VAN TOUR: Solo Female w/ 2 Cats

Hi guys, my name is Quinn and I live in this transit with my two

cats

, Otto and Alice. 2020 was obviously a pretty crazy year for everyone, but I just moved to Los Angeles from Chicago two weeks before the pandemic started, so when I arrived at I was an event producer, we had planned this big eight-city world

tour

. , three countries, then everything stopped so I didn't want to live in LA anymore so I ended up moving back to Chicago and then I moved to Colorado and the whole time I was trying to figure out where to move I had Atlas and Auto with me, so we drove about 10,000 miles together, going back and forth trying to figure out where to live, we started researching fan life and so once I started watching a bunch of YouTube videos and figuring it out.

I really thought I could do this, so in November I found the perfect truck, after searching forever, I went to Indiana, picked it up and then gave it to the builders to work on. about three months and then in February we started driving and never looked back as it's been pretty amazing that I as a lone woman get to drive all over the country with my two

cats

, atlas and car and I love every bit of it. second, so I'm I'm excited to share with you my truck build. Hope you like. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts and let's take it from there.

I'm excited to show you this is my kitchen. I was working with this contractor from Grand Junction. and he customized a cover for the stove pan and this is really awesome because I love my stove, but one of the things with cats is that they always do like this. This tray is an amazing tray because then it also doubles as a table and sometimes I work on it. like a standing desk or if we're gaming or something like that, we'll take it. I'll put some food in it and any books or wine and I'd like to put it on my bed so it's a really nice addition that's at the same time. functional and looks pretty good so this is my dish rack so I use it when I dry my dishes and then when I'm not using it I think it looks pretty good like I don't know what else to put there.

I love spices, I cook with spices all the time. This is a company called Spice House from Chicago, so it reminds me of home because I used to literally live across the street and I'm obsessed with these spices. I started collecting things before this from all my travels, so one of my favorite souvenirs that I bought two years ago were these Portuguese tiles. When I went to Lisbon, I bought these really fantastic tiles and a lot of them were broken. and they kind of put them back together, that's probably one of my favorite custom touches. I didn't want a huge backsplash.

Honestly, I think I'll eventually put a window in here. Okay, welcome to my upper cabinets, so here's your pantry. I have a lot of nut products here, I don't know why I love nut products so much, these are my dishes, so when I started traveling I filled this van, I put everything that I could physically fit in this van and then when I got one on the road for the first month, I didn't use any of it, so when I got back to my home base, which is in Colorado, I ended up getting rid of almost all of my dishes.

I didn't need dishes. I only use bowls, so these are like the target, they're like the most amazing bowls ever created and then these are the ones that can't break and can't chip. I have my Magic Bullet blender and then I have three cups of tea. my two glasses so if I want a nice fancy drink these are my two glasses and that's pretty much the extent of my dinnerware and then I also have all my toiletries so since the four transits are curved it's That's why we can't do it. the top cabinet and these help with the spring to keep them up and then I also have a magnetic system to keep them closed, but this is all my skin care, my natural deodorant, I love regular perfume, so cheap and so nice because it still I want it to smell good and I recently gave up coffee about three months ago because I'm a single woman and I don't want to feel nervous on the road, so I drink a lot of muddy water, I drink a lot of tea, but this is it. my skincare and all my stuff and every time I use it I just take it out and then I put it here and then the same thing with this, you just put them down and then you put them back in and it's really easy and I have a lot more space so that maybe I should buy more products just kidding so I'm going ahead with the sink so I really wanted the sink because I wanted to have more counter space so I definitely wanted the butcher block to be on top of the sink too but I wanted a very deep sink.

I'm not that good at washing dishes and I have a lot of hair, so when I can't shower I would love my whole head to fit in that sink. I don't love The fact that it's white because I noticed that it stains very easily so if you can keep it from turning white, I liked it because it seems like my aesthetic is mostly white. But if you can help it, avoid it because I found that it actually stains pretty easily so I have a sliding door so one of the things with the sliding door is I initially wanted the sliding door for safety and that way I could close it when I need it, but I've learned that I actually like it more for insulation since I have two.

