The older gent is such a well spoken interviewer. Sounds like he's been a reporter or something...impressive guy. And I learned something about youtube. I will be watching the ads for the youtubers I like from now on.
Omg this is probably the most informative video I've ever seen on how people make money off "youtube"! Thanks so much man. Love your van and your videos! Thanks man!!
That's an interesting point you make about watching the commercials all the way through to the end. As a RU-vid viewer, I have always hit the "skip ad" button. From now on, I'll make more of an effort to watch the commercials to the end as a way of supporting the creators whose videos I like to watch.
This guy has this best Van to have and live in he's thought of everything in his build and if anyone is thinking of building a van they need to see his van tour to see how amazing it is
I was planning on writing a book about my vanlife adventures but recently decided to put that project on hold while I focus on something I feel more passionate about. Thanks for being interested in my story and for encouraging me to write a book. Now is just not the right time for me to do it though. If you're interested in seeing what I'm currently feeling most passionate about go to Facebook and search for THE QUESTION FUNNEL. It's a group page I recently created and its the beginning of a lifestyle I'm creating for my future.
Having watched this a second time, including the commercials . I appreciate the indepth and analytical description of how to attempt to create a sucessful RU-vid video. Very interesting!
Your lighting is good as opposed to many Tubers, where lighting is poor to only fair. Amazing how socialable Tubers insist on holding the camera themselves when there's someone else available to film it. You made the correct decision to focus the camera on the two of you, instead of trying to hold the camera.
I am so jealous of your lifestyle. I find it super intriguing to live in a van. I would certainly want to build a van similar to yours some time in the future, but I would probably not live full time in it, but instead seasonal, where i live 6 months in the van a year. Love your vids!
Very interesting commentary! It’s not often that anyone actually explains how they get paid for their video content. I would give you two thumbs up if I could, but only if you could find a quieter location to talk to each other. Perhaps you could use a more directional microphone. Enjoy the freedom!
I know! The audio sucked. I actually put it in my music studio to get rid of the noise as much as I could. I've been editing audio for over 12 years now. It still came out shitty. There wasn't much I could do. Next time, I will be well aware of background noise! Thank you!
What a great conversation between the two of you. A dream job on the road would involve joining a music tour as a behind the stage worker. But what seems more likely could be corporate remote work for a company
I’m just about to graduate from high school and I really want to follow this lifestyle. The only thing stopping me is financing that dream. I love your videos. Thank you for all of this amazing inspiration!
Then you have nothing stopping you. I was flat broke when I decided to buy a van. I had to sell everything I owned, and still only made less than $3000. Maybe you'd make less because your younger with less stuff. Not sure, but you can take the time to work a job like I did until you have the money. These things take time. It's completely normal not to have a van for months even before building up the money if you start out broke. Then once you have a van, you need to make more money for the build. Once done, you'll be living van life and able to skip on Rent and Utilities! This life is only as glamorous as you make it. Mine is luxury because I took the time and effort to put it all together. Take your time, you're young and have tons of life ahead of you.
