Australia’s Best Off Grid Off Road Caravan? Zone RV Sojourn 12 Month Review

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Hey guys, here's some more info and links to some of the other great products we talk about in the video, that we love and use for our travels (but are not affiliated with) - thefeelgoodfamily.com/rv-must-have-products/ 😀

[@freewaylee]

Here from the States. You are a lovely couple and great walkthrough. Thank you!!

[@rossharvey1496]

Our Karumba trip remains one of our most memorable so looking forward to those episodes. Our trip saw us go through Charters Towers, The Lynd Junction, Greenvale (the city suburb in the bush), the amazing lava tubes, Mt Surprise, Georgetown ( the Cumberland Chimney was a wow for us) Forsyth, Cobold Gorge, Croydon (loved the China Town ruins and an unexpected Lake Belmore). We struck it lucky and pulled over to watch the Gulflander whistle us as it passed on its way to Normanton. Just typing this brings back a flood of happy memories. Back to this episode, you mentioned weights a few times and reminded me that you were going to do that tow rig upgrade story maybe soon in August?

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Wow!! So many of your itinerary we will be visiting so excited to visit and film and share and thank you 🙏 yes…., the weight (re-weigh-in) has to wait till after VanJam when we can film with Dave from WeightCheck as he’s been overseas on an epic holiday and our timing didn’t match - definitely coming up 😅🙏💙🇦🇺🍻

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Sometime in October I think 🤔

[@mrandmrsmeier8685]

Thank you for the update guys. We have added your tips to our list. We have an appointment tom morning with Zone to finally place our order for our 21.6 sojourn pioneer. Super excited and after having this amazing van on our inspiration board for over a year can’t believe the dream is coming true 🙏🏻❤️ so thankful for all your insights.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Woohoo!! That is so exciting guys and we can’t wait to see you on the road - “tell ‘‘em the FeelGoods sent you!” 💙🇦🇺🙏🕺

[@leannechurches5227]

We have a zone base, highly recommended. Just finished our trip of 9000kms from Toowoomba to...Broken Hill, Adelaide, Yularu, kings Canyon,mereenie loop,West,East Mcdonald Ranges,Alice Springs, across Plenty to Boulia, Bedourie, Windorah, Roma and home Toowoomba. No Dust in van,what a blessing, a few loose screws in cupboards , no further issues as we cruised the dirt, corrugations of the outback. We spent $4000 in diesel, V8 200 series landcruiser wagon.😊😊 Happy Campers😊 This van is worth every cent we spent.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

So good!! Love this post 💙🇦🇺🕺🏕️

[@user-sw2gb5tr1f]

Hi from New Zealand. Another great informative show, I have seen in a caravan a dishwasher that uses 7 L water per load. Could you soon about the 4 years traveling anniversary show us over the 4 years of travel a map of where you have been and Kms traveled. Also a modest all expenses budget of a 35000 km traveling in a year show around Australia. These shows that I am subjecting would be great for your viewers to see, The rugby was good. Keep the happy trails going. Thanks Jono P

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Love these suggestions! And can cover some of this in coming weeks for sure 🙏🇦🇺💙🕺

[@martinfinn674]

I believe you guys are now celebrating your 2nd vaniversary. Congratulations guys.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you 🙏

[@TaylorsOnTour067]

Love these informative vlogs just as much as your weekly videos! about to indulge in your podcasts . Thankyou for all the wonderful tips and insight you offer along with the feelgood vibes😍☺Stay safe and keep on loving one and other !

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Ah thank you 🙏 💙😊🕺

[@markthornber2076]

Hey Guys, thank you for all the tips. Our mind is made up and we will be moving forward with our Zone Purchase. Super excited to join the Zone family - keep making these awesome Videos - lots of fun to watch and super helpful.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

That is fantastic!! We are so excited for you guys and look forward to sharing a campfire down the road - enjoy every part of this journey! 💙🇦🇺👍🎉 cheers P,K&J

[@kristyfabian1419]

Just left Karumba a week ago, quite happy to go back again and hang out longer next time. We don’t even fish, just a great place for those sundowners

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Can’t wait to get there and enjoy a few sundowners 🍻💙😎🇦🇺

[@louisvanderheijden5228]

We have ordered our 19 ft summit yesterday. Can’t wait until end of January delivery. In the meantime we are enjoying your videos 😊👍

