Hey Ya'll! Hope you're having a great week. Me? Busy ,Busy ,Busy! I know this blog is basically a photography blog with some hiking maybe thrown in but today I want to start a new direction that I'm heading toward. It's converting a van into a camper van so my wife and I and of course Forrest the Wonder Dog can take trips around the country and see all of the wonders that this great nation has to offer. Now we have always been campers and we started like everyone else did in a tent then as we got older we moved to a little pull behind tear drop camper which worked great. But for quite a few years I have had my eye on camper vans. You've seen the cool photos of people living full time in their vans on Instagram or Facebook. Well I don't want to live full time in a van. But I do think that they are the perfect road trip vehicle. You can drive until you get tired stop somewhere (campground preferably ) pull into a camp site and you're done. No setting up to do because everything is in the van. Oh sure you could cook outside if you wanted to and we probably will most of the time but that's just taking one thing out of the van. With a pull behind camper you have to do a lot of set up after you get to camp . Usually you have to get a RV site with water and electricity hookups which cost more per night and are usually booked months in advance. But with a van you can pull into a tent site and you don't need the water or the electric for a over night stay. With a camper van you have your bed with you , your kitchen with you, AC and fans everything is in one neat package that you don't have to set up. When you leave you don't have to pack up either. Just get in and go to the next location.

I have been talking about vans with my friends for years saying how I would love to have one but they can be very expensive. Especially if you get one that is already decked out with all the nice stuff inside. They can cost well over 100,000 dollars up to 200,000. Max don't have that kind of money! So I've always said they were made out of Unatanium. Because they were unattainable. But I've always loved them. When my wingman Robert and I went on our big Utah trip a couple of years ago I was pointing them out and they were everywhere. We pulled into the parking lot of Capital Reef National Park Visitor Center and I counted over 20 of them all parked in a row. All shapes and sizes but there they were. I was green with envy of those folks traveling around the US and all of the adventures they would have. Recently I came upon a company (Wayfarer Vans) that would convert your van (New or Used ) for 25,000 dollars. And this got me thinking I could buy a used van and take it to them and for less than 70000 I could have a nice but used Travel Van. But then there are the add ons. The basic package was 25000 but if you want a fridge that's extra if you want AC that's extra if you want exhaust fan extra and the list goes on by the time I was through it was over 40 grand for the up-fit. So I started the hunt for a used van. So if I got one for 30,000 plus the 40 for the up-fit I'd have 70000 into a used van. Thats A lot for a used vehicle . I could find vans but they were construction vans with lots of miles on them and not many options like cruse control. But I kept looking and I found a van! But it wasn't really used.

The van I found was a 2025 Ram Promaster  It had 300 miles on it. Not 300,000 but 300 only. It had been up-fitted to be some sort of office. It had a walls and floor and ceiling already installed. It did have a desk and chair bolted to the floor. It had a house battery and inverter so they could plug in a computer I guess it even had a AC in the back. It had a window in the sliding door and windows in the back doors. Those are hard to find on a contractor type van and usually have to be installed later. It has running boards to step onto. It had options like a car on the inside. All of the safety stuff and sensors around the vehicle. It had the 360 view installed with a video camera for the rear view mirror that shows a top view of the van and is great for parking and driving in traffic. So it had a lot of stuff already done to it. So I went to take a look at it and would play let's make a deal if I liked it. So I did and I did play let's make a deal and everything went my way. I got a van! My little Max Mobile that I was driving went to my granddaughter so she would have a safe car to drive back and forth to college in. So another plus. I've had the van about a week and I've got the desk and chair out of the van. I've got the extra house battery and inverter removed. I got a hitch installed their cost. ( wheel and deal). 

Instead of having Wayfarer Vans install everything I'm going to be doing the install myself. I'll fabricate a bed but everything else I'll buy and install myself. I've figured out the cost will be about 8 grand for all of the parts and I will install myself. So that's a big savings from 40 grand to 8 grand. It will take me a while to get it ready for adventure. I'm hoping by Spring It will be ready if everything comes together. So stay tuned for updates on how the progress goes. Until Next week get out and Shoot! 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link