- 58 minutes ago
Little Red is a custom Ford Transit van built for a veteran solo traveler who spent 15 years in Pleasure-Way vans before finally getting the floor plan she wanted. George from Humble Road walks through the design, from the beefed-up running boards and custom roof racks to the 48V EcoFlow power system, DC air conditioner, and thoughtful exterior lighting. The biggest standout is the rear bath layout, built around a handmade solid teak shower pan and Wet Wall construction for a more residential feel in a compact van life setup.
Inside, the build is packed with practical details for solo van life: a daybed that converts for sleeping, a lagoon table, pet gate for a dog and cat, silent electromagnetic cabinet latches, and easy-access panels for wiring, plumbing, and service. The galley includes a stainless sink, filtered water, pantry storage, and a large refrigerator, while the rear shower area uses teak accents, a simple toilet, and a removable floorboard for outdoor shower flexibility. Every choice is aimed at comfort, airflow, and long-term usability for full-time travel.
This is a great tour for anyone researching custom camper van builds, Ford Transit van conversions, solo traveler floor plans, rear shower vans, and off-grid RV living. It also offers ideas for van conversion design, 80/20 aluminum builds, EcoFlow power systems, and practical storage solutions for life on the road. Ideal for fans of van tour videos, camper van walkthroughs, and functional minimalist tiny home design.
SEO: custom Ford Transit van tour, solo van life floor plan, rear shower camper van, Humble Road van build, van conversion ideas, off-grid camper van, RV living setup, van tour for solo travelers, EcoFlow power system, teak shower pan design.
Inside, the build is packed with practical details for solo van life: a daybed that converts for sleeping, a lagoon table, pet gate for a dog and cat, silent electromagnetic cabinet latches, and easy-access panels for wiring, plumbing, and service. The galley includes a stainless sink, filtered water, pantry storage, and a large refrigerator, while the rear shower area uses teak accents, a simple toilet, and a removable floorboard for outdoor shower flexibility. Every choice is aimed at comfort, airflow, and long-term usability for full-time travel.
This is a great tour for anyone researching custom camper van builds, Ford Transit van conversions, solo traveler floor plans, rear shower vans, and off-grid RV living. It also offers ideas for van conversion design, 80/20 aluminum builds, EcoFlow power systems, and practical storage solutions for life on the road. Ideal for fans of van tour videos, camper van walkthroughs, and functional minimalist tiny home design.
SEO: custom Ford Transit van tour, solo van life floor plan, rear shower camper van, Humble Road van build, van conversion ideas, off-grid camper van, RV living setup, van tour for solo travelers, EcoFlow power system, teak shower pan design.
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TravelTranscript
00:12this is patrick with new jersey's outdoor adventures youtube channel on today's show
00:17we got george with humble road back on he seemed to give us a full tour of this custom camper
00:22van
00:22creation called little red and wait till you see the inside it is incredible so join us
00:29thank you patrick always a pleasure to be on your channel and yeah this is little red this is a
00:36another solo traveler which seems to be a very popular request in the humble road van studio
00:42this one's going to be going all over the country in a with a very experienced van dweller she has
00:49had six pleasure way vans traveled about 15 years now in those vans and she finally got the custom
00:57van she's always wanted let's start outside we've got the bespoke humble road running board
01:05this is made out of 80 20 and then we've got our rubber treads on top so you don't slip
01:12and skid
01:13and they carry all the way through to the passenger door so you can get in and out we also
01:19beef up
01:19the transit running board brackets third party steel running board brackets we beef them up with
01:2680 20 and we can't leave her back to under the chassis so there's no flex at all on those
01:33running boards
01:33up top we make our own roof racks i've decided to fabricate my own side skirts and powder coat them
01:43so they look more like the third party roof racks that everybody seems to want but are so limiting
01:50when it comes to fitting air conditioners and solar panels so we make our custom racks and then we
01:57fabricate our own wind deflector and our own side skirts a lot of versatility when we do that we can
02:05really run the show up on the roof when it comes to design we've got some side security lights going