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Woohoo!! That is awesome 💙 congratulations and can’t wait to see you guys out on the road! 💙🙏🍻🇦🇺🕺

[@sandyvass1173]

We added a folding cup holder on each side of our bed because, like you, we wanted a place to have a cuppa while in bed. It is perfect. Folds down and holds a cup and then it folds up and out of the way when not in use.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

That’s great - where did you purchase them from please? 🙏💙🇦🇺🇦🇺

[@lexmacdonald6505]

Love you videos, you keep it real. Best bit was drone footage of whale and when Sue got inked😂

[@rich9903]

I’m not sure your comment here qualifies for an entry in the ‘Just Vanning It’ Weber Q1000 giveaway Lex … but good luck anyways 😜

[@seandolkens4021]

Thank you for this video. Another great evening spent watching. 🙏

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

That’s great thank you 🙏 😍

[@MrAshfrench]

Guys, fantastic idea to move the overhead strip lights to the floor along with a soft hew, you could also have them as sensor movement triggered along with a safe. Would be excellent to have these 2 features added when l order my ZONE for next year delivery, I’ll definitely be asking ZONE to incorporate Thanks Ashley

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

That’s fantastic and exciting news Ashley!! Safe travels and hope to share a camp fire down the track 🏕️🍻🇦🇺👍

[@yusufsayed1583]

Good Afternoon 😊Fantastic Video Legends 👏🏼👏🏼 Thanks for the reviews and keeping it real 💯 Awesome Tips 👍🏼 Thanks once again Mates 😊 Greetings from South Africa 🇿🇦

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Our pleasure! Looking forward to bringing you the Cape York and Karumba episodes in a few weeks time - next week the Uluṟu Road Trip Wrap up will be awesome 👍🕺🇦🇺💙

[@robertarmbruster5650]

I love the van, it's absolutley fantastic but way out of my price range. They are so innovative these guys and deserve good support, so thanks for doing your part.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you Robert! They are doing amazing things for the industry 🇦🇺💙👍

[@TheTripleDubya]

Great video, looking forward to our new van, very much enjoying your channel.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you guys 🇦🇺💙🙏

[@TinaWarn]

Great episode! ❤

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you Tina x

[@JayWilFo]

Thank you for the follow up review ❤ When will you be spending a week in the new Expedition and reviewing that? 😁 How close do you roll towards your weight limits? And one more query if I may? Jasper seems to be very comfortable socially. Has the change to more offgrid camping impacted his social networking? And one more one more question 😜 There seems to be a lot of “parent time” being hinted at in the videos for a while. Are you working on a second little one?

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Haha! We’d love a second child but may not be in our stars 🙏💙 we’d love to review the expedition at some stage so we’ll let you know if that works out on the near future - we were overweight and had to get a GCM & GVM upgrade and are well under now 😅 we are only 80-100kg under (when fully loaded) in the van and atleast 450- 500kg under on the GVM now. Fortunately he has still met plenty of kids in the off grid scene so that’s been pretty good - he went around to other campers yesterday afternoon and invited our ‘neighbours’ to our outdoor cinema night ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ - was really great 😊

[@JayWilFo]

@@TheFeelGoodFamily Completely understand how hard having a kid can be. Took us 16 years before it happened. Seems the secret is not to try, make some commitments to plan you life as it is now, then the kiddo suddenly happens to throw all your plans out the window. 😅 Only thing is, if Katie gets pregnant, then Paul will have to be going up and cleaning the solar panels in his shortshorts 😍

[@NavCheckAdventures]

Drop bear pockets

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Great suggestion!

[@cbeuck5024]

Great vlog - lots of tips/ tricks/ how to ect. ❤ Have sent to son....stay safe - happy travels Jan Adelaide

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you Jan 💙🏕️

[@JustcruznRob-AlanaBuick]

Great wrap, safe travels

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you 🙏 safe travels enjoy!

