Hello everyone, this is Amber with StoryChasing, and if you are looking to move into a Hymer
Aktiv van, or you're looking to do a custom van build, watch this video and find out the
things that I like and I dislike after downsizing into my Hymer Aktiv van after owning a Class
C RV.
And if you want more how-tos on full-time RVing or traveling around North America, then
subscribe to my channel and hit that notification bell, so you'll be notified every time I upload
a video every Thursday.
So if you're still researching Class B vans, or even Hymer Aktiv vans to live in, then
by the end of this video you're gonna know exactly why I love this van, and all of the
things that I think that could be improved upon to make it a better Class B van to live
in full time.
So when I first started out RVing, I lived in a Class C RV, it was a Winnebago Spirit.
And then, after that year, I'd downsized into a what I have now, which is the Hymer Aktiv
Class B van.
So I've lived in my Hymer Aktiv Class B van now for about six months, and I feel like
I've gotten to know it enough to figure out the things that I really love about it, and
the things that I feel like could be improved upon and changed.
So I get this question a lot, it's "Do you still like your van?
Do you like the fact that you downsized from a Class C into a Class B?"
And a lot of times that comes with the question, "Why?"
Or, "What do you still like about it?"
Or, "What do you not like about it?"
Or, "What would you change?"
So those are the things that we're going to address in this video.
So the broad answer to that question is yes, I love my van, and I have zero regrets about
going to this particular van, or downsizing into a Class B van from a Class C. So while
the Class C probably felt a little bit homier because it had the couch and a full bathroom
with a shower and just a lot more storage, I didn't mind downsizing into the Class B,
because it did give me that freedom to be able to travel wherever I want and get into
regular parking spots, which was a huge plus for me, so I didn't have to research every
place I wanted to go to, to make sure that my RV actually fit into that particular spot.
The other thing that it allowed me to do was ... I don't know if you saw my Lost Coast
travel video, but that particular quest drive that I did on the Lost Coast, you could not
have done in a regular RV, a Class C or above, or anything above really about 23 feet.
I'm at 20 feet, and that was even pushing it probably a little bit.
But it worked out just fine, but I wouldn't have been able to do that in my Class C. So
as you can see, there are certain places that you can and can't go if you're in those larger
rigs.
So you just have to decide what is best for you in that particular situation.
One of the things I really love about this particular van, is that it has this roof vent
right here.
And it provides a ton of circulation, so let me show you.
It does have this night shade right here that you can pull back.
And it has a bug screen, I don't know if you can see this right here.
But it has this crank to open up the vent, and it opens all the way up, and you get a
ton of circulation through here.
Now, this doesn't have an automatic sensor, obviously, like the Fantastic Fans.
So it provides a ton of circulation when you especially open up some of the other windows
and turn on the Fantastic Fan in the bathroom that sucks air through the RV.
I suppose you can see it opens up pretty wide.
And let me move the bug screen.
And another great feature is you can actually climb up here and take a look at your solar
panels to see how dirty they are.
And mine are very dirty.
Another thing that I really love is the VoltStart system.
And this actually allows you to turn on your AC when you need it.
This is VoltStart, to turn it on you just click it here.
So I like to use the VoltStart system to turn the AC on if I need to make sure it's cool
in here, so that Lily stays nice and cool.
And the other feature is that VoltStart actually monitors your lithium batteries to make sure
that they're completely charged up in case something is drawing a lot of power for them,
like the AC, or if you're using your water heater or your furnace on electric, that's
another situation that can happen where you can VoltStart on, and it will monitor your
battery charge.
And if it needs to charge them up more, it will turn on your underhood generator in your
vehicle to charge those batteries.
The other thing that I really love about this space is my kitchen counter space.
Now, it's all flat.
The glass for the stove top and the glass for the sink is flush with the countertop.
So it just seems to give you a lot more room when you're trying to prep food, and this
was a lot bigger than my Class C RV.
The only thing that I think I would want to change about it is the faucet placements.
It's kind of in the middle, if you can see that, of the counter.
And it would be nice if it was actually pushed back just a little bit back here, so that
you didn't have to knock up against this when you're prepping food.
So other than that one thing, I really love my kitchen countertop space compared to my
Class C. Just seems to have a lot more room.