02:12on we mount those on the side of the van you don't really see them in the daylight but those
02:18are all
02:19around the van all three sides in the back this is a 350 HD it's a single all-wheel drive
02:28and you can
02:29see up here we've got another we got a 20-inch LED back here all controlled from that switch panel
02:36up
02:36front and we come around this side we've got 30 amps of shore power with the smart plug stainless steel
02:43the
02:43only one i use we've got a webasto cabin heater that's the evo 40 airtronic so that's cabin heat
02:52and then right over here is a drain for the gray tank we've got a van windows direct awning window
03:00awning i said not slider i prefer the awning we've got another bespoke humble road running board here
03:08and one thing that we always strive for is to keep this shin banger out of the way so when
03:16you are
03:17approaching this door to get in you are in the center of that running board so we lengthen this
03:24we don't have to have you're not stepping out here you're always stepping here but if we ended it here
03:30you would run the risk of shin banging your shin so we pull them a little further uh another spotlight
03:37up on top we also have a wee boost up there uh we have a houghton that is a 10
03:45000 btu dc air conditioner
03:48it's 48 volt it is powered by the ecoflow power kit first generation ecoflow
03:57uh this is a mid roof ford transit it's a short chassis mid roof not a low roof not a
04:06high roof mid roof
04:08uh this is purely customized for lisa who's going to live in this van
04:17this is a rear shower model now this whole design was predicated on lisa's
04:26wants wishes and must-haves like i said she's been a van dweller 15 years using pleasure way vans
04:32she actually had a hand in some of the design changes that went on at pleasure way through the
04:38years so she's been thinking about her custom van for a long time she always wanted a rear bath rear
04:44shower so we're using the trilino toilet to keep things simple i'm a big proponent of simple when it
04:51comes to toilets i do not ever recommend any of these crazy wrap them up in jiffy pop burn the
05:00poop
05:00no simple bag it and get rid of it this van is accented with teak we've got a solid teak
05:08handmade
05:08shower pan here the shower pan extends under the the armoire and extends further to the other side of
05:16van it's done in two pieces so it can be removed for an outdoor shower between the doors and then
05:23we've got this beautiful armoire this is also teak everything's done in-house this is a cute little
05:31feature this part of the drawer goes over the wheel well so we added a shelf in the back there
05:37just for
05:37something you never know all the drawers are magneted shut when the engine is running electromagnets
05:45it's a very simple installation there's nothing that can really go wrong but the beauty of that
05:52is you don't have to struggle to pull these open as we've been doing all these years
05:58lisa gets a grab handle in the back to get in and out of the van i think i might
06:03even give her
06:04another hitch step so that'll make things easier back here we use a uh is this was this one this
06:12is
06:12no this is cintra these are cintra panels and we had a lot of fun cutting this this way rather
06:19than
06:20giving you the full glass opening with the cintra we decided to give it these cool because you don't see
06:29through the glass there anyway so it's just a cool feature from inside the van it's purely aesthetic
06:35they're done on the cnc if lisa comes to us after a month or six and she says you know
06:42i'd like these
06:42to be full glass we put them back on the cnc and we'll cut them out i always tell my
06:48customers you got
06:49to go live with this van for three to six months and then you come back and we make some
06:53more changes
06:54to it once you buy a humble road van you're part of the family and it goes on forever want
07:00to go up
07:01front now as i said it's a solo traveler uh well not solo completely she's got a dog and a
07:15cat
07:16so we gave her a pet gate that comes across here and locks in place
07:22our rollef screens didn't come in time for this video so we'll be installing full rollef screens
07:30here uh lisa wanted a glossy white uh galley to match her home so we gave her some l-track
07:39down here
07:39some l-track hooks we don't know what she's going to do with that this is an access for fuses
07:46i'm a big
07:47proponent of full access and diagnostic easy to run wires in the future if we have to
07:55and of course we always accent everything with 8020 all of our modules are structurally built with 8020
08:03and then we also accent with it where it isn't structural lisa did not want a swivel on this seat
08:11so what we did is we gave her a little doggy box here for leashes and whatnot and it's just
