I decided to transform the back

of my Subaru Forester into a camper.

And I'm finally pretty much all done with the setup.

And today I'm out in the beautiful woods

of Washington State camping.

I'm so excited about how everything has come together

and that I get to start using my setup.

So I thought I'd bring you guys along with me

for this little trip

and show you what I've got going on back there.

(upbeat music)

So here is the setup.

I will have the video links down below

where I talk about the actual platform itself

and where I build it, if you have any questions about that.

But now I have my bedding all in here.

I have some bins down underneath,

which I'll talk about in a little bit

and I've added tons of accessories that are super cool

that I'm excited to share with you guys.

So mounted up on the left side of my roof rack,

I have the Rhino-Rack Sunseeker Awning.

I was putting together this whole setup,

and it dawned on me that I didn't have anywhere to sit

if it's like raining or super sunny and I'm in the desert.

And then I saw that you can get awnings

that mount onto your roof rack

and just unroll right off of them

like staying attached to your car.

And it looked so simple and so easy.

And I liked that they couldn't just get blown away

in the wind if they weren't properly staked down.

So I picked this up and it's so easy.

It takes like 30 seconds to unroll and put down.

And something I really like about it

is it gives me a covered entrance to get into the vehicle,

if I'm getting in on the side.

For example, if it's pouring rain outside

and I'm like getting in and out to go to the bathroom

in the middle of the night or something,

I wouldn't have anywhere to stop

and like take off my soaking wet rain jacket and things

before crawling into the car,

I'd have to just crawl right in.

But now with the awning, if I unroll it before I go to bed,

then I always have like a nice covered area

to step out into.

I'll give you guys a look at what this looks like

from the side entrance.

I usually have stuff down here on the floor for storage

but I have all my stuff

out on the table over there right now.

So here's just another look at the sleeping area.

I have my two pillows, one for my head,

one for my body, of course.

As far as the bedding itself,

I just have a twin sheet set on this.

And then this blanket is a camping blanket from REI.

It's by a brand called Rumpl.

I saw it and it looked super cozy and I loved the color.

And I also liked that I could use it

as just a blanket around camp as well,

like sitting around the campfire.

Then down under here

I have these two plastic bins that I found at Target

that fit pretty perfectly.

And they can also be pushed quite a ways further back.

There's a lot of room to store stuff under these,

so I can push it all the way back.

I also have a couple of little lanterns here.

So in one of these bins, I keep all of my cookware,

some coffee, anything kind of food, cooking related.

And then in the second bin

I just have some miscellaneous like toiletries

and my sleeping bag just in case it gets extra cold.

So that's pretty much everything that's in my car right now.

I do have some stuff piled on the front seats

but for the most part,

I pulled out all of my accessories and stuff

and brought them over here.

So I have all of like my cooking stuff

and just some other things

that make it feel a little more glam

and comfortable out here in the woods.

I also have this really nice fire pit

that I am definitely going to be sitting around tonight.

So when I first started considering

transforming my car into a camper

and doing road trips and sleeping in my car,

there were two big questions

or issues that I knew I would need to solve

for this to be a realistic thing for me to do.

The first question was, how I'm I going to have power?

Because I need power to shoot content while I'm traveling.

When I'm on the go and shooting these types of videos

I often will have up to five different cameras with me.

I have my mirrorless camera, my little vlog camera,

my drone, my GoPro, and sometimes my DJI Osmo Pocket.

And depending on what I'm shooting

I'm rotating through those throughout the day,

so they all need to be charged every day.

I also need to have my laptop charged

to take all of my memory cards and dump all of my content.

And then of course, I also need to charge my phone

and just want to power other things.

So that is where the Jackery Explorer 1000

power station comes in.

Oh my gosh, you guys, this thing is a beast.

Jackery very kindly gifted this to me.

I am absolutely giddy about this

because look at how many things

you can charge off of it at once.

It has three regular wall outlets on it,

two USB type C outlets, two regular USB outlets,

a 12 volt outlet,

and it can power anything up to a thousand Watts.

So you can literally run a television off of this thing,

a blender, if it's a thousand Watts or less

and the battery capacity is enormous.

