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Show off your camping setup / camper / van!

geargrrl

Angel Diva
Sorry, no good photos of the inside of my can right now. They are all on IG lol.
 
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SarahXC

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@geargrrl — yes the true 4season thing is really hard! I decided to do all my water in the interior to help prevent freezing and not having to blanket tanks underneath and the accompanying battery drain. I also have my water system affixed in place with rare earth super magnets so it’s easy to entirely pull the faucet/water pump and fresh and grey tank versus having to mess with antifreeze.
p.s. love your adventure machine!
 

TNtoTaos

Angel Diva
AH, that's better! Wow -- quite the rig! Love your videos, BTW - thanks for mentioning them!
 
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geargrrl

Angel Diva
@geargrrl — yes the true 4season thing is really hard!
p.s. love your adventure machine!

There's no right or wrong do it.... I blew m yACL/MCL a few years ago. I had spent months on sites with van forums, Sportsmobile etc. This was before the whole van thing blew up. A friend suggested to look at what Winnebago was building. All I can say is "this ain't Grandpa's Winnebago"!!! As always, it's the time vs money equation so we went for it. It helps that my husband is a geologist and has his own company. The van gets used for mobile accommodation on site.

Even 4 season builds like the Revel (Winnebago's new 4x4 option) have issues with the water lines.

The first morning it was 40 and pouring rain, when we could turn on the heat before we got out of bed and then have coffee in our PJs... omg, life changing. Especially after 40 years of tenting.
 

SarahXC

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
There's no right or wrong do it..
That is one of the most fun things! Everyone picks what to include (and how) based upon their own priorities. The getting up for coffee with heat and in pjs sounds wonderful. Hope your injuries are mended!
 

Christy

Angel Diva
Does anyone have rodent problems? I always thought someday we'd get a camper van, but when my neighbor got one she couldn't keep the rats out. I don't know if that was mainly from living in a sea level city, or the combo of that plus she has little kids and so the floor of the van always had smashed in goldfish crackers, etc. Thoughts?
 

TNtoTaos

Angel Diva
Does anyone have rodent problems? I always thought someday we'd get a camper van, but when my neighbor got one she couldn't keep the rats out. I don't know if that was mainly from living in a sea level city, or the combo of that plus she has little kids and so the floor of the van always had smashed in goldfish crackers, etc. Thoughts?
In my experience, rodents are more a problem on the outside - chewing on extension cords, hoses, etc, and it definitely depends where the vehicle is kept. If they're getting inside, there has to be an opening, and they're obviously being attracted by the strong food smells.

Just like in a home, one has to locate the openings and seal them, either with a permanent patch or steel wool. The major problem in your neighbor's case are the food crumbs, for sure. If there's nothing inside for them to eat, they're less likely to be attracted in the first place.
 

RachelV

Administrator
Staff member
Wow, @geargrrl , I just spent some time looking at Winnebago's site and they're really all in on #vanlife in addition to more "traditional" RVs. The Travato looks amazing, what a cool vehicle.

We don't need to get into a whole toilet thing if you're not interested, but do you find the interior toilet is worth the maintenance / cleanup vs outside / campground pit toilets / etc? There's no good solution to this problem imho...
 

RachelV

Administrator
Staff member
When I started this thread I was secretly hoping someone would own a Taxa trailer. For anyone who enjoys spending time fantasizing about how you can spend tens of thousands of dollars to go camping, I highly recommend their website and YouTube channel: https://taxaoutdoors.com/

In an alternate universe where we don't have the minivan and want to spend 30k (!!) on a camping trailer, we have a Taxa Cricket. :smile:
 

TNtoTaos

Angel Diva
Wow, @geargrrl , I just spent some time looking at Winnebago's site and they're really all in on #vanlife in addition to more "traditional" RVs. The Travato looks amazing, what a cool vehicle.

We don't need to get into a whole toilet thing if you're not interested, but do you find the interior toilet is worth the maintenance / cleanup vs outside / campground pit toilets / etc? There's no good solution to this problem imho...
I opted not to waste the precious space on a bathroom; instead, I have one of these Folding potties that I use with Double Doodie bags. Works great, no odors, bags can be discarded in any trash container. Works well for a solo camper -- probably not for a family situation.
 

TNtoTaos

Angel Diva
When I started this thread I was secretly hoping someone would own a Taxa trailer. For anyone who enjoys spending time fantasizing about how you can spend tens of thousands of dollars to go camping, I highly recommend their website and YouTube channel: https://taxaoutdoors.com/

In an alternate universe where we don't have the minivan and want to spend 30k (!!) on a camping trailer, we have a Taxa Cricket. :smile:
These are nice, but I went with a van because I didn't want to be towing anything, and also a van can park anywhere that a car can, so it opens up many more options. One can even "stealth" camp in towns, if you set up your van to be very discreet.
 

SarahXC

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Those Taxa trailers look really neat! So on the potty front we decided to include one but not in its own room. To my husbands’s great horror it is housed in the front center console. I agreed to change this if odor or use became a problem but so far so good. The second row seat actually provides nice privacy from the back and a window cover or coat on the dash does the job up front with window tint and how high the vehicle sits.

