June, July, August 2025 Update and Van Build Expenses

We arrived back in the US on May 30 after one year traveling around South America. It was good to be back in the country we are most familiar with and to start a new adventure.

Greg’s mom, Dossie, had fallen and broken her hip the week that we arrived back in the States. It was a fortuitous time for our return, as we could help out while she was in the hospital, in rehab, and back home. We took Dossie’s car and spent about a week visiting friends and then split up. I stayed in Cabbagetown for a house-sitting obligation, and Greg went back to Charlotte to help his mom.

Greg dances in the cake walk at the Cabbagetown Reunion in Atlanta.

Debbie plays the washboard at the reunion.

Greg reunioning with his old painting partner, Paul.

Greg and Wayne at the reunion.

Karen sold t-shirts at the reunion.

Helen, Karin, and Karen work the gift shop.

Peet Midnight and the Back Taxes play the Reunion with Debbie sitting in on the washboard.

Slim Chance plays with a scaled down version of his band.

We moved around a lot in June, July, and August, alternating between house-sitting (sits for friends and sits through the Trusted House Sitters application), visiting/staying with friends and family, going to doctors appointments in Greenville (it sucks getting old!), and staying with Dossie. Our range of travels took us to Charlotte, NC, Greenville, SC, Atlanta, GA, Columbia, SC, and Asheville, NC.

Out with the Greenville gang. Duwan, Michelle, Dan, Greg, Lisa, David.

The No Kings protest in Atlanta.

Fireworks in Cabbagetown from Debbie’s porch.

Greg and his old friend Tracey.

Greg and his son James and James’ skid steer. Last year James started a new business clearing land. His business has taken off. We are very proud of him.

Greg’s mom, Dossie, with all of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren at her 90th birthday celebration at her church in North Carolina.

Dossie with her two sons, Ken and Greg.

Duwan and Greg at Milltown Tavern in Cabbagetown.

Duwan and Karen at the Warehouse Museum in Atlanta.

The Warehouse Museum in Atlanta focuses on artwork related to homes and houses. It is open once a month and is free to visit.

Karen and Duwan with Ronnie, a Cabbagetown Original.

Karen, Debbie, and Peet walk down the beltline in Atlanta.

Greg plays some music with Debbie, Peet, and one of the Back Taxes at Little’s Store in Cabbagetown.

Greg plays a song for Marshall, Ronnie’s brother and another Cabbagetown original at Little’s.

On another night, Greg played music with Slim at Little’s.

You can tell this isn’t Greg because of the Coke bottle. Greg is a Pepsi man. Here is Ken, Greg’s brother, playing music in North Carolina.

In these 3 months, we attended the Cabbagetown Reunion Festival and the No Kings protest in Atlanta. We spent the 4th of July on a Cabbagetown porch watching fireworks. We made a special trip to Columbia, SC, to see old friends. We celebrated Dossie’s ninetieth birthday in Charlotte.  We enjoyed dinners out with people we love. I walked a lot around Cabbagetown and Asheville. We visited the Warehouse Museum in Atlanta. Greg played music with friends. We spent time hanging out with pets in 3 different states.

Duwan house sits Yuki in Cabbagetown.

My house sit for Yuki was at the Stacks Lofts in Cabbagetown. I loved walking around the Lofts taking pictures.

The Stacks.

The Stacks.

The Stacks.

The Stacks.

The Stacks.

Greg showed up to sit with Yuki for a couple of nights. Yuki and he were instant pals.

House sitting Lucy and Cosmo for Debbie in Cabbagetown.

Greg plays with Daisy Mae in at our house sit in Asheville.

Daisy Mae loved running after her flirt pole.

House sitting Emma for our friend in Greenville, SC.

In August we spent a couple of weeks back at the Stacks Lofts house sitting Ennis.

But the most exciting event of the last 3 months was buying our new Ford Transit All Wheel Drive Van.

Our backpacking trip solidified the idea that van travel was our favorite way to explore the world. We ordered a van while we were still in South America. When it arrived in Greenville, SC, at the beginning of July, it already had a name, Periplo. Periplo is a Spanish word we learned from one of the most interesting people we met in Perú. It means tour, long journey, voyage, wanderings.

We have 6 nearly back-to-back house sits lined up from now until March 31, 2026. The plan is to outfit the van as we move from place to place.

I am suspending my monthly expense report. I mean, you don’t really need to know how much money we spend eating out in the US. Or how much we spend on groceries (I know, you know, it’s expensive!). But I am tracking how much our van build will cost us. I will publish a running total here each month.

So how much did Periplo cost us, and how much have we spent on her so far?

Cost of the Van: $54,652.75

Cost of upgrade so far, 8/31/25: $8,835.18

Vehicles sure are costly these days. But we plan for this one to be our home and means of transportation for at least the next 10 years. We chose to get an All Wheel Drive because there were too many roads we couldn’t (or shouldn’t have) gone down when we were in our previous van, Ballena Blanca. All Wheel Drive will open up our options to travel to less developed places (and hopefully more camping on the beach!).

There are also many features that we want in this new build that we didn’t have in our old one, like hot water, a shower, heating, a seating area for 4, and a real dinner table. We are also going to have a bigger and more sophisticated power setup. We want this van to be easier to keep clean. And because we have done van life before, we know everything single thing that we will want to carry with us. And all those things will have a dedicated space.