Usually the cats, if I'm cooking or maybe it's bad weather outside, but I need the doors open or I don't know, just I need them to be here for a while, I'll open this and put them there. They still have room to hang out and then I'll close this and I'll almost have this whole area to myself and I don't have to strap them to the van or worry about them walking away and I'll only do this obviously when it's like cooler outside I really recommend this gate and any with a transit you know how the roof curves down nicely it's a perfect space for some extra storage so all of this is extra storage it goes the whole distance so I like two towels back there I have some of my tools in there in the back I have the cat food and a lot of cat products back there um and you can also see this sticks out so I have a lot of my like receipts from my business so this is an awesome way to use up some extra storage in your Ford Transit Plus, with this dividing wall, it's pretty hollow, so I store things in it so I can turn it into a spice pantry.

I have towels hanging. Right now I have cleaning supplies, but you have about six inches on this dividing wall where I'm physically stuffing my window coverings and some more cat products because this whole van is full of cat products while we're in the Topic of this wall these are the lights in the main area and then this one operates my water pump so when I press this I can make water flow where I don't have to physically pump it myself and then when I press this button I'm not going to press on right now my gray water tank is under the truck so when I press this button it's an electric release and then everything will be released into the landfill so it's super easy, super effective.

I don't need to do anything weird with the wires down there which is really nice so this is a glass break sensor so I've seen a lot of single women use a system called simply safe so simply safe is a system Safety, so if someone breaks. any glass this will alert me and then I will send the police so if I'm not here and something happens the police will know my GPS coordinates and they will go to the location because I can do it in my app so that's really nice and then also I have a camera that we'll show you a little bit later and I have like a little module that everything connects to like a base of operations that I plug into um and it has like an electric battery as well, so there's like a power outage, it's still going to work. okay so my fridge I haven't had a chance to go shopping so it's a little empty but this fridge fits a ton so this is the isotherm I think it's 85 liters but you can tell. it has a ton of space and it has a freezer so the freezer gets a little bit like frost and there's like a ton of ice chips but I love it, also instead of using ziploc bags I use a lot of beeswax wraps.

I love them for cheese and fruit, pretty much like this is a huge refrigerator. I love this refrigerator. This refrigerator is perfect for two people for my build. I wanted to have a lot of desk space. I also wanted to have a lot of open space for the cat that I used to have here as a legume table, but it got in the way a little bit, so I kept it open and what we did with this contractor that I used in Colorado was we put a desk right here so that This way we don't take up any space, we did the chain for a while, but the chain got a little annoying, the cats went a little crazy with the chain, so this reinforces it a little more and then you go down and then I can.

It's easy to work here, so it's super nice. I have some extra storage right here where I put my makeup. Also sometimes when I'm here, I take one of the pillows and then put a pillow here. and then I will rest. I can extend my legs all the way because I love this space and I can look out and see what's going on, so in addition to the desk that I have here to work on, I also wanted a desk that people could hang out at so this is our table large improvised many times I see tables that are here and that are this big with a chain, but I wanted one a little bigger.

I have many friends who come. and visit me and we both stay in the van or maybe camp and he wanted three people to sit at this table and play cards and stay quiet and this is the prototype so go easy on us he just set this up and It was incredibly cool because I was like, Yeah, I want a three- and four-foot table, but literally this is a huge table and what it does is it folds up so you can see how it folds back on itself, so what you do is that one already did. itself so you can say it's a prototype, you take these little extenders off, you turn it down and then you turn it down if it behaves and then there's a little latch and you put it on and voila, eventually we're going to have something. here where it goes down like this and then it's also a standing desk, so if I'm sitting on the bench and lying down, I'll also have this as an option or I can stand up and work from it, but again. that's going to be prototype phase number two, okay, so the two questions I get asked the most about building the van is number one, where's your toilet?

