Continuing this week’s theme of nothing to report I figured this might be a good time to take a day to explain how we live aboard our 2020 Promaster 3500 Extended. Extended means it is the longest model they build at 21 feet. We travel at maximum capacity 9400 pounds last weighed when we took the ferry from Puerto Montt in Chile in early December. We have driven it 117,500 miles on the worst roads without sparing our home.
We have no interest in four wheel drive, turbo chargers or other mechanical complexities and the shape of the Promaster, a low box much wider than the other vans means we can put our queen sized bed sideways and save space in the rest of the van.
We had the van custom built in DeLand Florida and for $50,000 they gave us exactly what we wanted and of all their installations the only piece of furniture that gave us trouble was a drawer we overloaded. Custom Coach Creations built a home that has worked perfectly in the most trying conditions. We have 500 amps of batteries and a 3,000 watt inverter to run our electric kitchen and our roof top air conditioner which will be useful in Brazil no doubt.
Our flexible solar panels don’t do much compared to modern panels with the latest technology and we have plans to refresh our electrical system in Uruguay after we leave Brazil. RV technology has improved greatly since 2019 when our van was designed. The middle of the van is the kitchen and we use no propane. Refilling tanks is complicated each time you switch countries as everyone has their own tanks regulators and filing systems. It’s not impossible but it’s a headache. Also propane systems are a further headache when shipping from Central to South America so we are glad to use a two burner induction cooktop even though it’s a further drain on our batteries.
The fridge runs on 110 volts which uses a lot of electricity but Custom Coach advised this model as they say it’s indestructible and so far they are dead right. For water we have a 30 gallon tank and a 12 volt pump. I specifically asked for no water heater as I wanted as simple a system as possible. We have no shower for that reason too.
But we do have a microwave and we use it. We don’t use the convection feature as it burns a lot of electricity and heats the van up so we could have done without the convection feature.
We also use the microwave to store Layne’s collapsible food containers. The clock is ship’s time currently central time in Peru.
Then there is the bathroom which we wanted to have in its own compartment. Shitting in a bucket in my living room never seemed too civilized to me so we keep our five gallon porta potty in its own space where you can close the door.
We don’t have a shower mostly to keep things simple and to keep moisture out of our home. If we want a van shower we can use the sink faucet which stretches outside or we have a solar shower we can use at the back with doors open and a sheet hung between them. It makes a huge outdoor shower space.
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We can fill our thirty gallon water tank through a conventional garden hose fitting but Custom Coach added a manual filler at my request. We keep only potable water in our tank and in most countries that means we fill it with 20 liter (5.5 gallon) jugs. We also carry a Berkey filter to make assurance doubly sure to purify water from the tank, or to drink water from a tap if we are in a campground and the water isn’t potable.
Our inverter charger lives under our bed and vents into the storage space. Originally it was poorly mounted and tended to overheat but we added vents and improved circulation which Custom Coach should have done, their only shortcoming, and since then it works fine. I store the Starlink dish next to it to not block the vents. We carry two fifty foot electric cables and a short ten foot cable and a bag of adapter plugs.
Only Colombia, Ecuador and parts of Brazil use 110 volt systems so we have a 2,000watt Up/Down converter to use shorepower. It cost $80 and doesn’t heat up at all or strain to charge our batteries. We use it to charge our batteries only, then use our heavy duty appliances off those batteries to not overburden the campground electrical system.
As you can tell it takes a bit of thought to run a suburban US home outside its natural habitat. But we like living aboard and after four years are still comfortable in this space.
In cupboards above the bed keep our clothes in cubes. Above my side of the bed Custom Coach installed a 110 volt outlet for my CPAP, a Resmed 10. It has worked impeccably for seven years and thanks to whoever here pointed out you don’t need to use it with water which makes do much easier on the road. I carry a whole spare unit in our overloaded van as sleeping without it is terrible for me nowadays.
Under bed extra pantry storage:
Layne controls the contents of the drawers in the kitchen including her magical 110 volt air fryer and my magic silicon folding 110 volt kettle. I drink Yorkshire Gold tea every day.