Unfortunately, the AWD Transit is shorter than our old Transit. So Greg will be doing more slouching. Being shorter also means that we will have less total space to work with. The van’s design will need to be planned out completely ahead of time so we have room for all the things we want. And in order to fit in this more compact space, some components will need to be custom-made. Although I like being frugal (and will be where we can), function and comfort will drive up our costs.

To map out the van’s interior, I am using a free software version of Autodesk Fusion,

Since the design is still in progress and constantly undergoing revisions, we have been working on the things that don’t depend on it.

Before we even got the van, Greg started building the lithium batteries. We had actually purchased the battery cells back in the fall of 2023, before we left for South America. Since the cells come from China, I was worried that the state of the world and the availability of getting things would drastically change in the amount of time that we would be gone. Wow. I was so right.

The battery cells cost us $830.99. And the Smart BMS, wire, and other stuff Greg needed to build the batteries cost us another $275.61. While Greg was staying at his mom’s in Charlotte and I was house-sitting in Cabbagetown, Greg arranged the cells and other components into a couple of boxes, carefully hooked everything up, and made sure it all worked. We now have 560 amp hours of battery to power everything in Periplo!

The lithium batteries that Greg built at his mother’s house in North Carolina.

The batteries in their cases.

At the beginning of July, Greg’s sister-in-law, Shirley, took over looking after Greg’s mom. Greg left Charlotte and joined me in Cabbagetown to finish up my house-sit for Yuki, the softest dog in the world. We spent the next week house-sitting together for Cosmo and Lucy at our friend Debbie’s house. The morning of July 7, we left Cabbagetown and drove to Greenville to pick up Periplo, who had been waiting for us at the dealer for a week.

Soon after we signed the papers and handed a salesman a very large check for $54,652.75, Greg took the van directly to the tire store for bigger all-terrain tires. Her first upgrade! We did it immediately in the hopes of being able to sell the original tires for a good price. On our way to our next house sit in Asheville, we dropped the tires off in the crawlspace at Dossie’s house.

In Asheville, we took care of the dog, Daisy. There, Greg added swivel seats ($660.78) to Periplo. This time, both the passenger and driver seats will swivel!

From Asheville, we returned to Greenville to house-sit our friends David and Michelle’s cat, Emma. We ordered insulation ($468.00) and sound-deadening mat ($154.66) for the van’s walls. Sound-deading mat is another upgrade that we didn’t have in Ballena Blanca. For those who haven’t heard of sound-deadening mat, it is a thin adhesive-backed material, typically made of butyl rubber. It is supposed to reduce vibrations, rattles, and road noise.

After Greenville, we went back to Cabbagetown to house sit for friends Corey and Rick in the Stacks Lofts. There, we looked after Ennis the cat.

Periplo just fit in Rick and Corey’s parking space on the ground floor of the parking deck. Here is where Greg took the headliner out of Periplo’s cab and added sound-deadening mat and insulation before putting the liner back.

Periplo just barely fit in the parking deck at the Stacks Lofts in Cabbagetown.

Here the headliner is removed and Greg has installed sound-deading mat.

After our sit in the Stacks, we had a couple of weeks pet-free, so we went back to Greg’s mom’s house to give Shirley a break. While we were there, Greg started cutting holes in Periplo. He installed a very expensive window ($1,190.97) in the side door of the van. It looks great, makes me very happy, and Greg did a great job! He also cut a hole in the roof and installed a roof vent. ($336.38)

Cutting a hole in the side of the van!

Removing the metal.

There is a hole in the side of our brand new vehicle!!

The window fit perfectly!

Greg works on installing the vent fan.

Another hole in the van.

The vent fan in installed.

And bonus, we finally sold the tires. We originally listed them for $400 (a pretty good deal), but we lowered the price to $300 (an excellent deal), hoping for a fast and easy sale, since we and the tires were going to be in the same location. It worked. We had a fast and easy sale, and a few days later, we were off again. The new tires $1092.16, less $300, bringing our tire expense to $792.16.

Our old tires.

One of our new all-terrain tires.

We haven’t done anything with the over $2400 we have spent on electrical components yet. And our solar panels ($339.18 plus $287.85 in hardware and accessories) were just installed the other day (so more on those next month). While we were still in South America, we were worried that tariffs could affect the price of things we needed. We bought all our electronics and had them sent to Greg’s son’s house.

In Memoriam

We have pet sat for over 150 pets over the last 13 years. Many of them have passed. But occasionally, we are lucky to get to spend time with them shortly before they take their journey over the Rainbow Bridge. This has happened to us twice now this year.

Lucy was a little nervous dog when she came to live with our friend Debbie. But over the years, after lots of love and attention, she mellowed. And she seemed to be living her best life in her old age. Deaf and nearly blind, she became a joyful dog.

Before this summer, we had sat Ennis once before 10 years ago. He was a little less active this time and had a regimen of pills, but was just as social. He had a distinctive snaggletooth that made it look like he was imitating an Elvis sneer.

We had a good time hanging out with both Ennis and Lucy this summer.

Rest in Peace.

Ennis. You can see his distinctive snaggletooth in this pic.

Lucy in her younger days.

To see all of our expense reports, click here.

If you are interested in reading other expense reports from nomads who really know how to live cheaply while still having a good time, check out the blog from our friends Mark, Liesbet, and Maya, who are currently traveling in their truck camper in South America at Roaming About.

If you are interested in becoming a Trusted Housesitter or having a Trusted Housesitter take care of your pet, use our link for 25% off!