Inside the van: A closer look at my ride

My Chevy G-20 Traveler conversion van was the real star of my trip. It went almost 17,000 miles and gave me almost no problems. It broke down once and I had to replace the alternator and battery. That was it! No flat tires even. Which was lucky because I didn’t have a spare.

I’ve been meaning to write more about how I lived inside there, so here are a few pics. First, I folded the back seat down into a bed so that could sleep and rest there. Sometimes I would take naps at rest stops. All the windows have curtains, so I was able to have some privacy.

I removed one of the two middle seats. I wanted to keep one so that I could have a place to sit when I felt like getting out of the front seat and stretching out. Removing the other seat was a big help, because it gave me a place to store my clothes bin and a small dresser.

With so little room to keep everything, I had to maximize the space I had available. In the dresser I kept my toiletries  in the top drawer, my electronic gadgets like cameras, shavers, phones in the middle drawer, and spare cans of food in the bottom drawer.

I stored my laundry basket and a few other overflow items under the back of the bed, and under the front of the bed I kept the cds, the rest of my food, and all my shoes. And that was pretty much it.

The van really got around. At a campground in South Carolina:

Broken down on the highway outside of Austin.

Somewhere in Arizona on our way to the Grand Canyon.

At the campground in Death Valley, California.

Driving up the coast of California. The Pacific Ocean is in my rearview mirror!

In the southwest and mountains, the front of the van was constantly covered with thousands of insect roadkills.

The van at 10,000 feet in the Colorado mountains.

On the street in Pilsen, Chicago.