[@karenclare4631]

You never talked about the washing machine, water and power usage. Otherwise glad you still like your zone, can’t wait for new videos and travels

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Great point - the washing machine is super efficient 14l of water on eco per load or 20l on full cycle. The lowest we have been in the power usage is 42% on the batteries during a couple of weeks of Grey skies and rainy weather otherwise we have had no issue with power and the 1260w of solar and 600ah lithium does the job perfectly 💙🇦🇺🕺 safe travels

[@rickyclarke8657]

Great episode

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you Ricky 🇦🇺💙🙏

[@tonia-deegraveson1760]

Katie you are such a gem. Thank you guys for your vid. I do love your Zone very envious it would be my dream to own one but i am just as happy with ours as it allows us to get out there and making memories. Just a side mark i am seeing a lot more HipCamp sites now getting up in value which is a bit disappointing - just my observation

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you 🙏 we generally love hipcamps.. hopefully not a trend in prices going up 😬

[@trevorgill1895]

Hi love your channel? looking to swap our yacht for a LC and Zone one day, keep up the excellent work. Hopefully I have attached a photo of Fiona's Spanish mac?

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Wow! That would be an incredible experience - the pic didn’t attach unfortunately 😬 if you’ve got some good tips in all ears 😎💙🙏

[@quentinrankmore1260]

Hey, just watch your content for the first time. Well, I must say, you are both so far in front of anyone I've seen so far it's not funny. Coming across so smooth and professional with so much less, "excitable, commercialisation," it was an absolute pleasure to watch your episode. I have subscribed and will be de-subscribing from some others. (Wannabe Wondering Wankers.) Can't believe I missed you both, previously. Ahh, well, better late than never. Cheers, Q.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

That’s very kind thank you 🙏

[@live_work_play]

Great content once again. Watching all the equipment that you run off the grid baffles me, and would like to know how you do it. I own a Austrack Gibb 16 caravan with a Redarc Manager 30 (2kw Sinewave), 3 x 100ah Lithium Batteries, 4 x 100w roof mounted solar panels. I am a full-time bookkeeper on the road, so the laptop, extra monitor and Starlink have to run 6-10 hours per day, especially through payroll Mon-Thursday. I have two fridges, the one inside the van is a 150L Thetford Fridge/Freezer, and the one outside the van is an 80LArctic Fridge/Freeze, and a CPAP machine at night. Other than that there are no appliances (even TV) or anything else, as I am on Gas. Would really love to be off the grid more but only get roughly 48 hours before everything goes "kapoot". Any thoughts?

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thank you Tracy and sounds like you have an awesome set up that may only need a little tweaking - can you add a 300w solar blanket? That would help put a lot more solar power into the lithium - we have 600ah and 1260w panels total - so I’m thinking that you have plenty of battery capacity but need more panel support for the batteries! You could actually phone redarc or a solar expert and ask them their thoughts - the other thought would be to add a 100-200 lithium battery to your vehicle with a large solar panel on the roof to run the extra 80l fridge/freezer and possible the starlink from that set-up as well - we do this when the weather is grey and that way we can split the power usage across 2 seperate systems! All this does cost a bit so maybe the 300 w blanket is a less expensive option - I hope this helps 😊🍻👍👍🏕️💙

[@live_work_play]

@@TheFeelGoodFamily thank you x

[@martinfinn674]

If you're travelling through Kalgoorlie, be careful as my van was severely damaged (windscreen and a flat tyre). Please warn everyone as this seems to be increasing in the Goldfields area. As soon as my sprinter is fixed, I'm outa here.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Wow!! That’s crazy and thank you for the heads up 🙏😅👍 safe travels

[@martinfinn674]

Hopefully we will meet up somewhere in this beautiful land; Australia.

[@lisamccrae8178]

Wondering how you like your washing machine and how much water does it use? Thanks.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Love this machine - 14l per watch eco and approx 20l per wash full 👍😎💙

[@treeman3663]

Any manufacturer that can't do electrical not induction would not get my business as induction is bad if you have a pacemaker because induction creates a magnetic field bad for pacemakers

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Wow, we didn’t know that about pace makers! Let me ask what option there is 👍👍

[@treeman3663]

@TheFeelGoodFamily well either ceramic hotplates or gas. If the law is going to say no gas inside then it has not been thought through at all

[@treeman3663]

@@TheFeelGoodFamily maybe 2 hotplates electric 🤔

[@HGills]

New to finding your channel and watching videos not necessarily in order In this one, around the 14-15min mark you show your outdoor cinema on the the back of the van. Great for when you’re on your own/remote but don’t you think it’s could be annoying and inconsiderate to those around you who maybe really just want to enjoy the peace and tranquility of the outdoors ? How do you manage noise, is there some sort of unspoken rule in terms of being able to enjoy yourself but also respecting that maybe not everyone is as enthusiastic about sport or a movie as you are ?

