The goal for my wife and I is to build out a van to share this beautiful country (USA) with our kids before they leave the nest. And then to enjoy time on the open road by ourselves.
After college I road tripped through the country hitting many of the iconic national parks while camping or even sleeping in the backseat of my none-to-big car. My wife spent a month after grad school backpacking through Europe. So travel is something we enjoy, but the years of uncomfortable sleeping arrangements have passed us by.
With friends and family members owning both class A & C motorhomes, we had some exposure to the traditional RV lifestyle, but the size and cost was off-putting to us. Additionally, the many quality horror stories are a bit scary, even if they are overblown. We are also bad at vacations, by which I mean we don't go to the beach and sit. We prefer to explore wherever we are and stay on the move.
A co-worker of mine completed a skoolie conversion a couple years ago, and while the commercial vehicle route was not of interest to me, it was inspiring to see what could be done with 4 (err, 6) wheels and a lot of sweat and determination.
Originally we discussed a van as a retirement project. Then one day my wife came back to me and said, why don't we do it now while the kids are still young so we can share the experience with them. I agreed and the wheels started turning.
With two pre-teen kids we decided early on that only a large van was going to cut it. The Transits and Promaster just didn't offer a large enough version for my liking. Add to that the benefits of diesel fuel economy and ability to use the main tank to run a heater and we pretty quickly settled on a Sprinter.
We were planning to wait until the fall of 2018 to start searching for a van, but while researching price trends last January we came across a near perfect van. Long story short we bought it. Our blank canvas is a 2015 170" 2500 cargo with the I4 drive train that came to us with just 4500 miles. We didn't believe the dealer at first, but sure enough 1500 miles/year was all it had seen for the first 3 years of it's life.
The van's back story is that it was owned by a Pepsi distributor who used it only for local runs that the bigger trucks couldn't make. With the company being based in Long Island, I can certainly understand the desire for a smaller vehicle.
Our goal for the first year was to get something minimally functional so we could start using it (spoiler alert: we succeeded). Then comes the long slog of slowly completing the build. If we're lucky maybe it'll be done by the time the kids graduate.