Princess Dorothy#

A custom overlanding/#vanlife vehicle for expeditions and adventures. But mostly hauling plywood.

Having a box truck was a weird decade long dream of mine, and I finally accumulated enough reasons to justify getting one. The idea was to build something that could both maintain truck-ness (haul large quantities of things, full plywood sheets, etc), as well as serve as a long-duration expedition vehicle for doing dumb things in dumb places.

This page is mostly about the build-out process and some snippets of it in use.

Finished Tour#

Why save the best for last?

Need to add back initial build photos -#

Upgrade Package#

Some hard lessons were learned from operating the first version, and so some upgrades were made:

• Wet wipes only get you so far, you need a real shower for any length of time,
• The less you have to do to clear a toilet, the better,
• Well-insulated boxes also get really hot really fast without good ventilation/air conditioning,
• Starlink was a game-changer, especially with the places Dorothy was going,
• Box trucks and their leaf springs are extra-wobbly. I needed to reduce the top weight by using lighter panels on the roof.
• With so many important systems on the roof, a service ladder was needed,
• Too many RV systems are 12v. I was going to need to move the batteries from 48v to to 12v (and all the copper that entailed).
• Minimize the amount of re-adjusting things you need to do while on the go.
• Less cabinet doors
• Fridges were permanent, and needed and permanent home
• Microwave was sorely missed. You can only stove-top so much. Turns out microwave/convection oven combos are a thing!