By necessity or choice or convenience... vanning. Start small and cheap. Mini van for under $1500. Remove seats or flip them down into the floor (if you have that style minvan). Get a foam mattress (light cheap durable) and toss it in. Sleep in it at your house or friend's place - somewhere you feel comfortable. This way youre just testing the "sleep in vehicle" idea and not factoring in the AM I OKAY TO BE HERE concept yet. With a small minivan you'll be able to answer questions like IS THIS BIG ENOUGH FOR ME, DO I NEED A BATHROOM IN MY VEHICLE, FOOD STORAGE, COOKING, SINK, TV, etc... With a minivan, you'll start off with essentials based on available room. How big should bed be? Should I make a folding couch bed? How much storage? Take a night and park in a residential area after 10pm. Sleep. When you wake, you'll learn quickly about urban stealth camping. CAN THEY SEE ME? DO I CARE? DO I NEED SHADES OR CURTAINS? DO I EVEN WANT WINDOWS IN MY VEHICLE? HOW DO I QUICKLY JUMP INTO DRIVER SEAT AND NOT BE NOTICED? MAN, I HAVE TO PEE...OH NO. That way you can decide on the many factors of vanning... = How big? -minivan, van, extended, promaster. Consider mpg if you plan on moving from place to place. = What style? Passenger (windows), cargo, hightop, conversion, commercial? = What color? White blends in best for urban camping. Common, not memorable. *You can paint your ideal vehicle, always an option. = Slider or bay doors? Plan on building a solid wall? No need for dual sliders. Bay doors on the side have advantages as does a sliding door. Solar? Add 2nd battery powered off alternator? Don't need extra power on board? Should I insulate? Will I be on cold climates or move every season? ============ Im 6 1. I've done; 4door hatchback. Low top conversion van. Astro passsenger van. Pontiac vibe. Hightop conversion van...and another hightop van that I have now. Being 6 1, I need to sleep lengthwise. Learned that quickly. I don't cook inside. Fridge (2 day food storage) is ice cooler or plug in cooler. No solar. No extra battery. Portable jump pack charger for fan, tablet and phone. Mpg is 14mpg but once yoube arrived and you're parked locally for 5 months, the space and height offsets the mpg.
@@OutdoorsEmbrace That's some great advice you're dishing out there. Keep doing what you're doing. Your actions and words are producing positive impacts on a growing number of people. Especially the younger generations.
please show us how you cook in the van with a fully stocked fridge/ freezer/ pantry and is there any way to have books in your van, any room for a shelf ?
I'm so glad to hear from my favorite van builder again! Glad you are doing so well. I put your van build in my playlist and this one is going there too. You have the best advice and info about vanlife and van building there is!
Super interesting interview. I had no money about your youtube income, but yeah, just checked out your views on that tour video.. impressive! Congratulations, and I hope to meet up with you when I move back to the states towards the end of the year and have my van on the road. :) All the best!
Your page inspired me so much and i thank tou. Will definitely let the ad run its course so you get paid lol. Even through i dont know you im really happy for you. Congratulations on hacking the system so far
I would love to be a van man, be 60 this year and want to see some of this beautiful country and live in it, save some money too. Looks pretty comfortable, nice job.
Just got caught up on all of your videos! Thank you so much. Your videos are helping to give me confidence in building out my van (that I am still shopping for) LOL! Thanks again!
OH MY GOSH.... I love this Video... but it was SOOOO HARD to HEAR the two of you TALK I had to put (CC) on... but still tried to HEAR y'all... Next time put the camera (MIC) inside the Van away for all the TRAFFIC NOISE. Love the concept of this video... BOTH of you are amazing... God BLESS YOU BOTH
Outdated tech was used haha, Now I have a noise reducer and could definitely make the audio so much better. Too bad RU-vid doesn't allow me to edit the video after upload
@judichristopher4604 oh my gear these days is so good that this exact same video and camera placement would have the audio extremely clear and absolutely no road noise at all, like it would sound completely quiet besides our voices. Technology is crazy! This would be all due to the vocal isolator on my video editor, not anything to do with any camera or microphone.
@@OutdoorsEmbrace WOW!!! That is good to know... I didn't realize you could do that. What equipment do you use? Is it the same as you would use for your RU-vid videos too... Well that was a dumb question... BAHAHAHAHA.. I am assuming so. Do you have a video on the Equipment you use to make Your RU-vids... I will be needing to get all of that this year... MY MacBook Pro is OLD... love it, but it does need to be updated... I'm thinking of also buying a Tablet... Judi needs to get in the 21st Century. BAHAHAHA
7th? I want to point out that making money on RU-vid is not guaranteed and can fail at any point in time. Plan ahead. I am a software developer and have software that automates Realty Websites. This is my income. I don't technically need to work much at all but this is years of prep to get to this point. I wish people didn't count on RU-vid for income. It's "extra" money, but certainly not something to count on.