We made a very conscious decision to live comfortably in our van. It has its drawbacks as weight requires mechanical maintenance at more frequent intervals and stresses the transmission. With an open ended journey planned, living cramped wasn’t a choice. Being retired with monthly checks and no offspring and no real estate means we can stay on the road as long as we can function. Living aboard GANNET2 has never left us wishing we had a house, though I think Rusty might enjoy a more settled life. On the windshield you see Rusty’s bed airing, but during the day it normally sits on our bed and at night we put it on the floor for him. He can still jump up on our bed but I have to give him glucosamine to keep his old limbs limber. Some days I have to lift him but I am happy to do what he needs.
These are the best camp chairs we’ve found and we’ve tried them all. $100 each and well worth it. The stool I got at Sodimac hardware store, Chile’s Home Depot, for six dollars which made the stools irresistible. Kilo’s version costs $50…
The van now has a flex fuel computer ($750) to burn ethanol gasoline in Brazil. They grow sugarcane in that vast country and all gasoline is at least 27% ethanol by law across Brazil. We also have a 12,000 pound electric winch if we get stuck, and you should know works if we can anchor it to something which we couldn’t in Belize. That was a day long nightmare until the backhoe showed up. 
We have had to use the winch several times but we are getting better at identifying soft ground traps thus avoiding more chaos.
We added the front license plate as officials in Latin America expect to see it and it’s much easier not to have to explain that Florida doesn’t require it. We bought several plates on Etsy and keep our Florida original with registration sticker in our onboard safe. If these get stolen or removed by officials as collateral for a fine (it can happen) we have spares. Under the van we have a steel skid plate ($800 from Edge Vanworks in Livermore). It’s the first thing I would buy if I got a Promaster. You can change the engine oil with it in place and it has saved us and our second alternator more times than I can count. The second alternator charges our house batteries.
To cope with dirt roads, rough alleys, difficult campground entrances and occasional torn up highways our KO2 tires, the standard for all terrain rubber just work. They wear fast, they are noisy but they haul our front wheel drive Promaster everywhere. we got these new, a little early to drive the Ghost Road in Brazil. $300 each. Our spare tire is a less expensive brand new street tire just for emergencies .
And that is our life in the van. We watch TV on our iPads downloading US TV with Express VPN where needed and Starlink. Our satellite receiver sucks energy but it is based in Colombia costs us $80, and never have we been threatened with loss of service for moving around so much. We bought it in Mexico in 2022 and transferred the address to our apartment in Cartagena when we shipped the van to South America. And there it is. By the way a Promaster will fit in a container where a Ford Transit or a Mercedes Sprinter won’t:
That alone will save you $3,000 on the cost of your PanAmerican trip.
And this at the front is our living room. I have a small desk behind the driver’s seat while Layne gets a large fold up table. Laynes biggest regret is not having room to sit four people around a table on a cold or rainy evening but this is one of those compromises. Along with upgrading our batteries and solar panels in Uruguay I want to add a cabin heater which was an oversight coming from the Florida Keys. I’d like a Velit gas heater plumbed into our fuel tank but we’ll have to see what we can do before we go back to Patagonia. Running the engine to stay warm or using our space heater works but it’s inefficient when the weather is consistently damp and cold.
This is comfortable travel not roughing it and I attribute our ability to keep on keeping on to the comfort built in to our Promaster. I am certain our recent transmission rebuild is attributable to that extra loading and the fact we haven’t spared the van. If that’s the price we pay we’re okay with it.
If anyone were contemplating driving the PanAmerican I believe any car can do it and certainly you need high clearance and four wheel drive to drive YouTube-worthy goat tracks but for us exploring what we can in a delivery van in comfort works just fine. We’ve had to call it quits on a few atrocious roads and some river crossings and such gnarly stuff but that’s another of those van life compromises. Hope this helps to understand a little about our life in the road.
Lots more to come I hope and now you can ride inside with us.
