So tomorrow we are swapping homes with raya and louie, and i'm already feeling a little guilty because i have a feeling this is going to be a much more comfortable experience for us than it is for them.
Wait, i have to like step into the shower to open this door.
But now i'm feeling extra guilty because the sliding door on our van just broke.
I'm uh pretty sure it's not supposed to look like this.
We're Karen and Nate.
After traveling to a hundred countries, 2020 brought us back to the US, where we bought a converted Sprinter van that has now been our full-time home for over a year.
I think we should leave the toilet empty for him.
You're welcome.
I'm a much cleaner person when I'm cleaning for somebody else than I am when I'm cleaning for myself.
I'm sure the mechanic watching this video is gonna think that I'm really dumb, but this just feels like an unnecessary piece.
It's keeping the door from shutting.
To exchange the cable track, remove the door trim.
This looks like a big job.
What?
This guy is literally taking the whole van apart to replace this cable.
All right, I think I may have found a temporary solution.
I'm going to lift up the door and then you grab this black wire right here and just pull it as hard as you can.
One, two, three.
It's never gonna be completely right because we have broken pieces like this.
Maybe we just won't tell them, and the first time it breaks we'll be like what'd you do to the van?
That would be mean but funny Wow, table's still here.
Honestly, not even sure I remember how to do this.
I think I'm doing this wrong.
It looks very wrong.
Oh look, it's this thing.
It's been so long since I've done this.
Wow, I've missed it.
Today is the big day.
We have got the van looking better than it has in a very long time.
This should be fun.
Holy cow.
It's so big.
The van looks so tiny.
Hi.
This is our houses.
How crazy is that?
I know.
Look how cool we look.
The van has a lot more character.
Yeah, the bus.
So the plan for today is to tour each other's homes.
Then we're going to swap keys, drive to our campsite, which I think will be very interesting, with Nate driving a bus for the first time.
No.
No, I went too far!
And then we'll be stuffing our friends into our tiny van and we'll live in luxury for the next 24 hours.
Alright, we just gave Ryan and Louie a little tour of the van.
They didn't seem too disappointed and now we're gonna get a tour around the bus.
The luxurious, massive bus.
I love it!
This is awesome!
This isn't fair.
Oh, my God.
Welcome to the happiness bus.
It's so beautiful.
So this is the driving seat, obviously.
Where is the passenger?
She'll just chill here.
Yeah, I'll just lay like this.
I'll put my feet up, get my laptop out, do some emails.
I guess like in a school bus, there are no seatbelts.
Yeah.
Like for kids, you can just hang out.
So we've got a little storage thing up here.
This is like my little area.
I literally just wrote this on here when we measured it earlier.
We don't know what any of those buttons do.
Yeah, there's a lot of buttons here.
I found this one yesterday.
I was like, I have no idea what this one does.
There's lots of mirrors, but the one thing I didn't have time to install for you guys was the backup camera.
So let's just hope you don't have to reverse.
We've got our like temporary sound system.
I thought you were saying the bongos were your sound system.
I didn't see the speaker sitting underneath.
This actually pulls out into a bed.
So this table lowers down.
And then this folds over to here.
So we've had friends come and stay.
We had a friend stay in the van once.
Good night, Dusty.
Good night.
In here, what I've done is I've got a power strip and I can just charge all my camera batteries.
And then this is another drawer, just like tech stuff.
Wow, that looks...
Beautiful.
So this is our kitchen.
This is where all your cups and plates and bowls and everything.
This is our smoothie station.
We've got chips, salsa, just anything.
Essentials.
Yeah, anything you need really.
So the oven doesn't currently work.
We do have a toaster oven in the oven.
Okay.
It's like the Russian dolls, isn't it?
Like you open, there's like another oven inside.
There's another oven inside that oven.
In here, we've got all our spices.
What's in here?
I don't think I've ever opened that.
Really?
This is the difference.
If you have this much storage in a van, you would be using that.
