Mitch Nodland used to build award-winning custom homes for other people. Now he builds one blizzard-proof, off-grid camper van a year for himself, skis it to resorts all winter, sells it, and starts over. He’s relied on the same composting toilet through four builds in a row, and told us why.
From Kitchen of the Year to Blizzard-Proof Vans: Mitch Nodland’s Off-Grid Ski Life
Most people spend years dreaming about van life before they ever pick up a tool. Mitch Nodland skipped straight to mastering it. He builds one very high-end camper van per year, lives in it full-time, skis around 120 days a season at resorts around the country, then sells the van at the end of the season and starts the next one. This is his seventh build. He’s been doing this for eight years, and for the last three it’s been his entire livelihood.
We sat down with Mitch to talk about how he got here, what a normal day looks like when your commute is a ski lot parking spot, and why he keeps returning to the same composting toilet setup build after build.
From Custom Homes to Custom Vans
Before van life, Mitch built high-end homes for a living. He was good enough at it to win Kitchen of the Year from San Diego Home and Garden magazine. But building beautiful spaces for other people started to wear on him.
“I realized I was building stuff for other people just to pay rent and not get to enjoy,” he told us.
Skiing pulled him in a different direction. Mitch started building his own campervans to chase snow, upgrading each one a little more to fit how he actually lived. Eventually the vans got good enough, and recognizable enough, that people started asking to buy them. What began as a personal project turned into a business.
He runs into strangers almost every week who recognize his work on sight. “I run into people weekly that ask ‘have I seen your van on Reddit?’ Just by showing them a picture,” he said. He posts daily on social media, documenting both his skiing and the entire build process from start to finish, which has made his style one of the more recognizable in the space.
A Day in the Life of an Off-Grid Ski Bum
A typical day starts early. Because Mitch lives in the van itself, he parks at the front of the ski lot and gets ready right there. No shuttle, no hotel checkout, no scraping ice off a windshield across town.
“I can get ready to ski in the parking spot unlike people who are staying in hotels,” he said.
The rest of his time goes toward building his current van and creating content to sell it. That split defines his year: roughly six months of building, seven days a week, followed by six months of what he calls “play mode.” Switching that hard between the two, along with adjusting to new communities twice a year and watching the snow melt, are the biggest challenges he deals with. The upside is simple. He gets to ski constantly and build something creative for a living, which is why he left custom home building in the first place.
Not A Tent: Off-Grid, Blizzard-Proof, Built From Scratch
Mitch’s business, Not A Tent, turns brand-new box vans into full off-grid campers. Everything except the lift kit is built in-house, from cutting in doors and welding brackets to the final decals. The vans are marketed as off-grid and blizzard-proof, and details like a 72-inch projection screen and a folding bathroom, shower, and bench back that up.
Seven builds in, Mitch says he’s dialed in the process to the point that the final product is nicer than a lot of houses. One thing he’s deliberately left out is a 4×4 conversion. It runs about $20,000 and a month of install time, and since he’s never gotten stuck in the snow, he doesn’t think the ROI is there. It’s also something he can add later, which fits his broader approach: build what you’ll actually use, and leave room to upgrade.
Why Mitch Keeps Coming Back to the Same Composting Toilet
For a van that’s genuinely off-grid, the bathroom is one of the harder problems to solve well. Mitch has used a Throne toilet in his last four builds.
“This will be my 4th throne toilet. It works so well. It cleans so well. It’s a very, very good design,” he said.
His disposal routine is simple: solids and toilet paper go to a dumpster, liquids go to a dump station. There’s no holding tank to flush and no plumbing to winterize, which matters in a van built to handle blizzard conditions.
He did have one piece of feedback. He thinks the center bowl and divider on the diverter could sit about ⅜ to ½ inch lower, a small but specific note from someone who’s now lived with four of these units back to back.
Asked if he had anything else to add, Mitch didn’t hesitate: “I really stand by your product. Whether or not I get a free diverter, I’m going to be talking highly about it and recommend it.”
Money Talk: Advice for Aspiring Van Builders
Cost is usually the first thing that stops people from getting into van life. Mitch’s advice is practical. He tells younger builders to buy used and fix up the build rather than starting from a brand-new shell. His rule of thumb for pricing a fair DIY build: take the van’s Kelley Blue Book value, add the cost of materials, and divide the total by one or two. That formula, along with a DIY toilet kit to save money during the build, is where he tells people to start if the price tag feels overwhelming.
A Nomadic Childhood, Long Before Van Life Had a Name
Mitch’s path into this lifestyle didn’t start with him. He was pulled out of public school in third grade when his parents sold their house, bought an RV, and moved the family into it full time for five years while working remotely, early digital nomads before the term existed. The family was even the subject of a 1997 Japanese documentary on NHK, Japan’s equivalent of PBS, called “Cyber Cowboy,” about their nomadic, remotely connected life on the road.’
Still Building
Seven vans in, Mitch Nodland has turned a love of skiing into a full-time business, building one off-grid, blizzard-proof camper at a time and starting fresh every year. Through four of those builds, one detail has stayed the same: his bathroom. If you’re planning your own off-grid build and want a composting toilet that a seven-time van builder trusts enough to install again and again, take a look at the Throne composting toilet lineup.
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