Understood and agreed! That's why I also do Amazon FBA as a backup. At any time, I can kick it up and be making enough to supplement my lack of RU-vid money. But it's been going strong for a while now.
I think this is a very risky thing to do and we did the full time RV life and it didn't work out. Anyone who thinks this is the thing for them, I highly encourage you to do a ton of research and have a plan for the unexpected.
@@OutdoorsEmbrace In other words it takes a very special person with a very special (FOCUS) on what they want and what they'll put up with... as Yoda says... "Do... or Do Not... There is ... No Try!"
@judichristopher4604 completely agree! But I also am wondering why they said it didn't work out still, because there isn't much that can go wrong if you actually "do". What is so risky about this lifestyle? I feel I personally risk so much more not doing it. Looking back at starting, I did feel like all the risks involved were mostly smoke and mirrors. They were in my head, and personally I always chose to ignore them and it paid off greatly. Now I live the best life I think I could be.
This a great video! Thank you for your service. How do you keep yourself from getting bored? Last week I took 4 days off and I found myself being happy that I was back to work.
I make videos and hang with people constantly. I use FB groups to message and meet people from all over the country. Many of them are living in vans too. I meet girls on FB too. It's a good way to date since you can see their entire profile and what they are about first. So I've been dating and meeting people to keep myself busy. On my off time, I go to parks and hike.
I suppose that wouldn’t be too hard, but I would be on the ship a lot more than I would be living in the van or boat, I suppose though once the shipping season ends in January, I could live in the van or boat until it starts in March.
Outdoors Embrace this negative Nancy who commented above goes by sad quandary it goes well with his sad existence don’t pay attention to his negative outlook, most of us enjoy your videos I am a computer engineer with a young family house all that stuff but my wife and I have decided to build something like this out of a larger van or small bus to travel with our 2 young children on extended vacations
welcome to florida when you get here man! i think there's some good ways you could make money in the keys. im pretty sure that if you help hunt the lion fish certain people from the county or local restaurants will pay you for it. im not 100% sure about getting paid though i read about it in an article from a couple years ago. but the lion fish are a huge invasive species of fish that are destroying a lot of the natural wildlife in the waters around the keys so a lot of people want to get rid of them. plus you get to go snorkeling with a harpoon gun its fun.
Yeah! That's actually something I've been wanting to do! I'm gonna definitely snorkel, maybe even tomorrow morning. I'm gonna call a dive tour place and try to get my spot. I looked at spearguns and spearfishing poles today too. I'm probably just gonna get a pole.
Awesome you can live or stay anywhere you want to go but super curious where are you legally parking for overnight sleep? I know most walmarts dont care but I'm finding it real stressful trying to find places to legally park at nights. Thanks in advance ! (Also: how are you staying cool at nights in hotter temps? I have mr buddy with safe propane so cold nights are not an issue, but how do you stay cool in hot temps) thanks for any helpful Info!
So my next video is actually going to cover both of these topics. I am mostly parking at Walmarts, and it should not be stressful at all finding places to park legally at nights. For one thing, you shouldn't be worried about the legality of it. My friend in the video has been vanlife in for over 20 years. He's been knocked on hundreds of times, but only been asked to move six of those times. He says every single confrontation with the police ended up positively. Please, never be worried about where you park at night. He always parks wherever he wants even if there's a sign that says no overnight parking. He hasn't gotten a knock now for over two years. That was his van in the background in the video by the way.
@@OutdoorsEmbrace I hear you bro and walmarts have been a lifesaver for me lately.. mainly was concerned about staying cool. That's what I should have stressed in message more so than the legal parking. Thanks bro and I will make sure I watch next video .
