Tour our fifth van! A Ford 2013 E350 4x4 Sportsmobile conversion.

[@exc1t3d451]

That is one of the best videos I have ever seen on vans. Very well put together and narrated. You had my attention throughout the whole thing! Love your story and your perspective on what you like and don't like. I am in the middle of my own van build and you gave me some good ideas. Thank you

[@catherine_bailey]

Thanks so much and good luck with your build!

[@michaelmacdonald7342]

Looks Awesome- love the E350, they look great and are the perfect size, not too big, you are going to have an awesome rig

[@clearchoicerealtygroup9729]

really enjoyed the video, we are building our e 350 right now, a challenge! Great ideas, thanks.

[@jennycraigadventures3314]

Enjoyed your van journey so far!

[@Mr_van]

Wow! What a moving house! I'm planning to build a camping car, too. Your video is helpful.😅

[@kahisawheel]

What a beast! Love those vans.

[@rphawx]

Absolutely beautiful video! And great van. Mostly, beautiful family! Lookin forward to the revised #5:).

[@stephenrogers9664]

Greet video. I’m now following to see how your new van looks 👍

[@catherine_bailey]

Thanks 👍 the build officially starts next week. I can't wait to see her transform!

[@IDR1219]

Can't wait to see the results! Keep the vids coming!

[@dcw626364]

Well done video. Nice that you were able to enjoy all of those vans! I wish I had a van but I am thankful for what I do have on my SSI budget! It's a 2000 GMC short bed, sport side which I've had for 20 years with 265,000 miles. A couple of years ago I found the 30 year old slide in pop up Scamper for $1,700. Have two small lithium power stations, a solar panel and a chest type fridge. The original fridge is an Ice Box!

[@catherine_bailey]

I love it! Those Scamper pop-ups are cool, while it's fun to obsess and iterate on the "perfect" camping gear and rig getting out there and camping is where it's at, and you'll spend a lot less $$ if you're out camping rather than having your truck in the shop working on the next modification ; )

[@user-fz2ul7wl2d]

This is exactly what i would like to have. A 4X4 Ford Econoline F250. Hard to come by.

[@FieldVan]

Hey hey, This is awesome! Are you okay if we repost this on our accounts? Let us know!

[@catherine_bailey]

Of course!

[@prophetseven728]

Did you basically live on Amtrax? Im not sure if you are full timers in the Van life. Maybe switch to Amtrax? How tall are your Pop-Ups with them DOWN? is it 82 inchs or less. I have a small garage.

[@1life1chance62]

Bed gotta be from side wall to side wall you’ll have much more room for storage

[@catherine_bailey]

The bed is up top in the pop top! makes the space super efficient.

[@rodhelms-yt2pk]

How the transmission last

[@ELMENDORFX]

The font you draw you must be a Talking Heads fan, Stop Making Sense movie fan?

[@sageadventures9480]

Can't believe yall got 37s on there! I was under the impression there was no way to achieve that on a sportsmobile!

[@catherine_bailey]

I believe Sportsmobile put these tires on when they did the 4x4 mod., since we got it after it was auctioned off by the insurance company we are still trying to figure out some details on the build!

[@catherine_bailey]

I wanted to follow up, I just discovered these are not 37's! You are right, at least on this version you could not get 37's to work. These are actually 35's.

[@sageadventures9480]

Thanks for the follow-up. 35s rule 😉

[@alexmcgreen1664]

i would say that you are really looking for a rc van and not a overlander van because of your build of the 5 van so just check first some builds and dont ask for a stupid compagny to do the design for you i know you can build it yourself and at the end you know where everything is and goes and the build would be 100% from you and more satisfying as you travel with it. the big problem with those big overlander van compagnies is that they think that you need everything ! and this is wrong, what you need is a van that can go offraod, a place to sleep, a place of storage, and a place to cook and maybe be comfortable inside but your in a van its going to be comfortable, and create something for the outside too, like a 180 degree turp that goes almost all around anyway your know what you want so ust build the stuff that you can build and the most complicated stuff give it to someone that is competent

[@catherine_bailey]

I do agree that it's it's best to keep it simple. Though every has a different idea of what that is. We've got a wonderful small shop with much better skills than I have that worked on the van and they built exactly what I designed. It's satisfying when you can find good people to work with.

[@KK-py2xw]

Awesome vehicle 👍👍 May I ask how much you paid for it?

[@catherine_bailey]

We paid 79K, it had 33K miles, and was in great shape (but salvage title). Interesting to note that the total original van+build cost was 107K in 2014.

[@KK-py2xw]

Thank you! ❤

[@PandaLife-lp8kn]

Uhm....VanLife was a "thing" throughout the 60's🙄. See Hippy movement. #VanNeistadt

[@ericsumner7733]

Happy for you guys...I don't see how you can afford all those different types of builds but kudos for you guys that you can afford and have the benefits of the freedom all of us would love to have...Have fun on your next journey...VAN # 5 is the best choice 😊

[@catherine_bailey]

Thanks! and yes, we've been in a fortunate position, but also had good luck/timing and I think made some good decisions. We bought Van#2 new, it was basically an RV and so you can get great financing, we had a good down payment, and at that time there seemed to be an excess of them. We paid a lot of it off and then Van #3 was about 20K less expensive, so we were able to purchase that without financing. Then we made money selling that one! We invested all that into the more expensive Sportsmobile build, yet the overall price of that build was way less than what they cost today. We've also skimped on some parts of the initial build and then kept building it out when we could afford it, and we sold that van while it had an amazing resale value (more than the initial build). None the less it's a lot of $$ and time to do these projects, but I love the the process and the camping....

[@damien7730]

😀 "Promosm"

[@williamsantiago7303]

Y'all go through vans like women go through toilet tissue. Y'all have to be loaded, geez. 😝

[@troybenson696]

Booorrriinng