About

Asobolife

Hi There! We are Yuko & Eric, and we grew up in Asia (Japan & Hong Kong). In 2018, we left our jobs and started traveling full-time in our self-converted camper van.

  • Sep 2018 – May 2019: Van Conversion
  • May 2019 – Jul 2023: Pan-America To Argentina
  • Feb 2024 – ???: Europe

as seen on

“Let’s Play!”

This is the meaning of “Asobo” in Japanese. It’s used by both kids and adults to invite a friend to play, hang out, eat, or drink together. Going outside and socializing plays an integral role in Japanese culture.

So, we are asking you to go out, too!

Life is full of challenges, but we should always seek joy and positivity in everyday life. This is the philosophy behind our blog, “Asobolife.”

If you’re unsure whether van life is for you, you’re not alone. We also had doubts before quitting our jobs and embarking on our adventure. But with the knowledge and experience we’ve gained over the years, we’re excited to help guide you every step of the way. Together, let’s turn your van life dream into a reality.

The Squad

We’re an international team traveling in our tiny home on wheels. It’s been 16 countries and counting; let’s see how far we get.

Eric

Driver & Mechanic
Travel enthusiast, food guru, and always hunting for the next great deal (blames his Chinese DNA).
Superpower: Surviving van life with two ladies.

Yuko

Chef & Designer
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan. Worships cats & loves buying artisanal products. Also, WORSHIPS CATS.
Superpower: Violent sneezes that wake up the neighbors.

Queen Maya

Chief of Paw-perations
From Guatemala, forced into van life. Important duties include guarding Bernie from pesky street canines.
Superpower: Looking cute, but only when necessary.

Bernie The Van

The Real MVP
Plated in Oregon, USA, & named after Eric’s mother. Loves adventure & driving on bumpy roads!
Superpower: 1 inch of mud? Let’s get stuck, guys!

From an empty van to a cozy home on wheels

Building a camper van interior that you can be proud of, without prior experience, is achievable. We’re proof of that.

Before van life, we were just a couple of city kids who had never even wielded a power drill. And we had no handy fathers, uncles, or neighbors to advise us. But after eight long months, with the help of blogs and YouTube, we finally completed our camper van conversion.

We learned an incredible amount from our experience and we want to share the knowledge we gained so that you can speed up your conversion timeline and start your van life journey faster.

If you want to learn more about how to convert a camper van, click below to learn more.

Live The Experience of Several lifetimes

We took a leap of faith by leaving our stable lives in Asia but never looked back. The past five years of converting our van and traveling in it have taught us priceless lessons about life, purpose, & compassion. But with any major adventure, whether it’s travel or just living life, the most important thing is to take that first big step.

Questions?

We met each other while taking a beginner salsa lesson at a bar in Tokyo. While Eric might argue that he had the best moves of all the newcomers, Yuko would beg to differ.

We met Maya while camped at a marina in Guatemala. She was just two months old when she first approached us while we were eating shrimp from the back of our van. Eric made the mistake of throwing several pieces of shrimp heads at Maya, which she readily devoured. Since then, she’s never left our side.

Since his early 20s, Eric has loved traveling and backpacking across Asia and Europe.

Before van life, we would travel together to different regions of Asia and we especially loved our road trips around New Zealand and the Japanese island of Hokkaido with rented cars.

So, the combination of traveling to a completely different continent (South America) with our own vehicle and the vehicle also being our own โ€˜tiny home on wheelsโ€™ made this opportunity too good to pass up.

We started traveling in our van at the end of May 2019. We completed traveling the Americas (From Canada to the southern tip of Argentina) in July 2023. We will ship our van to Europe in February 2024 to begin our travels again.

2018 Ford Transit Van: USD $36,729.26

We have a full breakdown of the total cost of our brand-new Ford Transit van. Get more detailed information in our total cost breakdown article.

Total camper conversion cost: USD ~$17,400.

It took us eight months to go from a bare metal commercial van to a fully livable camper van. Combining being complete beginners at woodworking and bad weather made the conversion process longer than we expected.

Contact Us!

If you have any van conversion questions, or even just want to drop by and say “hello”, fill in the form below and hit the send button!