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Welcome and great question! We have the ability (through Apple TV) to wireless Bluetooth to headphones which works a treat for any time that we are close to other campers and want to protect their environment also 🙌💙😊 if it’s a kids movie and we have an early timeslot we generally invite the other families to join - the speaker we have is also very good in that it provides crystal clear sound so not really necessary to blast the audio - safe travels and enjoy 🇦🇺🏕️💙

[@KimberleyJaskolski]

Thank you so much for this vlog. The van we are going to get has two has and an electric hobs. I am going to be asking if we can have 3 induction cook tops instead. Not a fan of gas or electric cook tops.

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Exciting times ahead! Enjoy 🇦🇺💙👍

[@allanbarton5888]

With a gas less van how do you heat water for showers etc. wouldn’t electrical hot water use a lot of your power ?

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Great question! The Zone RV is moving to diesel water heater system and have been testing this out on their new expedition van and have given it a rave review 👍😊🍻🏕️

[@adamslattery5445]

Yellow electic tape over the fluoro white lights for warm effect. Thank me later 🎉

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Great hack! Thank you 😊

[@stevehardiman8134]

Just wondering what gvm upgrade have you got on your 79 love your videos

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Thanks Steve, we had a 4495GVM & 7995GCM done - I’ve seen that McCormacks 4WD in Sandgate are about to start doing JMACX upgrades 👍

[@stevehardiman8134]

@@TheFeelGoodFamily thx guys😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫👍👍

[@frankguernier2280]

Hi to Paul, Kate and Jasper. I am starting my research for our next van and I have to say I think a Zone is my first choice. I have "Zoned " in on two models. The 21ft sojourn Pioneer as you have or the Sojourn Summit Csrbon Fibre build. I am confused as at first I thought the carbon Summit would be lighter but in advertised base weight it's actually 250kg heavier. My choice would be the Summit and I love the black colour scheme. But after ticking the set up with extras boxes . The base weight is 2915kg plus extras 325kg plus say water in tanks the ATM totals 3400kg. That leaves me an unrealistic 100kg before I reach overload. My question to you or anybody with knowledge. Is this van realistically only suitable only for 4000kg registration ? The other question is the price difference between the Pioneer vs the Summit. The equipment build is very much the same yet the Pioneer base price is $137,500 vs The Summit $$207,600. With no lighter weight advantage what reason for the considerable price difference. Cheers.

[@HudyGamer14]

What’s the location at 35:42? Looks awesome

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Ah yes!! Charlotte Plains 🙏💙🇦🇺

[@belbarnett4672]

How do you like the composting toilet and bathroom sizing?

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Shower as in most vans is very large and love that! The bathroom area is small but enough room to sit when needed and the space we spend the least amount of time so makes sense!! The composting toilet is a game changer because we now only need to empty once every 4-6 weeks - this totally changes how you camp. And you don’t need to be worried about finding a dump point every 3 days! Amazing - it took us a couple of rounds to get the coir peat and moisture consistency right and now we would never go back to a cassette! Like anything in life, a bit of a learning curve and so worth it! Cheers and safe travels 🏕️🇦🇺🍻

[@suewiles292]

How do we book for your area for van jam

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

That’s fantastic! When you get to the checkout you’ll get an option to choose a camping group - there you will choose FEEL GOOD ZONE 😎🕺💙 can’t wait!

[@suewiles292]

Tickets booked 🎉😊

[@lynschostakowski8819]

I live 2 mins from Van Jam. Will be able to hear the music from there. Great episode.

[@martinmaher5857]

How's the Deisel hot water system compared to the Gas system? Thanks

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Hi Martin, we e heard great reviews 🙌 we have a gas hot water system and diesel heater and this combination is fantastic - the new model Zones are gasless internally and have diesel hot water system - from what we’ve heard sound like a great outcome!! Safe travels

[@martinmaher5857]

@@TheFeelGoodFamily Thanks

[@michaelswitzer8930]

1 year already, must be time to trade in "AGAIN"🤣

[@TheFeelGoodFamily]

Haha!! Never 🙌😅🕺🇦🇺💙

[@R00RAL]

Gee, Daryl really has fallen.