Do you have a toilet? and number two is where the sandbox is, so let me show you. I decided to put it in for space reasons and since my refrigerator is huge I decided to put my toilet under my bed so it folds out and this is not a very popular toilet in the truck industry, it is actually used in boating but this is called The Sea Head toilet is a composting toilet and then you have this little handle, you attach this little handle and then you do like this and this is if you decide to go to number two, this is how you would turn it and compost it. but I love this toilet again, it's cheaper than the nature toilet and it doesn't smell at all.

I put this little thing here so I can contain it, but this is my toilet. I use it every morning if I stay at home. a campground, obviously I'll use a campground if I'm staying in the middle of nowhere, I'll just like to get outside, if I'm near a gas station then I'll go to a gas station, but there are tons of options so if not you have a bathroom in your van, you don't have to have a bathroom in your van, it's really nice. I find this to be a luxury in my truck, but it's great because I can close it and not. you know it's there so now the litter box so for the litter box there are a couple of different reasons or ways to use it so how do you do it and this is all clean so don't worry , right now I'm trying paper balls.

I don't like clay litter because I think it smells bad and I don't like the fact that it builds up too much. I like stuff like this, but anyway, this is a sandbox. That's how I shoot it every time. day, so one of the other things I got stuck on is that it's a charcoal deodorant, this stuff literally absorbs all the smell and then when you can start smelling things again, you put it in the sun for about 24 hours and just use it again and put it right next to the litter box, like inside, and it works great.

I'm obsessed with it, but another way to get to the sandbox is if you remove this and get This way, I don't really use this way that often. I usually do the rollout, but this is really another great option. If you wanted to have a top entrance, you would just make a hole here and then your cats could go. inside I put the deodorant here and then they go to the litter box like this. The third most frequently asked question I get is when you leave thevan, how do you make sure your cats stay cool now?

This is a completely insulated van. truck, so it doesn't run like a normal car would, so when you close all these doors it won't be too hot in here, it will keep the temperature. Now the biggest advice I can give you is to get two forms or areas. of circulation in your truck, not one but two, I personally have three, so this one I have here is a fantastic fan and you can have this one open, you can't drive with it open and you can't have it open when it's raining, but I have it . I open it 100% of the time when I'm stopped and I'm obsessed with this fan.

I love it so much so I wanted to have something on top of my kitchen. I wanted to have something that would eliminate the smell and I cook fish probably every other night. No fishy smell in here thank goodness so I love the fan fantastic and I also have another fan I have a max air fan right here so the max air fan is a little bit covered so I can use it when it's raining and I can drive with the max air fan on now the nice thing about having two fans so you have your max air fan blowing and your fantastic air fan blowing up creates a circulation where you literally get this amazing air in your van for my third area of circulation when I close this door, this is another form of air coming into the van, so what is it really?

The good thing about this is that when I have both fans on, there is a good flow of circulation and it keeps the truck very, very, very cool. I travel with the weather, so I travel in 80 degree weather or below if I have to leave. the van for any length of time I say I'm on a hike I'm always on a hike in the morning when it's the coldest part of the day now again another amazing thing is I have a security camera right here so this really helps for me to keep an eye on what's going on in the van, what they're doing in the van, if someone breaks in from the van, this is like their base of operations, so I plug it into one of my outlets right there and it monitors the weather as well. .

I use a bluetooth meat thermometer here and that helps me monitor the temperature from my phone so I really appreciate that I love that lighting so I have three areas of lights I have lights underneath that are connected to a switch I have lights here which are connected to a switch right at the top and then on my bed I have lights that are connected to a dimmer so this here is a dimmer that I can turn up and down and it's really nice at night I can dim the lights over my bed so I have electricity and I have a really great electrical system so I have four 100 watt rhinology solar panels on top.

