VANLIFE HACKS! | Tips for Living on the Road Full Time & Overlanding

Life on the road in a small space is much easier when you can find solutions to everyday problems. In this video, we dive into our favorite Vanlife (because that’s when we learned them) hacks that are great for overlanding or even just road trips in general!

Thank you Motion Array for the video assets used in this video!

Here are the product links mentioned in this video:

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You can follow our adventures here:
For all of our favorite gear for fulltime life on the road check out our gear list:
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#overlanding #vanlife #hacks

[briannab]

You can take a bag of ice, soon as you buy it, separate the ice into qt size freezer baggies, tuck them around your food & drinks in the cooler. Stuff in there stays just as cold, plus when the ice melts you have clean water to use for other things like brushing teeth, cooking, drinking ice water, whatever. Just dumping ice into a cooler wastes ice, water, & the food that gets soaked from it. . . .Love your cute produce basket, i may look for one to use in my van.

[TheDenisedrake]

I LOVE how you talk about dirty laundry and pee/pooing openly. Not sure why other's don't. I personally like our toilet/privy tent setup and tell our off-roading friends about it. Thanks for telling us your views on no toilet. It's interesting to hear how other people deal with it.

[wlfmachine]

Y'all should share mini stories from your travels. I'm not suggesting you do daily vlogging or tell the stories of epic road trips. But when y'all know you have a cool hike or neat offroad trail you are going to do that day, you should get the adventure on video and share. It can start with "we are in Baja this month, and today we are driving a road someone told us about that will take us to what is reportedly some beautiful beach camping" and then the video captures y'all eating tacos, driving a rocky road, letting Luna out for a walk on the cliffs while y'all eat lunch, and ends with y'all setting up camp on the beach with an ocean sunset in the background. Okay I may have gotten a little carried away with my scenario... a hike to a waterfall in Utah would also be cool. Your "day in the life" video was great!

[Katya-Anastasia]

The cereal trash container is genius! Ive watched sooo many vanlife hack videos - and yours has definitely been the most useful and practical of them all. Thanks

[TheDenisedrake]

We use strong magnets with hooks and 2" industrial velcro for lots of things on vertical spaces. (We sleep in the back of our 4-door Jeep with the back seats removed similar to your Tacoma setup.)

[harrytraction]

Liquid tide bottle with a handle makes a great pee bottle. Been using one for years, seals nice and tight. Might be a little challenging for a lady.

[razoredge]

Dirty Laundry - thanks for covering this topic.

[joewoodchuck]

We use a collapsing toilet with plastic bags. It's basically a toilet seat with legs and a method to hold the bags. Some cat litter in the bag helps. You have the option as to how many visits to get out of the bag. Once, twice, whatever and is also suitable for solid waste as well as liquid. People also use the hassock style toilet with bags, but they take up more space than the folding type.
Ice melt is a clear sanitation hazard. All kinds of bad things can and do happen with food contamination from contact with melt water. Some people complain that it's less efficient ice retention when cold water is drained. In any case, I keep ice in small plastic bathroom size waste baskets, one at each end of the cooler. Find the ones that fit inside yours. A really big cooler might need more than two. A small cooler might only need one. I drill a hole or two near the bottom for drainage. If your cooler doesn't have a drain then you might not want to drill holes in the waste baskets so they can be lifted out for draining. Other people say draining vs. not is about equal. I don't care. I'll take food safety over ice efficiency any day. Ice is cheap compared to an ER visit for food poisoning. Use that bottom drain at least daily. Letting some water out at each stop is even better. I attach a piece of clear tubing so that it can drain out of an open door whenever parked. We use a medium sized igloo cooler. They're a definite step up from Coleman coolers and other cheap brands. The little extra money is definitely worth it. Yeti coolers are waaay overpriced for what they are. An effective way to improve ice retention of any cooler is to add insulation to the outside. Some people add insulation to the inside which doesn't make much sense to me since it takes up interior space. One can use rigid foam, the silver bubble wrap type of flexible insulation even if it's in the form of a Dollar Tree windshield sun shield. Cut to fit and hold together with duct tape or my personal favorite Gorilla tape. The cooler bottom is where the biggest losses occur. The lower areas of the sides are next. You can go all the way up the sides for maximum effect. Don't bother with the lid. The least losses occur there.

[noahdixon]

You made a video exactly about what I was wondering. Thank you so much. Great creators who read their comments. 💜

[thruthebiblewithmicey]

Compression sack for laundry is genius!

[williamkenyon]

love you guys! Great trash can idea, will be implementing that one this weekend with Tacoma. Laundry bag and pee bottle also good tips that NOBODY ever talks about. Thanks and be safe out there.

[overlandgcc]

You can get reusable oil spray bottles, the oil that comes with it has water, but once used they work great for regular oil too and don't leak in any orientation

[jmsuitter]

Compression sac exactly what I've been thinking of getting great minds

[overthehillandoverthemount]

This was a great video. The compression sack for the dirty clothes is a fantastic idea. I live in a jeep Cherokee XJ full-time and it is challenging.

[krgac]

Best quote: Regarding the pee bottle - "If there is a need that has to be filled..." LOL! 2 thumbs up!

[avamoor]

thank you for covering laundry! y'all have great videos

[Qwiv]

My only suggestion is changing the oil in a water bottle to oil in a large alcohol flask. The smaller opening makes drizzling just a little oil easier then the wider mouth of a water bottle.

[maxjames]

Loved this vid! I’m a subscriber now:)

[ethanesmith]

More good advice. Thank you! We use the Coleman High Stands to set up an outdoor kitchen wherever we want it instead of right up against our van. They fold down quite flat.

[Enjoytheinbetween]

Great video! I'm fixing up an older popup camper (1st time ever owning a camper) so the more tips the better!