Ill be helping people build vans after my trip. I'm not sure at this point when it'll be over though. Thank you for trusting me though. Add me on Facebook? facebook.com/ryanbell88
Oh haha! Travis, I thought I was all caught up. I have so many people messaging right now about building them one and it's a bit overwhelming. It's almost like 1 a day. Honestly, I've decided to tell everyone to add me in the off chance some of them will still want a van build once I'm ready. I'm just not wanting to build vans right now because I want to take advantage of my own van! I'm in the Florida Keys right now and am having the time of my life! Once I get back or if anything goes wrong with the van, I'll be happy to make more for others! Honestly, I know how much money I'm leaving on the table, but I didn't make my van just to market it. It's also a dream of mine to build Yachts for others as well, so I definitely will be building vans as a way into yacht building. I have a good portion of my life planned out, as you can see! Just not at the part where I'm ready to build for others atm.
Best question yet! So after buying my next Van to live in with a girl I just met, I'm going to be saving for my Yacht. I'll learn to sail across the ocean, and go to a different country, where I'll learn to live off the land... somewhere in europe probably. I'll build my own house completely by my hand. I'll save up enough to buy an Island, and probably do the same to the island. So I'll have a summer and winter house. I'll spend my days as I do now, happy and free.
@@OutdoorsEmbrace That's one hell of a plan! You sound very sure about your future. That's interesting to me as I would love the freedom, nature and minimalism, but there is no scenario in my head where I would be secured of a safe future. Ofcourse it's possible to have a regular job, but that would limit the free life by a huge amount. Do you plan to go all in on the passive income streams? Do you have any insecurities about the future? Thanks for taking the time to answer!
@@BlueEliteNL I am currently all in with the passive income streams. I only want passive. It's just human to be insecure. Sometimes when my income analytics graphs go down, it makes me uneasy, but I'm still only at the beginning of my career. I'm in it for the long term!
You say you make more money passively off RU-vid than when you were working full time in the Navy, but you haven't been on RU-vid very long and your viewership is not off the charts like some of the other more established channels out there, so how is that possible? I always thought the money you get from RU-vid correlates directly to how many views your videos get?
His previously posted videos still accumulate money as more views accumulate as well. He does have a video with 2.2 million views so that is pretty nice for him
That one video alone made me about $7000 total from 2.2 million views so far! I didn't mean I make more now than in the Navy if that is what I said. I mean I make more now than my previous job, which was a close to minimum wage job.
@@OutdoorsEmbrace Is building one like yours something that you might consider? For that price and for the evident quality that you have shown it would be hard not to go for that.
@@Firetiger93 Yeah! I'll be building these for others at some point. I'm enjoying the lifestyle right now too much to stop though. Labor would be around $10,000. There is so much work involved. Most people would charge $40,000+ for a build like this.
Yes! Plenty of stories of this happening! Especially the CEO of NASA talking about it. Not saying all vanners, I'm talking about success oriented RVers who solve problems daily, especially the one's who've built their own RV. Listen to podcasts about this! Van Life or RV life (but especially van life) can be great for getting certain jobs, because it shows off your skillset like not much other things can. I used my van as a resume already and got hired in my last job. It was a Hotel job, he took me seriously quickly because of the van. It's not just the van or RV, it's also your tact. This van would be an awesome CV for construction or even NASA. When I say they'd hire us first, I mean we look better on paper than someone with similar skill that hasn't done this life.
I love your channel. Some people have a hard time understanding that money isn't everything. Real freedom is not a concept related in anyway to the religion of money worship, yet that's all you see reflected in popular culture. Unfortunately the traditional American dream has been joined at the hip with materialism and perpetual debt. You're videos are selling because intuitively most people realize they are enslaved but want to be free. I'm a Boomer and this interviewer was nice but boomerism overload.
Ha, Van Life is definitely a growing trend. It's coming back faster than ever! It's really still in its new millenial infancy. Shits catching on everywhere! This is the life to have right now because no one can afford houses in many places. You can shower as often as you want at gyms with memberships. Most of the Instagram crowd is fake.
Outdoors Embrace I personally live in a van. mainly because the lifestyle I live does not require a place. been doing it for 7 years before it was trendy.