But we like have never opened that.
I would have like pillows in there.
And then back here, this is toiletry, skincare.
I'm pretty jealous right now.
A little bit.
You don't have to worry about water in here.
Our water tank is 125 gallons.
Yeah, you can shower, you don't have to turn the water off, wash all your dishes.
I'm gonna take a lawn shower!
Alright, this is very important.
The most important part of this tour.
Make sure this is closed because everything will fall out of the fridge.
This is where you can enjoy our huge water tank.
I feel like I'm in a Moroccan spa.
I love it.
I can't wait to take a shower.
I don't say that often.
The bathroom is over here.
We have the same toilet as you.
Louis, I'm surprised that you fit in here.
I literally, honestly have to open the door to like wipe.
Also, sometimes when he pees, he's like this.
He's like this.
There's no way i can stand here.
We have a full size closet.
What are these metal things that the clothes are on?
These look really nice.
This also pops up to our roof deck, which i'll show you later, but That can just pop up like that.
Or you can pop it all the way up and, like, we've, like, slept under the stars.
No way!
That's cool.
And we just set up our Nintendo Switch for you guys if you want to play some Mario Kart.
We'll invite you over.
You can play like this.
This is Raya's cute little books and stuff.
I was feeling guilty before and now I feel even worse.
This is the 125 gallon water tank, which we just filled up.
To put that in perspective, we have a 40 gallon freshwater tank in the van that will last us an entire week.
How long does it last?
I think that would be at least a week of us both showering like nice long showers every day.
So there's a lot going on back here.
We've got our bikes.
Raya's bike's a little bit worse for wear.
Also essentials, we've got a didgeridoo.
What?
And then we have There's all our main battery bank down here for like powering the bus.
There's like a little fuse panel here.
Oh yeah, I added this chin-up bar.
So this is like a cool way just to like work out.
Oh my gosh.
I'll probably start the day with some pull-ups tomorrow.
It's starting to rain a little bit.
So I'm thinking we're gonna save the roof deck until we get to the campsite.
So before we leave, I need to learn how to drive this monster.
All right kids, get in.
First thing is, this is like the cut-off switch.
Unfortunately, I've lost the little thing for.
So when you stop, you have to pull this out, and then it cuts the engine.
I was already nervous at the fact that I have to turn the bus off using a pair of pliers.
Now it makes me more nervous.
Let's take it for a little spin at the party lot first.
Push the little cut-off knob in, and then turn the key.
So I need to disengage the air brake right now?
Yeah.
So now it's drivable.
So now if you back up straight.
How do you see?
So there's a lot of mirrors, thankfully.
So you can look in all the mirrors, but you can't see directly behind you.
All right, kids, watch out.
I'm nervous.
All right, I'm doing it.
How's it feel?
I feel like I'm driving a tank.
I wish I would have booked a closer campsite.
Pull this part out.
There you go.
And then I'm going to pull the brake out.
Yes, that's it.
That's good.
I think I'm sweating a little bit.
It gets very hot.
I can't believe you're trusting me with this.
Hopefully you don't crash into anything.
Here goes nothing.
What could possibly go wrong?
All right.
Got a lot of steps to starting this thing.
Can I pull this out?
I think this is supposed to be out.
Brake off.
I don't like all these loud noises.
There's not even a seatbelt in this thing.
What?
All right, here we go.
Oh my gosh.
This feels so wrong.
I'm actually really nervous right now.
Wish us luck.
This feels very fitting.
We're pulling out of a school parking lot in a school bus first.
Big turn barely even made it.
Buzz is a bit louder than our van.
Just relax, don't worry about a thing.
Okay, i feel like you're getting the hang of it.
What was that?
So we're stopping at the grocery store to get some food for tonight.
And where do you park this thing?
Not a lot of places that can fit the van.
You did it!
You drove five whole minutes.
All right, so we only took up one, two, three, four, five parking spots.