So another item to add to my things that I really like is the fact that it has these
nice night shades.
So I pull this down.
You can see it's pretty dark through there, you can't see any light coming through those
holes or the screen at all.
So it does get really nice and dark inside of the van when you have all of the night
shades closed, and every single window has it, even the back doors have them, which is
really, really nice.
So it's super dark in here and you can sleep at night.
My Class C van did not have that, it had these shades that were kind of rolled down, but
they were pretty transparent to some degree, you could even see shadows.
If you were outside, you could see inside and see shadows in there.
So this you cannot, it's super black and it really makes it easy to go to sleep at night,
especially if it's still light outside.
Another thing I love about this RV is the ventilation.
So I already talked about the roof vent that you could open.
Let's take a look at these windows here that you can open up all the way.
Not just like that, but watch this.
Pop it all the way out.
There's an amazing breeze coming through here right now.
So let me go show you what it looks like from the outside.
So this is what it looks like from the outside.
You can see how popped out it is.
And I have some friends who have Class B vans, and they're in Sprinter vans, and they want
these windows, because theirs only pop out a little bit, like this.
And you can see you couldn't get as much airflow if it was like this.
That makes a huge different, so Hymer did a great job on these particular windows.
Now, the back windows, for the bedrooms, which are back here, those don't pop out the same
as the living room windows.
They pop put just a little bit out to about right here.
They pop out more like where I showed you earlier, where it was like this.
That's about how far they pop put.
But you still get some amazing airflow back there's, especially when you turn the Fantastic
Fan on.
Another huge plus of the Class B camper van, and in particular to the Hymer brand, because
it's so new to North America, is the cassette toilet.
The cassette toilet is very easy to dump, and you can dump it in so many different places.
It makes it more versatile than dumping than the Class C RV, because you don't have all
of the hoses and everything that you have to store and connect.
And it's just much simpler inside the Class B van, because you can literally just take
the cassette to a lot of different places to dump, whether it be pit toilets, regular
toilets, inside of rest stops, inside of your typical places like sewer dump stations or
RV parks to dump your tanks.
It just gives you a lot more options when you're emptying your cassette toilet on the
road.
Also, if you're interested in learning more about the cassette toilet, I actually did
a video that was specific to just the cassette toilet and how to actually operate the whole
thing, the things I liked and didn't like about it, and going through the process of
showing you how to dump it, and I will link that right here so that you can watch that
video.
So let's talk about the Truma Combi hot water heater and furnace system.
So prior to owning my Hymer Aktiv van, I had never used this Truma Combi system, and I
will tell you that I am in love with it.
It has some really great features and things that I just really love about it, and I'm
gonna show that to you now.
But one of the things that I really, really love about it is that it's quiet.
So with my Class C RV that I had, when they furnace was on, you could hear it.
It was really, really loud.
With this one, it's not very loud at all.
You can hear it a little bit when it kicks on.
Just because it's quiet doesn't mean that it's inefficient.
It's very efficient.
It gets really nice and toasty in here, especially in the bathroom.
So here are the controls for the Truma Combi system.
So to turn it on, we're just going to click that button.
And right here you have what is an RV, and this is the furnace.
So if you click it one more time, you're going to get the temperature gauge.
So it's off right now, so if I wanted to take it up a notch to, say, 66 degrees, I go to
66, I hit that button, and that it turns on.
Right now, I have it set to ... You see the little flame?
It's on propane.
So it would use propane to turn on the furnace.
We're just going to go ahead and leave that there.
Okay, so the furnace is now on, and if I turn the water heater on, which is here, it's currently
on off ... And I have the bottle, which means it's on propane.
If I flip it over to eco, it will turn on.
But watch this, if I turn it on boost, which makes it hot really fast, and you probably
can't hear it, but it'll turn the furnace off and the water heater on.
So you can't run both of them at the same time on propane with boost.
So while having the furnace on and turning the water heater on boost at the same time
does not work, it's not a deal breaker for me.
So I can still put the water heater on eco, which means it's going to heat up slower,
and still have it on gas, and have the furnace on gas, or have the option to turning one
of them on electric.
So in this case, this morning I turned the water heater onto electric, and that seemed
to do the trick, I didn't have any issues.
So there's workarounds for it.
Again, not a big deal.