08:17two
08:18simple magnets to hold that lid in place there's another grab handle up front here to help lisa get
08:24in and out and this is a standard ford transit van they are very automotive they're very pretty easy to
08:34drive too uh we've come up with a a nice way to cover these blobs that come from the factory
08:41i'm not
08:42happy with them but in in the manuals they tell you not to mess with them don't cut them don't
08:48do anything
08:48so we don't we fill the voids with bondo and we wrap them uh here she's got a we boost
08:56antenna
08:57and i placed it here because the majority of the time she may be using it is when she's driving
09:02and her cell phone proximity makes a difference here she's got a little kaframo fan that's controlled
09:08here and also on her phone through the ecoflow system so this is her day bed and she's got the
09:18awning window she's got a little shelf in here with usb and usbc on both sides she's got 120 volt
09:27outlet
09:28here and this is her night light i'll show you what that looks like in the back everything's a
09:32touch dimmer this is an overhead light here this is a garment shelf rather than enclosing it because
09:39we have a medium roof instead of a high roof we put in this nice garment shelf now lisa can
09:45put some
09:45bins in here where she can stack fold her clothing we use a marine grade vinyl for our ceilings and
09:55our
09:55stretchers and again this is a system that works very well uh if we have to get back in this
10:03ceiling
10:03at a future date she's got a lagoon table here like i said this will be her day workstation and
10:10then at
10:10night she can flip this out of the way to go to sleep down here we have a
10:22access for storage lisa moves a lot of things from one house to another in her life so she wanted
10:31a
10:31wide open storage box that's also going to double as her kitty litter box if you look on the side
10:40there
10:40you'll see a eight inch access hole so at some point there'll be a litter box here for the kitty
10:47so this container this cabinet serves double duty pun intended see what i did there
10:54uh futon mattress big proponent of this futon shop in san francisco they make a super high quality product
11:02uh so i can have these custom made to any dimension and thickness i want and then my clients can
11:09determine
11:09what contents makes this mattress up whether it's a organic memory foam wool cotton whatever
11:18i don't think i can open this bed with that in place let me see
11:27yeah we got it
11:30so there's your storage bin i've got two 5k ecoflow batteries back here and my little wee boost is
11:38sitting on top uh the beauty of 8020 is that you know we can fabricate brackets and connection points
11:45anywhere we want in our build so this whole bed module actually contains the entire power system for the
11:53van this is the ecoflow power kit this is generation one which i think is perfect for van life
12:01and our panels are magneted so if we want to remove them remove any component we can get anything out
12:10of
12:10here this panel lifts up out of the way and i can slide those batteries out god forbid i have
12:15to replace them
12:17and that's it uh you know all our breakers are labeled all of our fuses are labeled i'll give lisa
12:26extra fuses she shouldn't need them i love this system i really like this ecoflow it was a big change
12:33for me
12:34to leave that lithionics victron world but as i've said lithionics victron is windows and ecoflow is mac
12:44uh one thing that you have to really concern yourself with is ventilation with any electronics
12:51heat is the killer so this whole compartment is is ventilated in every direction and i even put some
12:59in the front here when you hinge a lift up like this you want to make sure your hinge point
13:05is at the
13:06same point as the thickness of your mattress so that it has a place to go when you're lifting up
13:13and
13:13down this bed's very comfortable i get compliments from my clients on that so here we've got these
13:22little teak cubbies these are little storage cubbies and they've got bullet spots in them let me see which
13:30one there there it is little bullet spot lights i'm a big proponent uh of lighting and setting a mood
13:38so for instance these are your hall lights and if you notice here we recessed the air conditioner as high
13:47up into the ceiling as we could get it and then we put our ceiling in and we put in
13:53a return with a
13:54uh cob led strip light so we tie that into the the hall light and then this is this is
14:01our little command
14:02central this white gauge is my fresh water the black gauge is the gray water
14:10um this is galley lighting one galley lighting two and then we've got mood lighting which is our bullet