I also have a really amazing roof terrace that I never use but I love it, that's how you get to it so yeah the staircase is up here but you put your foot down here and then you clean up and there's a terrace on the top. baby roof up here, so it's only like one, two, three, four panels. wooden um but I really like it I recommend getting a lighter color so it doesn't get hot so it's like a wood color or like I have a gray color and it never gets hot um but I like to bring coffee here. like watching the sunrise and sunset, it's a really nice area to get a different point of view, but you could probably have like three people up here, but anyway, I've got 400 watts of solar on top, I've got an inverter Victron down and then I have 300 amp hours of battle board batteries in electricity, so my electrical system is all on this side of my bed.

If I wanted to get to him, I would just do this. I also have a propane tank, so that's a little bit. I think it's like the five gallons, I think, but I've been using it for the last two months and it still hasn't turned off and then all of my solar operating controls are here, so if I wanted to turn the inverter on, I would turn it on here and turn it on. What's really cool is that this charges everything since I'm in the desert since I'm in an area with a lot of sunlight. I have never run out of toys, so my cats love these toys. their favorite toys refuse to play with any other toys and are obsessed with them so they say I don't know a dollar for 30 of them on Amazon so I'll link them below too but they are I'm obsessed with them anyway , these are also fake plants.

I don't know if you could say that my cats will eat all the plants, so I'm incapable of taking care of the plants. You can see these plants have already started to die so I wanted to add more artificial plant greenery so my cats don't eat them and they still look great. I'm a big snowboarder. I've been doing it for I don't know 16 years and one of the biggest things with the truck I wanted a way to warm it up because I'm going to be in pretty cold temperatures. I have a 2000 um webasto heater and this connects to my gas tank and then it will pump out hot air and how do you determine that. because sometimes you have to mess with the altitude, you have this dial right here.

I was in the van in Chicago when it was, I think it was like negative 10 outside and I was using it, it was just me, so like my cats weren't here, but outside it was like negative 10 I put on the heater, I put on my jacket. sleep, I had two duvets here and it was amazing, like it worked, I was so warm I was sweating, so it really, really, really works very, very, very. I recommend this warmer, so I have a large collection of hats. As you can see, I love hats. There are four hats in the arena right now and the way they stay up is I literally do this and then I put them there and maybe if.

I'm on a bumpy road, they will fall out, but they pretty much never fall out, so my cabinets I have three very, very, very large, very long ones, so this is a very messy everything drawer. I have spoons. I have my panic button for my security system I have knives I have my epipen then I have this drawer that is very clean and organized I am obsessed with this if you don't have one you should get one it's called garmin inreach and there is a little sos button so I'm in places that don't have service so this is perfect for staying in touch with people because you can text them from this satellite phone.

This is my hair products section. I used to work in the hair industry and I love, I love good hair products, this is all my jewelry, this is my Wi-Fi router, so I'll talk a little bit more about this in a new video, but This is my Wi-Fi Att router. I do 50 concerts a month. 50 a month I just plug this in, plug it in and then I just press the button and I have wi-fi and it's amazing. One of the things I would recommend is that if you go with a t, you should probably have Verizon service. or vice versa I have a t as my cell phone carrier and in places like California where att is not the best carrier that means this one won't be the best either so if you are going to use wi-fi routers and hotspot get them different from your phone so you have coverage from everywhere here is my panel for my security system this is out of range because it's not on right now but this is my panel and I keep it here so this is really nice and fun parts As a lone woman on the road, you need weapons.

I'm not going to go through all the guns that I have in my truck, but definitely the Tasers, so I have a couple of Tasers with a flashlight and then I have like some little Tasers that I always have on me, obviously you can never be too safe. I also have wasp pepper spray and bear spray but those are my safety tools so the last drawer I'll take you to is my pots and pans and then my fruit drawer so I love cooking with this it's like an all purpose frying pan, I also have a dutch oven that one of my friends bought me, thanks mag, I have my fruit, I have a blender, so I don't really drink coffee anymore, I'm a tea person, but if I have friends and I want to drink coffee, this is like a coffee tamper, which is really nice, I really like it and then for my favorite thing in the truck, this is my electric. kettle and it's a collapsible kettle so I don't need to turn on my stove every morning.