Louie and Rye are vegan, so tonight we're doing vegan tacos and I think this is the healthiest looking shopping cart we've ever had.
Okay, I'll just put some chips in, never mind.
To be able to bring in our groceries, set them down, and have places to put them?
What?
Ow!
Still have a few of the inconveniences of the van.
What's going on?
I don't know.
I think we broke the door.
Oh, no.
I don't even know if we can close it right now.
Oh, this is pretty broken.
Uh-oh.
It might be fully done.
They broke the door.
What?
All right.
Next stop is the gas station.
Just reach into the black hole.
All right, let's see what the damage is gonna be.
This is the price of living in a luxurious bus.
We've just crossed over 20 gallons, which is max capacity for the van, so everything past here is just extra little dance on the leg.
Oh, one on the butt!
Oh no!
It just shot out.
Oh, thank you.
I can take my first shower in the bus now.
$97.96.
Honestly, not as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Thanks for the help.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Just take a little shower, Kroger.
Get my razor out.
Shave the legs.
Put that back up.
It was very nice of you to help us with our bus.
Yeah, of course.
OK.
I think I'm going to take my pants off in the parking lot as well.
Oh, nice.
I'm gonna go change in my bedroom.
All right, longest drive of the day.
Watch out, everybody.
You're not going anywhere fast in this thing.
I give you a massage while you're driving.
Wow, I love driving the bus.
I will say, it actually hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be.
That didn't sound good.
What was that?
Whoa!
Oh, this is a disaster.
We've converted to bed.
Everything's falling out of the fridge.
All the pots and pans are on the floor.
I cannot see. believe the one thing Raya said not to forget from her tour.
All right, this is very important.
I forgot.
She forgot the bungee cord.
Whoa, big girl.
It gets so much hotter when we stop.
Whoa, almost missed it.
Good save.
No, no, I went too far.
Oh yes, I made it.
You did oh.
So earlier, when i forgot to bungee cord the fridge and it flew open, this entire shelf of things with all the stuff on it came off and i tried to put it back on and it just won't, and that's because i broke it, i feel.
So I have a question for you, Nate.
Do you have any super glue in our van?
Yes.
Really?
Yeah.
Do we break something?
Could you sneakily get it?
Do we break something?
Yeah.
What did we break?
What is that?
It's the shelf that fell.
It's broken and it won't stay.
Thought we'd made it without wrecking the van or breaking anything.
I'm 50% confident.
That's not very encouraging.
I'm going to wait until the cover of darkness.
Do they have a toothbrush in the back with all the tools?
I just put it back there sometimes.
Alright, should we go act like nothing happened?
Hey, guys.
Everything's fine.
Unlike our van, the bus is not going to be self-sufficient for the night.
So we've got to figure out how to plug this thing in.
Should we hook up the heater?
By the way, I use your coffee thing.
I actually cleaned the Chemex for them, by the way.
If you watched our last video, then you know my dirty little secret.
Just kidding.
Rookie mistake.
It's beautiful, Clark.
It's beautiful, Clark.
All right, this is home for the night.
We've driven about an hour south of Nashville and we're spending the night on a little farm with lots of cute animals donkey.
Oh my gosh, he only has three legs.
Yeah.
He's so sweet.
Oh, ow.
He poked me in the chin.
You're a little spastic, but that's okay.
So I just learned something I did not know about billy goats and kind of wish I didn't know.
Apparently they pee on their face and like wear this cologne.
I don't know if it like attracts the ladies or scares off the other guys, but this pin right here is the one for the guys and then the other pin's the one for the girls, and we're not gonna be petting the guys today.
Hey.
French fries!
Not appropriate!
Did you just headbutt the camera?
Oh no!
No, not me.
I'm pretty sure it just said no.
Hi, sweetie boy.
Look how giant his head is.
He looks like he's smiling.
Are you ready for your dinner?
Can I sit with you?
Oh.
Oh, yes.
Wow.