14:18spots and down below so you have a lot of options as to how you want to light this van
14:23in the evening
14:25the floor is chosen lisa picked this floor i send all my clients to l l flooring or called lumber
14:32liquidator they're nationwide so they can go into a showroom pick what they want and then we have it
14:39sent to my local l l flooring let me close this door so we don't have a a wind problem
14:49uh lisa chose this faucet it's kind of cool it's different this is the acuva this is my filtered
14:57water it's um sediment filtration and uv nice big stainless steel sink we've got a little cabinet up
15:06here with sliders a little uh solid teak accents here and then she's got her utility shelving back
15:14here this bottom trough was custom made for her um what are those mason jars so the mason jars go
15:22in
15:22oh down this end we're trying something different this time around we have had some issues with where
15:28we put our fresh fill is it out there is it in the back uh sometimes you make a mess
15:35there's a little
15:35bit of a drip this is the fresh fill for the water tank so you can jug your water in
15:42which as it turns
15:43out most of my clients do they don't use hoses from a spigot they come from the market with gallon
15:50jugs or two gallon jugs so i'm going to provide a funnel and you can fill it right there
15:56further down we've got our bank of drawers and as i said you can see that the the drawers are
16:04soft
16:04closed so you don't have to worry about muscling them open and closed
16:12this one goes around my plumbing again another access panel i've got inspection hatches
16:24on each of these bays for the water tank and how easy that is
16:33yeah so we're starting to make things a little more residential here is a pantry
16:41now in an earlier video earlier humber road video i had the pantry fixed in place and this
16:50wall was a slide outdoor and you would access from in here and lisa saw the video and she said
16:57it's
16:57very clever but i don't like it so we reconfigured this and what we ended up doing then is giving
17:04her
17:04second small pantry here now look what we did down here look at the access to that water pump and
17:12some of the
17:12shutoffs you can have eyes on that plumbing system i'm always worried about my plumbing systems leaking or
17:19dripping they never do but it's something to worry about and again there's another access panel here
17:27i don't know if i can get it without popping these drawers out this one's this one's tough to get
17:33out
17:34i do want you to see this one though there we go that wasn't bad
17:41so again if i pull out all the drawers you've got full access here's my acuba my sediment filter
17:52yeah everything's here this is my glycol reservoir this makes my hot water my hot water heat is right
17:59behind that wall and if i had to replace it two bolts this whole panel with everything on it
18:06comes right out swings over that way i can slide that water heater out i've thought about these things
18:12because i'm the one that's going to most likely uh be doing it this is actually three panels that we
18:21put
18:21together to simulate three drawers uh we we do that in all our galleys i had one request way back
18:30when
18:31to make my drawers uh sized to what's going to fit in them and it was a mishmash if you
18:37notice we kerf
18:39you know this is this is a drawer this is not these are not drawers i mean i could put
18:45handles on them but
18:46then somebody's going to want to pull them but this is purely aesthetic this is the detail that we go
18:52to
18:52when we're building so ecoflow this is their touch panel this is how you control the ecoflow it's very
19:00intuitive if you've ever used a victron serbo gx yes they've updated their software and it's a little
19:09better but it's still windows in my opinion this is a very nice panel i love the way this works
19:16a lot of control there this is the uh 190 the cruise 190 by isotherm i use this refrigerator freezer
19:27a lot
19:28it's big now i wouldn't normally put a fridge this size in this small a van for a solo traveler
19:36but lisa travels with a lot of other people and she's in charge of food
19:40uh i'd never run any of my modules to the ceiling i don't seal up i'm a proponent of airflow
19:47this is
19:48the top of the refrigerator the whole top's wide open fridge bleeds remember ice breathes
19:54uh heat kills electronics so there are no places where we get stuck with heat down here
20:02this is our night light and it matches the ventilation grills we put in on the other panel
20:08this is our webasto controller and the exit for the webasto heater it's a cabin heater and we put another
20:16output vent here in the shower so when that heats on lisa travels through colorado a lot so we wanted