Like you can charge your laptop many, many times,

your phone many, many times.

Now the super, super cool thing about this

is it can charge off of solar panels.

I have my solar panels folded up right here.

I don't have them out right now because it's pretty shady

but you can hook this thing up

to two of the Jackery SolarSaga 100 solar panels.

So you can go off the grid and stay off the grid

and keep powering all of your stuff,

your television, whatever you want

with solar panels with this thing.

I think that is the coolest thing ever.

You don't have to use it with solar panels though.

You can also charge it off of the 12 volt plug in your car.

So if you're doing a lot of driving

you can charge it while you drive

and you can also charge it off of a regular wall outlet.

I'll have a link to this down below.

I will say this one, especially the Explorer 1000

is a splurge for your setup

but you might not need this much power.

And they do make them in smaller sizes

that are more affordable.

So now the second question or issue that I had in mind

when I was preparing for this setup

is how am I going to shower,

especially how am I going to wash and dry my hair?

When I started thinking about this setup

I thought it would be so much easier

if I had a way to just blow my hair dry,

because it takes forever to dry.

I get headaches if I try to let it air dry.

This thing will power a hairdryer.

This is the BaByliss Nano Titanium Dryer.

It's a 1000 Watt hairdryer.

Most hairdryers are above a thousand Watts.

So you will need to make sure

that whatever you use is a thousand Watts or less,

but this is actually a great hairdryer.

You know how most travel hairdryers

just like scream in your ear and have absolutely no power,

this is actually a legitimate, good hairdryer.

It's good heat.

It's not too loud.

So I'm going to turn this on high.

(air whooshing)

It totally works and it's absolutely amazing.

But next you might be thinking

how are you going to take a shower?

Well, I have figured that situation out as well.

First for privacy,

I have this Pop-Up tent pod that I found on Amazon.

Super nice and it collapses down

so it doesn't take up much room.

And then this right here

is the Geyser Systems portable shower with a heater.

This thing will heat up a hot shower for you.

This brand is a small company based out of Colorado.

They sent this to me to try out, which is so nice of them.

And they designed this product to help people

stay clean off the grid

while also consuming as little water as possible.

It has a three liter capacity and a pump

and you can adjust how much water you want coming out

by just twisting the nozzle.

So if you're really trying to conserve water

you can only turn it on a little bit.

And this isn't just for showering,

it's also for washing dishes

or spraying off your feet

or anything else you need water for.

They actually sell different color sponges

that attach right to the nozzle

and you can color code them for different things,

like a pink sponge for showering

and a yellow sponge is for your dishes.

You can find this at REI,

and they actually sell two different versions.

One with the heating capabilities and one without,

but you don't necessarily need the heated one

to have a hot shower in either of the versions.

If you add two liters of regular temperature water

and then boil a liter of water on your camp stove

and add that in,

that should instantly be a hot shower for you.

And they have a temperature gauge on the top too

that tells you what the temperature is.

And the whole thing automatically shuts off

if it's over 101 degrees,

but if you have the heated version

it's designed to plug into the 12 volt outlet of your car

while it's running.

I could also plug it into the Jackery power station,

that works as well.

And then depending on the temperature

of water you initially put in,

it'll take anywhere between 15 to 45 minutes to heat up,

which I mean you get up, you turn this on,

you cook your breakfast

and by the time you're all done with that,

it's gonna be hot.

And then moving over here I have my cooking and food set up.

My propane is still in the car, I need to get that out

but this cute little mint green stove.

Oh my gosh.

When I saw this, I was like, that's the one.

I knew I needed a stove to do all my cooking on.

And this one's so cute.

And I liked that it has the wind guards on the side

so that a breeze can't go over your flame.

The brand of this one is Eureka.

I know that REI carries it.

I think a lot of outdoorsy type places carry this brand.

I think this was a popular one this season.

So I will try to find it somewhere

and have a link down below if you're interested in this.

And then down here, I have my cooler.

This is the YETI Roadie 24 cooler.

I didn't have a cooler

and I knew I needed to get one for this setup.

But to be honest, I wasn't sure

if I wanted to spend the money on a YETI

because everyone raves about them

but they're also like pretty expensive.