Look at his little tail.
You did it.
He looks like the Got Milk commercial.
I'm just going to steal a little bit of this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've made friends.
Well, that was so much fun.
So we were supposed to be swapping vehicles, but Brian and Louie had taken back over the bus and they've invited us up to the roof for happy hour.
This is so romantic.
Cheers.
Cheers, guys.
Thanks for coming over.
Wow.
This is sweet.
Don't have to worry about how much water I'm using.
Raya's cooking half of our dinner, I'm cooking the other half, and then we'll bring it all together.
Look at all this space!
I feel like what we just did on the roof is what you think you're gonna do every single night when you buy a bus or a van, but you really only end up doing it on special occasions, like when you're with friends.
We should do that more often.
Maybe we should set up our chairs more than this.
Oh, it's so heavy.
I wonder how they're doing in the van.
What are you doing, French fry?
That's me having dinner on there.
You can't put your pooey hooves all over that.
A lot of the meals that I cook in the bus are like a lot of ingredients.
We're cooking like a huge portion and I would not be able to do that here.
I can't really meal prep in here, I feel like.
Okay, wait, I have to like step into the shower to open this drawer, okay.
Wait, he's got his self-defense knife.
Shall I grab that?
Um, no.
I was just going to look for a piece of a tripod up here.
Oh, yeah.
All right, good luck.
I discreetly got the super glue from the All right.
So while Kara finishes dinner, I'm gonna see if I can secretly and quickly fix the part of the fridge that we broke.
This piece just needs to glue right back on, just like that.
I think this is actually gonna work.
It's pretty solid.
Wow.
Nice.
Those are bubbly waters.
Hi neighbors.
As crazy as it sounds, the reason that we're eating in the van is because it's the only place in either vehicle that has room for four people to sit together.
So while it's a little tight in here, at least we have four seats.
This might be the most involved meal that's ever been cooked in the van.
Mmm, one of the best tacos I've ever had.
You say peel when you've used all your letters, and I might grab one more.
Yeah.
You don't care if I splash my face while you do that.
Here's how I rinse my face in our band. the least amount of water possible.
Try to turn the water off while the water still stays in my head and then splash it on my face.
I do that too.
And the water is warm.
What are you doing?
Vacuuming the bugs?
So our windows have these little net things screens, screens.
I'm tired, and so the bugs can't get in and we have these cracked.
And we just weren't really thinking about it back here, because when we came back here and there were these teeny tiny bugs just How great is it that this bed is already made.
So you said like you make a little A and then you push out.
I'm sweating doing this.
Normally there's only one light switch to turn out in the van.
Morning, guys.
Morning.
How'd you sleep?
Good.
It was nice that you weren't grinding the beans right next to my face.
This has to be one of the best parts about the bus.
I feel like I would be at least 50 more productive living in here, having a work area that's separate from the bedroom, the bed's just not a productive environment.
So i end up scrolling on instagram for a lot longer than i should, but here i'd just be like productivity.
Thank you made this look so easy.
Oh, not a bad way to start the morning.
It's kind of weird watching other people live in our house.
I think they spill coffee in bed as much as we do.
Hope not.
They do let one more goat in bed than we do.
Louie is so tall.
Whoa, 101!
102!
103!
I can't do another pull-up.
How many have you really done?
Five.
Oh no, I wasn't recording.
Too bad.
I think we're on a little bit of a slant.
I think I'm gonna take a shower just because I can.
It's so rare that I shower two days in a row, but I just had to experience this.
It was amazing.
You know what my favorite part about showering in the bus is?
Check this out.
The toilet is completely dry and the ground around the toilet is completely dry.
What?
Doesn't get much better than this.
Okay.
Van life versus bus life.
Bigger is usually better, but not always.
I feel like right now, if I'm Raya and Louie living in the van for 24 hours, I'm thinking how do Karen and Nate do this?
