This page is dedicated to Shadow Catcher, my 1998 Coach House 192KS Class B RV. Finding the right van for this project took a lot of thought, time and effort, but it’s such a major part of what I do that it was all worth it in the end. As anyone who owns a 20+ year-old vehicle will tell you, there’s always something that needs to be fixed but generally speaking I’m very happy with both the Dodge chassis that the van sits on and the Coach House aftermarket build. Both have served me very well over the years.

I know that in the vanlife community, there are a ton of people who have built or are building their own conversions into empty van shells and I have a lot of respect for people who are doing this. It was something I considered and with my carpentry background I would have had a leg up on many people. At the end of the day though, I know how good I am at starting projects and how bad I am at finishing them and I simply didn’t have the time, money or patience to dedicate months and months to a build. I also know that social media tends to show you the success stories, but believe me when I say that those builds were full of headaches and heartaches and there are thousands of half-finished vans out there sitting in peoples’ driveways. I don’t say these things to discourage you if you want to start such a project, but only to say that for me this project was more about the journey than the vessel and I’ve been very happy with the van I chose. I found my van on RV Trader which, because you have to pay to post, ends up with significantly fewer scams than Craigslist and other free classified sources. The van was at a dealer in Lansing, Michigan and they were good enough to put a hold on it so I could fly up and have a look. Except that it didn’t have a generator, it was pretty much everything I was looking for in a van. I bought it that day and started driving home the next.

I bought it for $8,000, a very good deal for a van like this, and with only 120,000 miles on it. It needed work, but most of it was fairly routine and putting on new tires, new brakes, changing the fluids etc. meant that I knew exactly what was on it and when the last time that work had been done was. In the end, it was road-ready and through inspection for less than $11,000. I’ve put in work since then, but the age of the van means that parts are cheap and the fact that it’s a Dodge means that anyone with a 9’ clearance in their garage can work on it. Over the last four years, the monthly average I’ve put into it including the initial purchase price has been less than an average car payment would have been.

When I bought her, the interior and RV features were all functioning well and road-ready. Everything I’ve done to the interior has been decorative or to make better use of the space (like adding drawers under the bed etc.), in other words: turning my house into my home. Whatever you think you need to live in a van, you probably need significantly less and I’d recommend starting with as few things as possible and adding things you find you need as you go. The biggest early decision I made, and I made it on the drive back from Michigan, was to keep my bed permanently in position (a “fixed bed” in the parlance of vanlife). While this meant I lost out on the couch part of my couch-to-bed conversion, it was a good decision. The bed as it was was simply not comfortable enough for an everyday bed and so I put a 4” memory foam mattress topper on it and left it there.

Beyond that, it’s been a wonderful, cozy home for me for much of the last few years. We’re well-suited for each other and I’m pretty happy with how it’s all worked out. For me, the “buy instead of build” decision was a good one, and the time I spent searching for the right van at the right price was worth every minute.

Those are the very basics of my van. I will be adding sections below to address different aspects of the van, how it works, how I live “off grid” and self-contained and all the different aspects of life on the road. I hope you will find this page useful and informative. Please feel free to contact me with questions at the link below, and be sure you subscribe to my blog so you can find out more about where Shadow Catcher and I are traveling. I’ll see you on the road.