Justin and Tori brought a Toyota Hiace and said „Goodbye“ to their luxury lifes. They now enjoy the simplicity of life and the outdoors.
Justin is a qualified plumber, with a passion for photography and the outdoors. Tori works with bedroom furniture and also has a passion for the outdoors and being creative.
We chose to pursue this lifestyle as we wanted to strip back our day to day luxuries (e.g shower, running water, access to kitchen etc.) and enjoy the simplicity of life and the outdoors.
This is something we both find very fulfilling in our lives.
We decided on the Toyota Hiace for the importance of reliability. Toyota motors are one of the strongest most reliable motors out and their parts are extremely easy to get.
So we decided to sacrifice on space so we could travel endlessly without the worry of breaking down all the time or having to always carry spare parts.
We had 0 barriers while purchasing everything went smoothly!
Justin built 99% of the fitout himself, from insulation to framing to building the cabinets and even the benchtops from scratch, the only thing we paid a professional to do was our electrical, for security purposes and insurance purposes.
We have owned our van since February 2017. Yes we have both owned other vehicles before but this is our first van, and also the first vehicle we have owned together.
We have only been travelling within our home country, Australia.
The longest road we have driven was the Bruce Highway which is 1,652km!!!
Yes, meeting other people who travel with their vans is the best thing for us.
We love to talk with other like minded individuals about what they have discovered and their journeys.
Some days aren’t always as glamorous as some may think. Some nights we sleep at truck stops with heavy road noise, some days we sleep in gravel pits, some days we sleep in rest areas with people 1 meter away.
Most of the time life on the road is great, but some definitely can be hard.
If there was one thing that we would change it would be to make it a 4×4 so that we have the best of both worlds. Other then that we love our van.
If we had to choose a different vehicle other then our own, it would be a Mercedes Sprinter 4×4 simply for the extra space and accessibility to locations. Once again, we are very happy with our van.
We dont work full time online but every now and then we pick up a small amount of paid work but not enough to live off, simply doing it because we love it and want our story shared.
The best experience we have is in Agnes Water QLD Australia. We stayed at this place for about a week, and we met other vanlifers. We learnt how to surf, we went out and created content for our instagram „JustinSchryver“.
We had beach fires and danced around to music while sharing our stories. That was the best time that we have experienced so far on the road.
It’s not always about where you go, but who you meet and the impact they can have on the journey can make everything so much better.
