you never know how long you're going to need that on when it's really hot out. You control that with this right here. You just turn the mode on or off. There's also a max fan right in the middle of the camper, which I kind of wished it was inside the bathroom. There is a window in there, but we'll see how this works for controlling humidity. Check this out. So you have this really nice dry bath area where you can use the restroom, wash your hands, store your stuff in the cabinet, change. But then, look at that magic. It's a two in one bathroom, full size shower in here. This is incredible. Everything on this side stays wet and everything on that side stays dry. Welcome to the garage. It's huge. You could get e-bikes, kayaks that are foldable, inflatable paddleboard, ski gear, my pizza oven. So many different things. Right now, I store everything in the back of my truck, like in the back seat. And it just turns into this building mountain of mess that often avalanches into me in the front seat. So this is really nice. I can keep everything in the back. There's also MOLLE panels on two doors to connect gear to and L track along the front and the back. All the exterior storage spaces are heated, which is a huge plus for winter camping. There's also three different doors to access this space. One on this side, the opposite side and the back side. There's also lights in here and one 10 outlet and 12 volt plug. And that concludes my tour. Would you live and travel in the Winnebago Spreco?