Hi friends! Here’s a bit of word trivia – synonyms for the word ‘hank’ include: flourish, meander, and zigzag! These are all entirely appropriate to describe our upcoming adventures in this hulk of a machine! Here’s a quick look at our new 2021 Winnebago Revel, otherwise known as Hank!

Let’s talk a bit about the details

Aaaahhh … Hank … just the name alone makes me smile. But there’s more to this van than a pretty hood ornament and a fancy name! Hank is quite simply the perfect vehicle for off-roading and sleeping under the stars. This guy is built on the 2020 Mercedes Sprinter platform with a diesel engine and 4 wheel drive to get us into remote places. Once Hank is parked, the roof mounted solar panels and lithium batteries ensure that we will have electricity for cooking and charging our devices. Both the battery-powered and diesel-generated heat will keep us warm on those chilly desert nights. And the signature feature of the Winnebago Revel is the under-bed storage known as the ‘gear garage’. With 6 tie downs and a non-skid floor, it’s the perfect spot to store our backpacking gear and spare RV supplies!

Where are we going to park this guy?

Since we have been virtually watching (okay, let’s be real … on the verge of stalking, but not in a creepy way) other Revel owners’ adventures, we have seen vans parked in all kinds of crazy places! A couple of apps that we will use to plot our overnight stays are iOverlander and Harvest Hosts. By using iOverlander, we can easily find both (free!) established camping sites and areas for boon-docking. Harvest Hosts provides RV camping at wineries, breweries and farms across the US and Canada. Using a combination of these resources along with staying at traditional campgrounds should keep us out of the WalMart parking lot most nights!

Okay, I get it! Let’s see some pictures already!

Taking interior pictures has proven to be a futile exercise as I continue to fail at capturing the flow of the van (actually, does a 6′ x 20′ space have a ‘flow’?). The best link I have seen for the layout is through Winnebago‘s You Tube video.

I simply can’t argue with a closet that also doubles as a shower and triples as toilet! In all seriousness, I envision Hank with some stackable and easy-to-remove bins to hold our hiking gear as we ‘Revel On’ to explore wild places!

Stay tuned to see where we wind up next!