Meet Blooper

Our 2020.5 Travato GL van is our shuttlecraft, daily driver and local explorer. We hopscotch it up the coast with as we cruise in our boat as our daily driver during extended stays, enjoy local camping trips and use it as our transportation between our boat and bus seasonally.

In 2019, we purchased a used 2016 Travato G (named Cooper) to try out the concept - a trade for our Mini Cooper we previously towed behind our motorhome.

Why the Travato?

We wanted a van that could easily fit in a standard sized parking space, as we'll often be parking it at marinas and using it for daily errands.

We were far more intrigued with the Travato during our initial hunt than we thought we would be, and really were quite taken with the 59G layout with its split living floor plan.

This sort of split front-lounge floor plan is common in European camper vans, but is much more rare in the USA.

We love this layout for a range of reasons:

The bed and table / office can be set up simultaneously, without needing to convert from one usage to another. So many other class B layouts force a daily conversion.
The dinette seat has two seatbelts, making it possible to cary four passengers - as this will be a daily driver for us and we're pretty social, we thought that important. And if you take some friends out to dinner, you can actually talk with them while underway! Most other Class B layouts have any extra passenger seats way in the back.
The front seats are actually put to use when you are stopped, spinning to be comfortable recliners in the lounge. So many other floor plans limit the utility of the driver's seat, or even both seats - making the entire front of the living area wasted space while not underway.
The bed folds up against the wall - making the entire back of the van open for bulky cargo when not in camping-mode.

The one reason so many people dislike this layout is the narrow crawl-over bed, which is a downside. But all the other advantages more than make up for it, at least for us. We did 4 years of smaller crawl over beds in our first years on the road, so we have a good idea of the compromise.

We originally wanted a GL (with the Volta Lithium battery setup), but couldn't justify the cost of a newer Travato to try out the concept of having a camper van as part of our nomadic fleet. After a year of very enjoyable travel in our used 2016, we were ready to dive full in with newer unit with all the features we wanted.

Finding a New(er) GL

2020 is/was a strange year. With the pandemic, RVing became viewed as the safe way to travel which cased a huge demand on RV supply. Right about the time we decided we were ready for a new GL - none were to be found at dealers. When we inquired about ordering one, waits were out 6-9 months.

We're not that patient.

We put out a video describing our 2016 Travato G and all of the reasons why we wanted to upgrade.. and just put it out there.. did we have any followers with a newer model they decided wasn't working out for them?

It turned out our dream 2020.5 GL was precisely in such a situation. A YouTube follower had purchased a new unit in March 2020, done most of the modifications we had to our own van - but had decided they wanted the KL layout (with twin beds) instead of the GL. Better yet, they were heading to Florida for the winter and it would be essentially delivered to us in about a month.

And even better? It was in the beautiful Patriot Blue color, which was a limited run color - a perfect match for our fleet!