20:23her shower to be nice and warm as well further back into the shower uh we've got this beautiful handmade
20:31teak shower floor boardwalk this is sitting in a stainless steel shower pan there's two drains
20:38in the shower pan they're on each end and they're on either side of the shower so no matter which
20:44way
20:45you park this van for the night you're going to get drainage on that shower pan and what we do
20:52uh it was very important for lisa to have an infinity floor throughout the van she did not want any
20:59steps
21:00so we we landed this shower boardwalk at floor height what that means though is when you're showering
21:08you could possibly spill some water out so what we're going to do we have a knee wall that goes
21:16in here a little flexible plastic knee wall it's eight inches tall flexible i said in case she forgets
21:21it's it's there she can't trip over it and fall but that will be that's the job is to keep
21:27the shower
21:28curtain in the shower pan and that's how this is going to go around obviously we have to trim this
21:35to fit i just threw it in this morning for patrick's video but these shower curtains can live over here
21:42when they're not in use and we'll have a little tie back right here this is a product called wet
21:49wall
21:50and we use this to build all of our showers all the showers are custom made
21:56we're using 8020 and what we do then is we rabbit the wet wall and we silicone it into the
22:03channels of
22:04the 8020 and it doesn't leak and this little shelf here is actually over the shower pan the shower pan
22:13goes all the way to the wall so if there was a leak it would go right into the pan
22:18i wanted to show
22:19you this i left this detached so i could show it to you this is how we install all of
22:25our fixtures
22:27we put our shower fixtures on a plastic panel that way we can edit these controls if they were to
22:34if
22:35they need to be replaced so now that we're good and we know everything's solid and not leaking we'll
22:40put a small bead of silicone around this and we'll put this in place and we've got t-nuts we've
22:47got
22:47machine screwed t-nuts in here so that this can be removed at a later date so now with the
22:53silicone
22:53we'll tighten it down and uh again access that's why we did what we did access i love the fact
23:02that
23:02you have a lot of customers that reach out to you that are solo travelers because i travel and my
23:09airstream van mostly solo and i'm looking at this floor plan i'm like wait a minute my galley's here
23:15my lounge is here mine does slide out make into a bed i got on my lagoon table here i
23:22have a swivel
23:22chair but i never swivel it yeah my fridge is there this this is my floor plan that's funny this
23:28is my
23:28floor plan and you know i'm five feet nine and i could perfectly stand in here yeah if i you
23:34know
23:34with shoes off even better yeah and you got plenty of clearance there so not everybody needs the full height
23:40transit no no and for a lot of people the full large transits are intimidating it's like this big
23:47pachyderm going down the road yeah this is this is this is perfect and you got uh there's uh another
23:54heating system for the hot water that runs when you're driving yes um we're making hot water with a
24:01closed loop glycol system so when the engine's running i tap off the engine coolant but that coolant
24:08goes through a heat exchanger to heat my coolant and that's what runs under the van and i've got
24:14shut off in case in case one of those hoses got cut i can bypass and go back to the
24:19regular coolant
24:20system but it's nice it only takes about 20 minutes to get scalding hot water six gallon water heater
24:27it's also got a 750 watt electric element so if you were camped out for several days you don't need
24:34to
24:34run your engine just turn on the heating element you can make your hot water that way there's also
24:38a heat pump in this air conditioner this is a 48 volt dc air conditioner with a heat pump so
24:45this is
24:45good down to 40 degrees fahrenheit off the eco flow and i like that fan that's up here yeah this
24:52is new
24:52um i forgot the name of this one because this particular design has been picked up by three different
24:59uh us distributors and they all put their own name on it nomadic something or other i don't know this
25:06has a a night shade on it it's reversible it's got thermostats it's got an electric and a manual
25:13override light in there i see it's got a light in there yeah oh that's in the uh lamp there
25:19you go look
25:20at that yep now we got that tied in no the other one's tied in we have another light in
25:25here tied into
25:25the shower uh but yeah nice yeah really nice and the the what you mentioned about the the cabinets