So the next thing that I really, really love about this space is these two chairs right
here.
Now, it may seem weird that I love these two chairs, because they are facing forward right
now.
But watch what happens when you turn them around.
And you can push it back now, and we swivel it around for Lily, and then just push it back.
And now you have both chairs turned around.
That really opens up the space now.
You have two more chairs for guests, and to be honest, I sit in the driver seat a lot
when I'm working.
So this is the space when it's all opened up.
You might also be wondering how comfortable these seats are.
Well, they are very comfortable.
I've never had any issues with them being uncomfortable, I've driven for long periods
of time, I've sat in them for long periods of time working, and haven't had any problems
whatsoever, or any aches and pains.
Even the bench seats have been really nice and comfortable.
It's very cushiony, you can see how thick the cushion is here.
Even though it sits straight up like that, I really love it.
So one of the other things that I really love about this Class B van, is that, as I was
saying earlier, it's very nimble, and it also allows you to stay in urban areas a lot more
easily.
So I've actually been in Southern California, in an urban area, for probably about a month
now, and have no problems getting around.
You can see I've got this parking lot behind me and some beautiful palm trees, if you can
see.
Yeah.
I found a quiet place over here, hopefully quiet enough, we'll see when the video comes
out.
And yeah, so you can stay in urban areas very, very easily.
Stealth camp if you want, or street park if it's allowed.
I do make sure that anytime I am parking or stealth camping, that it is legal.
Some people look at stealth camping as parking in places where it's illegal to park and trying
to get away with it.
Maybe that's the technical definition, I don't know.
Stealth camping, to me, is parking in particular areas where you just don't want people to
know that you're inside.
So again, I make sure that it's completely legal.
The other thing that I really love about this is this view, opening up these back doors
to the bedroom area.
This is pretty incredible.
You can't do this in a Class C. When you open up the doors ... You saw the inside.
This is the outside.
They open up pretty wide.
And there you have it.
You can lay in bed, watch the sunset or sunrise.
In this case it's the sunset.
So I've given you a list of all of the things that I really love about this van, and the
things that really seem to resonate with me.
If you have a comment about any of these items, or if you have questions about the Hymer Aktiv
camper van, go ahead and leave me a comment below.
So now let's talk about the things that I don't really like about it, or that I would
like to see some improvement upon, whether that mean that I do the improvement myself,
or whether Hymer will actually do an improvement in the future on the Hymer Aktiv vans.
One of the things I don't like about this Hymer Aktiv van is the refrigerator.
You can see it's fairly small, which I knew.
But what makes it difficult is this is a galley kitchen, and you can see it's a little bit
difficult to get in and out of here.
The door opens up like this, so instead of it being a drawer, it's a door, which it's
hard to maneuver through there.
So if you actually had a drawer refrigerator, it would be so much easier to get in and out
of.
So that I could actually pretend like I have a drawer refrigerator, I bought these little
organizers right here that help.
You can get to all of your stuff a lot more easily, and you can organize it better.
All right, so now we are in the bathroom, and one of the things that I do not use is
the shower feature.
So here is the nozzle.
It does not have an on/off switch to keep it on or to keep it off in order to do a military
shower.
It also gets everything very wet in here, so even though it has this curtain that you
can move over ... See?
It's even hard to move the curtain.
It still just kinda protects the back side, but ... And I don't have it it fully moved
over around the toilet, but it gets everything else wet.
The other thing is that it has this little notch right here, this hole, so that you can
put the nozzle through it.
Like that, so that you can take a shower, except the fact you don't have that on/off
switch to take a military shower.
So in order to conserve water, which you have to do in here, so that you don't run out of
water, every time you use it, you have to come back through here, turn the faucet on
and off, and then come back here, pick up this shower head, rinse yourself off, put
it back down, come back over here, and flip it on and off.
So it's just a really poor thought out design, especially for people who are full-time RVing
and would love to use this as a shower.
It would have been better to have had possibly a shower head up here, where you can move
it up and down from place to place.
Replace that nozzle, so that it has the on/off button, so that you could take military showers,
that would have been really great.
This is probably something I could do on my own and fix it, but I don't even take showers
in here anymore, just because it's been such a pain.
So I bought a gym membership and I go to the gym, work out, take a shower.