But I feel like if we were to go on a one week road trip where we were like moving from place to place every day, by the end of the week they may have a different opinion.
I didn't realize how often we just get off an exit without even thinking about, like if there's a parking lot big enough for us or if the pump is big enough for us.
Or if we're going to hit a bridge as we're driving under it.
Yeah.
Our drive here was so stressful because all of those things that we've just never had to think about before, but 100 since we've been parked.
The bus is far superior to the van.
If you're watching this video to make a decision on whether you should buy a van or a bus, I just think you need to take into consideration how quickly you wanna move.
Like if you're going to park up somewhere for a week or a month at a time, probably buy a bus.
If you want to just like move to as many places as possible, have a lot more flexibility, probably buy a van.
The whole bike trip, like the highlight of 2020 for us, couldn't have happened.
I mean, the van barely survived.
This really felt like a vacation.
It was luxurious.
So lots of pros and cons.
I'm super glad that we did this.
It definitely confirms that we made the right decision with the bus, but how many times have we done that?
Also, we learned last night that Ryan Louis paid a very similar amount for the bus as we did for the van.
So I'm curious to know if you had your choice and both vehicles cost the same amount of money, which would you choose?
I feel like before we lived in one, I would have said the bus 100%.
But I think people saw the fear in my eyes driving yesterday.
Put yourself in that position every time you want to move this thing.
All right, we're going to go see how Raya and Louie's night in the van went.
I like what you've done with the ivy.
All right, so we just want to know favorite and least favorite thing about the van.
My favorite thing is probably the doors at the back opening.
We don't do that.
My favorite thing is the two seats in the front, that we can sit next to each other and actually talk while driving.
Oh yeah, my least favorite is the kitchen space.
Yeah, heard that probably like having to like make the bed every time you want to sleep first and then, if you want to set up the table, having to like.
I feel like this is a lot of work every day to switch the spaces.
So we have a small confession that we need to make okay, don't be too nervous.
Okay, or maybe do So.
We actually have three little confessions.
Okay.
Now let me take you on a little tour.
I'm desperately looking for broken things.
So we made some French press coffee this morning and I was cleaning it out.
I'm sorry, Louis.
The bottom just fell out.
I didn't realize we were so destructive.
Should be using a Kinex anyway.
We've never used that.
That's fine.
I'm relieved.
Yeah, I don't even use that.
You're joking.
That's fine.
That came with the bus and we're like, I guess we should keep this.
So that's fine.
You're good.
So next up, do you remember, like that one thing that you were?
Like, if you don't remember anything else from this tour, don't forget to secure the fridge before you drive.
Yeah.
We forgot.
The fridge flew open.
Things violently fell on the ground, including this bottom shelf here.
I have a confession.
That had actually already happened, and I'd already repaired it once.
No, you didn't.
Yeah, I had already glued it.
So basically what happened is you just re-broke what was something that was already broken.
Okay, great, so we're two for two.
Okay, we'll move back to the shower area.
While I was showering, this piece of tile fell off.
That's fine.
We literally did a bunch of tile repairs.
After this happened, I was like, they're never gonna be friends with us again.
We've ruined three things.
Do you know what the worst thing you did was?
That's not on this list.
That you just told me like in passing.
I'm very protective of my pillow.
You're on a pillow.
This morning she's like, oh, I squished a bug on your pillow.
And I went back and I was like, Louie.
I'm so sorry.
It wasn't intentional.
I was trying to like vacuum it up and instead I just like smeared it.
So we're still good?
We're still friends?
Yeah, we're still good.
I mean, one more round of Bananagrams and we'll check back on that.
Okay, good plan.
As you can probably already tell, Raya and Louie are really awesome people.
So if you enjoyed this video, you should definitely go check out their channel to see how they felt about living in our tiny van for the last 24 hours.
How do you drive?
I don't know.
We're starting.
We're starting without you.
No!
Aw, I'm the first.
How did I beat you?
What the heck?
I don't like this game.