25:33not having those latches on it i recently went to an owner's rally and overland east and you're parked
25:41really close to other rvers yeah and in the morning when i woke up all i heard was clunk slam
25:47clunk slam
25:48you could hear everybody's cabinets opening and closing yeah so what if someone wants to sleep in
25:53that's all you're gonna hear yeah these are silent yeah yeah really a smart way soft close you don't
25:59need the the latch when you're parked at camp no so just having it when you're driving which is what
26:05you need it for is genius exactly exactly and there are people who have said oh they're going to fail
26:11they're too complex they're not they're very simple they're super low draw and if you think about
26:17if you've ever gone into a corporate building or a bank where they have to buzz you in
26:22well the buzzing in is them turning off the magnet otherwise the magnets on engaged
26:28all the time they don't fail they don't fail as long as there's power i like the i like the
26:34contrasting colors here of the tones of the wood versus the laminate here and the solid surface countertop
26:41i think aesthetically this is very pleasing i think together the two you collaborated and came up with a
26:46a really nice looking van yeah very nice very nice we're happy with this van uh and again you know
26:53i'm just looking back at this thing two screws this comes out all my wiring uh can be addressed
27:01yeah and i like just add us as a swipe yeah turn on and off your light yeah you don't
27:06have to press
27:07it's fun yeah it's really yeah she's got a big arm wire for clothing back here and it's lighted when
27:13you open the door the light comes on and it's massive it's a huge arm or yeah that's really really
27:20big
27:20it's nicely finished on the inside too and this this is basically you know i've said in the past let
27:25the van
27:26talk to you well this is a bump out area in the chassis of the van not here but here
27:32now we would
27:34not be able to fit a hanger in this armoire without that bump out we had to make use of
27:41it
27:41or the armoire would have had to encroach deeper into the van and that wouldn't have that wouldn't have
27:48worked with a shower yeah well this is uh this is brilliant i know you're not 100 done with it
27:54but
27:54we had to get together today because we got some cold weather coming so it's just nicer to film
27:59outside on a warmer winter day yeah yeah i think we were blessed today because it's been cold and
28:05she's gonna be taking delivery of this soon and then do what a shakedown locally and then she's
28:10gonna stay for a couple days and then she's gonna fluff shoot right out to colorado for a family
28:15gathering yeah yeah but she'll be you know she uses her van a lot she's got 15 kilowatts of battery
28:23power
28:23so she's not she's not messing around last time i was at your shop and we shot the van with
28:29the big
28:30workbench with the slide out armoire i think i seen this in there partially built i was like oh this
28:35is
28:35going to be incredible yeah and uh i you know i like this floor plan because this is what i
28:39have and
28:40if i was going to have george build me my next van this is exactly what i would do uh
28:45but maybe i would
28:46have this slide out a little bit yeah make it a little wider yeah yeah yeah because you don't always
28:51need it wider but it's nice you have the options yeah now we we make a uh a cookie cutter
28:57van called
28:57the maxi me you've you've shot my mini my midi and my maxi the maxi means right now it's got
29:05a fixed
29:05rear bed no shower or anything i'm thinking about maybe adopting this floor plan as an option plan b
29:13option for a maxi me yeah maxi me plus yeah yeah it's not this big yeah maxi me's are not
29:21this big
29:21and they're low roof and they were that was on a ram that was the ram that was a short
29:26wheelbase pro
29:27master there's 118 inch wheelbase low roof so uh 60 63 inches i believe so if you're five foot three
29:37you
29:37can stand up in that van now i've got one out on the road vicky has traveled she put her
29:42toes in
29:43the atlantic ocean and she maxi me all the way to the pacific and put her toes in there and
29:47came back
29:48she loves the van i've got maxi two and three in the shop now well george i always appreciate you
29:54taking the time out of your busy schedule to give us a tour i'll put a link to humble road
30:00.tv
30:00yes and i'll link to your youtube channel if you want to see how these are made in the process
30:05george does cover a lot of how-to he's an educator he likes to share the knowledge and inspire other
30:11people to get out into this lifestyle well this is patrick with new jersey's outdoor adventures
30:16youtube channel i'll see you soon
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