Or I go to state parks, rec centers, or any place that really has public showers, even
truck stops.
And you'd be surprised, the truck stops actually have some really, really nice showers.
Some of them actually are like spas when you go in there.
I even took a picture one time to show everybody what it look like, the caption was, "Is this
a spa, or is this a truck stop?"
Guess which one they picked?
They thought it was a spa.
All right, so let's talk about ground clearance now.
So when I bought the Hymer Aktiv van, I knew that it was a bit lower than the Mercedes
Sprinter van, which is another popular van when you're looking at Class Bs to do customizations.
So I was okay with that.
I knew that it was a little bit lower, but I didn't think it was going to be too much
of a problem.
However, there's a couple of things that I don't like since I've purchased it that I
found out.
So let's take a look at those now.
One of the items is the underhood generator.
So this right here is the underhood generator, and it has a cap on it, but you can see that
I've even pulled it loose, just a little bit right there.
So let me show you, when I pull it back, how close it is to the rim.
So heres the thing about it.
There's the tire.
There's the underhood generator.
You can see it.
It's so close to the bumper that when you pull forward, you can hit curbs with it, because
it's so low.
That is a major disaster.
You can actually bust your underhood generator very easily with that, which is why they put
the cover on it.
You would think that they would put it in a place where it wouldn't obstruct your ability
to park and damage the underhood generator.
So the other item is the propane tank.
So the propane tank lives under this skirt.
And there's the tank.
You can see how low it is to the ground, and the unfortunate part is that yellow valve,
that cover right there is to fill it up.
And that valve — I don't know if you can tell — is pointing down.
So what happens is, when they try to fill it, their hose is hitting the ground.
It's very hard to fit their hose onto it.
The propane tank probably perplexes me the most ... Well, it may be the underhood generator.
I don't know why they put that valve stem where it's at an angle, because it is really
hard to get the propane fill nozzle onto it.
And I've looked at different ways of trying to fix it, so far I haven't figured out a
way to do that.
But the only manual way to do it, is to one, hope that when you go to fill up, that the
concrete is a little bit on a curve, or a slant.
The other way to do it is to get some little blocks to just kind of roll your wheels up
onto, so that you're a little bit more elevated.
So hopefully that helps you guys our if you're looking at something like that.
So the next item is actually a pro and a con, it's a little bit of a love/hate relationship,
so let me show you why.
It is the screen door.
Everybody loves a screen door.
I really do love it, but it is very hard to open and close.
So much so that I don't allow anybody to touch it.
I'll do it myself, because it's so hard to open and close.
You have to figure out the right way to do it, and I don't want people to damage it accidentally.
So heres the screen door when it's completely open.
It's really nice, it keeps the bugs out, keeps Lily inside.
So it's really, really nice.
Now let's try to open it.
If you try to open it right here, you can see it's just not budging, and I'm pulling
pretty hard.
You would think that that's the natural place to open it, but no.
You have to slide your hand down here and open it from this direction towards the ground,
and it opens very easily then.
But this track, for whatever reason, is just very difficult.
And you can see this little mechanism here, this little plastic, that's what keeps it
on this track.
And I don't know why it's just so difficult, but it is.
And it's not like you can put lubricant or anything on there to make it easier it's just
the way that it's made.
So yes, it's a love/hate relationship.
So the other item that I could do without is this bathroom sink.
You would think it would be alright, it folds up against the wall, it's nice and tidy, organized,
right?
But every time you want to use it, you have to hit this little lever here, and it pops
down, and you have a sink.
Which is great, except that it's very, very hard to clean.
There's this little trough, if you will, down here, and in order to clean it, you have to
actually remove this whole door.
And you can hear it's squeaky, too.
So I don't use it, so I just opt for the kitchen sink instead.
So that's a thing that I probably ... If I were to customize this, I would not have the
shower, I would not have the sink, just a toilet.
And could probably even do away with all of these walls, which would open up the space.
Okay, so the next item that I wish were different is the USB plugs.
So I love them.
However, you have to turn the inverter on to use them.
That seems a little weird to me, and maybe it's because in my Class C RV, I had USB plugs
on DC power, so I didn't have to turn on the inverter to get AC power to the USB plugs.
There is a USB right over here over the dinette.