We use the dometic porta potty type toilet. My girls are happy to go outside in wilderness but avoiding gas station bathrooms during Covid has been great.

With three users (DH is having no part of it lol) I have to empty it after about 1.5 days. As far as that I am not bothered by it but then I also did 4 years of cloth diapers so maybe not a fair comparison. I just use a bit of baking soda when reassembling instead of stronger chemicals. 0FF8AAEE-F3A9-465A-A29D-EEB7A0A233C2.jpeg
 

TNtoTaos

Angel Diva
To my husbands great horror it is housed in the front center console.
View attachment 14371
Just wait until some night when it's freezing/snowing/sleeting outside and he has to go -- I'll bet he'll be grateful for it then, LOL! I love not having to leave the van at night, or use sketchy public facilities.
 

geargrrl

Angel Diva
I opted not to waste the precious space on a bathroom; instead, I have one of these Folding potties that I use with Double Doodie bags. Works great, no odors, bags can be discarded in any trash container. Works well for a solo camper -- probably not for a family situation.

The Travato looks amazing, what a cool vehicle.

We don't need to get into a whole toilet thing if you're not interested, but do you find the interior toilet is worth the maintenance / cleanup vs outside / campground pit toilets / etc? There's no good solution to this problem imho...

haha no problem. It's a fact of life.
I wasn't sold on the full bathroom. I could still live with a cassette toilet but hub has a serious sanitation fetish. Having a full, standup shower is amazing, even if we need to keep showers short. A day of dirty mountain biking, and coming home to a hot shower? Yes, please.

As for the toilet part of it, emptying the tanks isn't really a big deal. I would go for cassette toilet but as I said, that's off the table. The big issue I see with cassette toilet without a separate cubicle is privacy.
My friends with a cassette toilet and no cubicle have rules like "no pooping in the van". So - if you are dependent on campground toilets, what do you do when you are boondocking? ( van life term for no facilities, ie primitive FS type camping) Do you a) tell partner to go wait outside while you poop, b) set it up outside, maybe in a little tent? or c) dig a hole or d) wait until you get to a real bathroom? What is the weather is crappy - 40 degree rain, blizzard, whatever. Not having some sort of private bathroom facility is deal breaker for us.

So we like our bathroom. It's in the back so when we are camping primitive and the weather is nice we open the doors for a room with a view. It has heat and a fan. The shower is roomy enough for a guy to stand up in and take a shower. We can set up an outdoor shower. I think pit toilets are gross most of the time. If they are nice and the timing is right, we will use them. We pee outside when primitive camping to save on tank capacity as the tanks aren't huge. If it's raining or cold, damn straight I'm staying in my nice cozy van bathroom. It's very easy to clean as part of the post trip routine.

It's pretty interesting how Winnebago has stayed on trend. They follow all the FB groups and will make changes based on feedback. Some of the design features are really nice. Our only complaint is the clearance loss from the generator. We could do without the generator (needed for AC and microwave) but that's how it comes. We mainly charge the batteries from the solar and driving.
 

RachelV

Administrator
Staff member
@SarahXC I lol'ed at least twice reading your post. That is a great use of space, though! Most people just aren't brave enough to think of putting a toilet there. :smile:

@geargrrl That does all make sense. I love that you can just open up the back doors when the weather is good! All the upsides of pooping outside with none of the downsides. (lol seriously though)
 

Kimmyt

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
we don't have a camping vehicle, mostly tent campers here, but we do a good bit of dispersed, and recently we rented a little trailer and camped in the desert over thanksgiving where it got down to about 15 at night. We used our usual dispersed toilet setup, which is an orange home depot bucket with a heavy duty trash bag inside filled with a good bit of kitty litter, and with a folding potty seat on top (its called the pottete and its magical). We are a family of four, two kids 4 and 6 (obviously the caveat here is that with kids this age there is no need for toilet privacy because i haven't had that type of privacy in over 6 years), we kept it tucked outside of the trailer so that other campers couldn't see us although no campers were within 200 ft of us, and at night i took the potty seat inside to keep it warm-ish. I've used the same set up on a dispersed camping climbing tripp with 4 other ladies, we just put the campp toilet about 100 ft from the campsites tucked into some pinyon pines for privacy. We have a lid for the bucket that we set on top to keep animals from getting into it and usually keep a little mesh bag with tp next to the bucket or hang it on a nearby tree.
 

TNtoTaos

Angel Diva
KImmy


Where/how do you dispose of the waste?
These bags must be sealed, but can then be disposed of in any trash can where you'd dispose of soiled diapers, doggy bags, etc. Just about anywhere.
 

geargrrl

Angel Diva
"fun fact" -- one of those things that NOBODY pays attention to or cares about... .dumping human waste into a landfill is illegal. My hub is a landfill permitting specialist and we've always joked about the mountains of diapers that go into landfills. This is why a bag of diapers tells you to scrape the poop into a toilet. Or they used to... I haven't dealt with diapers in over 30 years. This is not intended to shame anyone; just a note. The only time it ever gets attention is in situations like boater take out where dumpsters were getting overfilled with garbage bags from river toilets to the point of dumpster leakage.
 

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