Our Family Lives in a Camper Full Time

My husband, our two dogs, and everything we need to live, are traveling the United States in a converted 2004 pull behind camper, but before this beauty fell into our laps, we had plans to do it in our converted 2011 Chevy Traverse.

We decided to move into this because we were tired of paying upwards of $1200 every month for a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment; where we weren't allowed to keep the pets we wanted, had to pay rent just for our two dogs, had poor management and were even restricted by the type of trash they let us throw out. Oh, and did I mention they didn't have a recycling bin? After about 5 months we were beyond over it, and we started looking into breaking our lease to move to a different area, maybe rent a house. At that point our thoughts were well if we are paying as much as people we know who are renting an actual HOUSE...why are we settling for a first floor apartment where I never get any sleep???

We looked into it for a while but by then we were sucked into the "van life" craze; Buying a basic work van with a pop top and decking out the inside like a tiny house. Only issue, we didn't quite have the credit. What we did have though was the Traverse, which we had just got a loan for. So we went all in and decided to move full time into that when our lease was up!

So September 1st came rolling around and we were out. We had taken the middle row of seats out of our car, and my husband hand made a pull out bed that doubled as underneath storage for our clothes. We had a small standing set of drawers and a shelf in the trunk to hold our kitchen supplies and such. We signed up for gym memberships with planet fitness and showered there daily, we did this for about a month when we were presented with the opportunity to buy this amazing camper for an even more amazing deal.

Us and our two dogs (Lennon, a lab mix, and Daisy, a shitzu) were loving van life, but it was about as full as we could comfortably handle. Being young, and married, we definitely want to start a family. Looking around our happy little van, we didn't see much room to grow, so to say. So we started talking about the camper lifestyle and I swear we spoke it into existence, because one thing after another fell into place and here we are!

We have a video in the making on how we converted it since we got it, and it'll be on our youtube @Valestra Adventure before the week is over. I can only imagine how fulfilling living here will be, being that living in our van was as much fun as it was.

So far we have painted all our walls, the cabinets, restyled the bathroom and added selected chalk walls!! We still plan to take a few things out like the stove and one of the back bunks, but as far as a start I'd say we've gotten a lot done in the little time we've had it.

If you have any questions on how we live in a camper and travel full time please email me at [email protected]

Have a great day, thanks for reading!

This was one of the first uploads to our YouTube, @Valestra Adventure, which we recorded and posted before we figured out we'd be living in a camper. Upgrade!

This was also recorded and posted before we knew we would be lucky enough to live in a camper, definitely give it a watch if you're thinking about going for the SUV lifestyle.

Do you have power? AC?

We have power when we are hooked up to an outlet or a generator, and yes we have AC. We don't typically use it though because we try to go outside as much as we can.

How do you cook and store food?

We have a propane fridge and burners, the fridge can also be run off electric. We have a toaster oven that works just as well as a real oven. We don't need a lot of our food stored because we try to be as plant based and whole as possible, so not a lot of food needs to be frozen or refrigerated.

*Not my photo* but I will have one just like it soon! I can't wait to lay under the stars with my little family.