We have another USB right under the kitchen counter area, and we have another USB that
is over there in the corner, but that's hidden by part of the mattress.
Another thing, they should have moved that plug up, so that it's higher than the bed
frame and the mattress.
So another thing that I would like to see improvement on is the kitchen table.
Now, I really like this kitchen table.
It was one of the selling features, to be honest, because it's foldable like this, or
it can come out.
The problem is, is to get it out, it comes up in this direction.
So you can see everything is going to fall off that you have on the table.
And many times I have my computer up here, I have books, I have pens.
So you have to move everything out of the way, pull the legs out, then come over here
and lift the table up, and it folds out.
So it's really nice and large, and I love that about it.
I just wish it actually would come out from either underneath, or it'd be nice if it slid
out from here and then pushed up so that it's flush with the other side of the table, and
then locks in place.
That's really just a minor annoyance with the table, but I use it a lot, and so it's
just a small thing that I wish would be different, and something that I might customize also
later on.
All right.
So the last thing that we're going to talk about is the spare tire.
If you've been watching my videos, you know that I took my spare tire off.
And a lot of people gave me a lot you-know-what, because I took my spare tire off.
It was a personal preference.
I couldn't get into my back door right here very easily, which I get into them all the
time, so I decided to remove it.
I don't even carry one at all.
Now, when I had my Class C RV, it didn't even have a spare tire either, so they are making
them a lot of times without these spare tires.
I do have a roadside assistance, so if I ever have an issue I'll call them, or ask for help
if I don't have cell signal somewhere and get somebody out there to help me.
So the whole reason why I took the spare tire off, is because the spare tire was sitting
right here above this door.
So there's the hitch for it, there's the regular hitch.
So the spare tire was hitched here, and it came up into this big huge circle that covered
this whole area.
In order to get it down, you have to take the pin out and then let it drop to the ground.
But you can't just let it drop, you have to slowly let it drop, so that it's almost flush
with that hitch.
And it's very, very, very heavy.
What would have been nice, is that if this had a swing-away hitch, so that it would just
swing-away from here, and you didn't have to actually put it down.
You didn't have to use your legs or your back to manage the weight of that spare tire.
Now, I have seen some hitches that will attach somehow to these brackets up here, for your
doors.
I have seen some mounted to bumpers, which I don't think we can do on this one.
Or there's the ones that I think are hitch mounted, and I'm going to to actually research
that and see what I can come up with.
It would be nice if I could find a hitch mounted swing-away arm for a spare tire.
So you see it's not that I didn't want a spare, it's just that it wasn't very manageable for
me.
So if I could get that swing-away arm and be able to attach a spare tire again, I would
really, really love that.
So we'll see what happens with that, and I'll let you know in the future if I actually do
get that swing-away hitch and find one that actually works for that particular area.
So all of these things that I have shared with you today about the things that I really
love about my Class B Hymer Aktiv, and the things that I would improve upon, are things
that I have discovered in my first six months of owning this Hymer Aktiv van, and downsizing
from that Class C to the Class B. So I'll probably do another followup in a year, to
show you maybe some of the changes and modifications that I've made, and hopefully have attached
another spare tire.
So now that you know the things that I love and want to improve upon in my van, if you're
looking to full-time RV and want to learn some more information about how to full-time
RV, then we're having an event called the Full-Time Freedom Week, where I'm actually
going to teach on solo RVing.
I get a lot of questions about solo travel and all of the different concerns that people
have about solo RVing.
So I'll be guest speaking on that along with 30 other RVers who are experts in their field,
and they'll be talking about all the things that you need to know, from what gear to use,
maybe what RV you need to get, helping you discover that, and working full-time on the
road, how to remote work, all kinds of topics.
So if that's something that you're interested in, I've provided a link to that in the descriptions
box and in the pinned comment on this video, so that you can get signed up and watch all
of those videos at any point in time that you want throughout the year.
The Full-Time Freedom Week event is also web-based, so you can watch it from the comfort of your
home.
But again, you can watch those videos at any point in time after you get signed up and
registered for the all-access pass.
So if you liked this video, please let me know by hitting that like button below.
Subscribe and share it with your family and friends, and comment below, "I like that van"
if you're thinking about buying a van and joining the van life community.
Thanks everyone, have a great day.
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