All Tales From The Road since the beginning of time:
2022-2023
We’re currently taking a pause and building a new van. Check out our Van Build page to follow along!
Hi! It's been a while!
Our last update is from November 2018; we spent so much time on it (it’s VERY, VERY extensive), that we lost our motivation to create more Tales From The Road… Sooo from now we’ll do things a bit differently 🙂
What's new on FarOutRide.com?
Mountain's Biker Guide to Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton
MTB season is coming to an end. By choosing to ride your bike all summer instead of helping with house chores, you proved you’re a bad human being. But that’s OK: the off season is the redemption season. So choose one productive task to perform NOW:
- Fix the leak in the bathroom
- Clean the basement
- Plan your next mountain biking trip for summer 2019
If you chose option 3, you missed the point of this intervention, but you’re in luck because we just published:
CONDENSATION AND MOISTURE IN A VAN | WHY IT HAPPENS AND HOW TO CONTROL IT
We’re very proud of that article, we put a lot of efforts into it… We hope you like it!
“Condensation and moisture are pretty much inevitable when living the vanlife. While it is normal occasionally and at a certain level, precautions should be taken during the van conversion by selecting the appropriate materials & techniques, but care should also be taken after the conversion in the day-to-day. Denying this issue could turn your van into a fungus incubator… Sharing your home with mold colonies could lead to serious health issues, no jokes. And once the molds invite themselves to the party, it’s almost impossible to kick them out definitely. And on the short term, living in high humidity environment is uncomfortable. That’s plenty of reasons to do something about it!”
The Need For Speed
(Warning: Geek Stuff Ahead)
New Hosting Servers
When we started this “blog” in December 2015, there was maybe 1-2 people visiting on the busy days… Hosting a website isn’t free, so we went for the cheapest option out there. Fast forward 3 years later, we get about 1,400 visitors per day!
We noticed lately that the website was getting annoyingly slow, so migrating to a better hosting service was the first step to the solution. We elected SiteGround.com as our hosting service becauce they’re fast, reliable, their interface is simple yet effective, and they actually have customer service (they also migrate your website to their server for FREE!). We went for the “GoGeek” plan (11.95$/mo).
Results?
We immediately noticed a difference, nice! We also had a picture doing the front page on Reddit.com and that day we got 80,000 visitor on the website!! The site didn’t crash so I guess it passes the test.
New WordPress Theme
The site got faster, but there was still place for improvements; our Google’s PageSpeed Insight scored really low and that affects how we rank in Google (in order for people to find us).
So we switched to GeneratePress Premium. It’s modern, customizable, light, fast and it’s made on Vancouver Island 🙂 It also works really well with Elementor (keep reading).
On top of that, we also disabled a bunch of plugins that were using a lot of resources.
Results?
Our PageSpeed scores went from around 30% up to 70% (desktop). Awesome!
New Page Builder
Isabelle and I have mechanical/electrical engineering background; we are NOT web developpers! So we tried Elementor Pro Page Builder and it makes thing SO MUCH EASIER. It’s a visual editor, so we can focus on creating content FAST and formatting easily. And we think the end result is much better too.
We were worried about speed, but turns out it doesn’t really affect speed (as long as we turn the CSS option to “Internal Embedding” rather than the default “External File” under Elementor –> Settings –> Advanced).
(End of Geek stuff)
VanLife Actual Cost
December 2018
TOTAL FOR TWO PERSONS-
Auto Insurance $133
-
Gas and Fuel $560
-
Propane $15
-
Craft Beer & Wine $379
-
Groceries $652
-
Restaurants $328
-
Travel Medical Insurance $182
(complementary to free Canadian Medicare) -
Activities $62
(lift tickets, bike shuttle, music shows, etc) -
Campground $0
-
Showers $30
-
Laundry $31
-
Van Maintenance $1188
(new tires) -
Everything Else $245
(Cell, Internet, Netflix, Pharmacy, etc.)
January 2019
TOTAL FOR TWO PERSONS-
Auto Insurance $133
-
Gas and Fuel $275
-
Propane $0
-
Craft Beer & Wine $225
-
Groceries $554
-
Restaurants $119
-
Travel Medical Insurance $182
(complementary to free Canadian Medicare) -
Activities $192
(lift tickets, bike shuttle, music shows, etc) -
Campground $0
-
Showers $31
-
Laundry $39
-
Van Maintenance $92
(oil change) -
Everything Else $298
(Cell, Internet, Netflix, Pharmacy, etc.)
YEAR 2018:
(complementary to free Canadian medicare) |
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(lift tickets, bike shuttle, music shows, etc) |
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(oil change, tires, brakes, etc) |
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(cell, pharmacy, haircut, Netflix, music, books, etc) |
Van Talk
New Tires
Our tires worn out, time for new ones:
– MODEL: BFGoodrich KO2 All-Terrain (Winter Approved).
– SIZE: LT255/70R16 120S (this size clears the weight rating of the Ford Transit).
– Installed on factory wheels, NO MODIFICATION TO THE VAN.
– SNOW CHAINS: Thule/Konig XG-12 PRO (Size 255). They fit, but clearance is low (1/2″ towards front) and they start rubbing with the plastic trim at above ~ 15-20 MPH. The noise is annoying but we can live with it.
– SPEEDOMETER: Since these tires are larger than the factory tires, the speedometer reads about 58 MPH when our true speed is 62 MPH (this CANNOT be adjusted at a dealer).
We’re happy with the upgrade and recommend it! More info/pictures/justification/comparison in our article:
Side-by-side review of the Scopema, SwissTech, DiscountVanTruck & SwivelsRus Swivels
We published a side-by-side review of the Scopema, SwissTech, DiscountVanTruck & SwivelsRus, if that can help you make up your mind… We actually tried all of them, so it’s an actual “real-world” review!
NOTE: The Scopema were back in stock in January but sold out in a weekend… we’ll let you know when the seller gets more…
The graph clearly shows that we have a SOLAR power deficiency in winter. (data was recorded between Jan 14th – Feb 14th)
Conclusion? We’re glad we installed a Sterling B2B to charge from the alternator! The Sterling is our Plan B in summer, Plan A in winter. We think the combination of solar + alternator makes a nice and balanced electrical system for people using their van for summer & winter adventures (i.e. ski. solar is probably enough for Baja or Cali winter adventures!). What about adding more solar panels instead? We think it’s not the solution for weather like PNW winter… sometimes there’s just NO sun for days. It’s nice not relying on a single source of power.
Tales From The Road
"Winter 2019 Half-Time" Interactive Map:
This is the part where it gets very, very, time consuming for us and we loose motivation... Since we already share our tales on Instagram, here are a re-post of our feed!
5th December 2018:
8th December 2018:
11th December 2018:
13th December 2018:
19th December 2018:
20th December 2018:
22th December 2018:
26th December 2018:
31th December 2018:
23th January 2019:
That's it for now! To be continued...
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