Instead I can use this and it just plugs into the wall and doesn't require as much voltage and it's literally the best I can do. Use it probably four times a day and then when you're done you just collapse it and it's the best thing ever and it heats the water in about 30 seconds. It's unbelievable, but that's the stimulus anyway. I also have more collapsible containers. I'm trying really hard not to use ziploc bags or paper towels so I have bags to hold things that are really cool and can be washed really easily and then I also have these and these are also foldable so I guess that's also very good for saving space. but that's because I'm a huge equipment junkie, so while the dining room looks really cool on Instagram and some of my friends seem to be obsessed with the dining room, you can fit so many people in there that I can't have a dining room. because I love gear too much, so come take a look at my garage anyway.

I am obsessed with this cooler. Now I have a very big refrigerator, but I fill it with food, like when I was churning, or sparkling water or something like that. so I will always put this here and when I am in a caravan this is much more useful, but when you remove the cooler I have many other things. I have extra clothes depending on the season and also if I'm in a business situation or like I'm at a conference event. This is where my pretty clothes live. I have some of my goggles, helmets, snowboarding stuff. This is really good for my outdoor shower so.

I'll just leave this so I don't get dirty. This is a solar panel, so this is my extra backup solar panel, it's 100 watts and it's from Jackery and it goes to my Jackery electric generator, so this is a thousand watts. It will power everything for days, I think I'm still on first use, so when I'm out I'll use this for my laptop, I'll use it for my phone, I'll use it for a blender or something. That, oh my goodness, if I could tell you one thing, I want to get the collapsing kettle, but put all the things you want to take to the gym in your bag so you don't have to constantly grab them. anything from your kitchen area or something, so this is my toiletry bag, this is my shampoo bag, this is everything I would do to shower or go to the gym, so gym shoes are here too, so this is really nice and it's just It's really easy to grab this instead of having to put it everywhere so, um, this is a moon shade, this is an awning, you can put the awning here and go this way and sleep with the doors open or get some sleep. of additional shade or I place my moon shade on the sliding door so the sliding door is on top.

I'll show you a video, but that's my moon shadow, so this is an awning. I have my weights here. I have my extra tools, I have more cat stuff, so this is where I put all my extra cat food, cat litter and then I also have some of their cat packs and then some training stuff and now I move outside. shower, so this is my water tank, this is a 20 gallon water tank. I would like to have a slightly larger water tank. I would have loved a 30 gallon or 37 gallon, but I also have a 2.5 liter Bosch water heater.

So how I turn on the water heater is when I take a shower, which I'll show you how to take a shower in a second. I just flip this switch and then within 10 minutes I have very, very, very warm water and then the outdoor shower is right here. this connects to my water tank so when I want to shower I grab my amazing picnic table it also doubles as storage, for my shower specifically my outdoor shower so I have my jumper cables I have my connection for the shower . I have my water filter when I fill my water tank and then I have my flexible hose when I fill my water tank, but for the shower specifically we'll take this, we'll put this on and I won't do it now, but you literally just put this here once you do it so this is cold this is hot and then you shower so this is really nice so for more gear in my garage I have a kayak here believe it or not this is a foldable origami. um uru kayak I love this, it takes about six minutes to put together, it only weighs 21 pounds.

I also have a yoga mat that has a lot of dust on it because I've been using it a lot. I also have a tent and a sleeping bag. In this area like a small hole too, but I'm not going to take it out because it's very mangled there. I have two of your camping chairs here, which is really nice because as a lonely person, you always want to make friends. or my cat Alice also likes to sit on them and finally this is my chakri, so this is the electric generator that I was telling you about, it has a thousandamp hours, you can charge it with the solar panel or you can just plug it in. so I'm very grateful for the jackery this is how I access all my electricity so I go through here and then this is the fuse box too so if something goes wrong I'll go to the fuse boxes here when I'm In the colder months, I have a snowboard accessory that I put here and then I slide my snowboard in, but one of the things that I encourage you not to do is not to overfill your garage like I have done, because when I go to put things like firewood, I don't really have room for firewood, but finally in the garage section I have these magnetic hooks everywhere, so they are 100 pound magnetic hooks.

I even have them holding my curtains too so you can see that on my curtains instead of forcing everything in there, they're just attached by a magnetic hook and then it goes right underneath and that's actually very helpful, but I put all my climbing gear in here, my hammock, my chalk bag and then I have some of my winter clothes here, these are just some of the best ones that I've saved up and then this is an amazing messenger bag from Eagle Creek and the best thing is that it unfolds so the car can stay here when I have it in my backpack, so my cat literally likes to perch here and then he's ready to go when we're hiking, but that's actually my huge garage area, so clearly I can't have a dining room of any kind because I have too much stuff, welcome to my closet um, I worked in a company before I lived in a van and I went from having a huge closet to 52 inches, this is how we do it.

I use these ikea ones, they measure about 11 and a half inches so I think this measures 12 inches so they fit perfectly. I have Eagle Creek. What are these packing cubes that are really amazing? I mean, I probably have about I don't know 60 outfits here and I wear the same thing every day anyway, but I have my pants and all my blouses, so I have a bunch of blouses that are all like that, so I have I have some long sleeves, I have some sleepwear and then I have a bunch of flannels and then I have a bunch of tights and spandex, so I literally have a bunch here and I didn't really realize how much I had it here, I also have more clothes down here, so in addition to being a litter box, it's also a storage unit so it houses even more clothes so how do I do this this is where all my shoes live so my shoes. they're underneath and then I have all my Eagle Creek packing cubes, so I have them and I label them, so I have my jackets, I have my dresses and jeans, these are all my electronics, so this is a waterproof bag. or a waterproof bag which I really like and then all my shoes and some extra sunscreen and bug spray are right underneath so I have tons of storage so one of the reasons I chose a Ford Transit and there's a lot of different reasons it's because tall so I'm five nine and the high roof goes up to six eight um when it's just a cargo van with the whole roof and the wall up here it could probably fit someone six five and it feel totally comfortable here.

Now another reason I chose it is because if I'm in the middle of nowhere and I have a mercedes or a dodge promaster I most likely won't be able to find a mechanic, they are very few and the parts are a bit more expensive, while a Ford, everyone can work on a Ford and there are four dealerships everywhere. I have performed oil changes in the most random place. Another reason I bought the Ford Transit is because I'm getting into a little more complicated situations like snow and dirt, um, I needed all-wheel drive, so I wasn't initially going to buy a new vehicle.

I've never bought a new vehicle, but I bought a new 2024 Transit high roof because I wanted all-wheel drive, um and I. I wanted the warranty now, the last reason I bought the Ford Transit is because from here to here the length can fit six three, I'm five nine again, so when initially, because the builders had built this, they had only made one of the cutouts on this side so when I initially got it it fit my mattress it was right at five nine so I needed some extra room because my foot was right at the end so what we did was work with the contractor to insert this cutout had now already cut out the mattress so this mattress is a six inch memory foam mattress and I love it it's literally one of the most comfortable things I've ever slept on and I'm very comfortable here but this is already it was pre-cut to five nine and when we added the extra four inches, what I ended up doing I didn't want to have a new mattress, I put my dirty clothes in here and then I put all my sweaters in the crack since my feet are fine. here when I sleep I don't really feel any of that and it's extra storage so honestly I loved this solution and I think it would be awesome in other vans it's like secret storage that if you're a little short I end up like cutting part of your mattress and just put some sweaters on there because I'm not sorry and my cats honestly love it so hey, why not?

Okay guys, that's it, that's the full van

tour

if you have any questions. please ask me I will answer everything if you are interested in all the products they are all linked below if you want to follow us on social media my instagram is on quinn gable and my tick tock which I post a lot of videos on how to traveling with your cats and how to travel alone are also on Queen Gable, but seriously, if you have any questions, my DMs are always open, but it's time to get the guys in touch and us. We're going to Utah thanks