GB01 is where it all started — the very first Gear Bus that Yama Vans ever built. The Canadian upfitter designed it as a no-frills, all-function hauler for people who live light but carry a lot: skis and a snowboard in winter, mountain bikes in summer, and friends or family whenever the trip calls for it. Even the colors come from the outdoors, with a palette grounded in forest green, desert orange, and alpine tones.
Under the playful “The Gear Bus” graphics is a seriously capable rig: an all-wheel-drive Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 144 on all-terrain tires, a pop-top for extra sleeping space, removable seating that scales from four to ten, and a Murphy bed across the back. The layout is modular, so seats and storage rearrange in minutes to fit the trip.
Every tiny-house company has an origin story, and for Simplify Further Tiny Homes in North Central Florida, it begins with Shanti. This is the home Krsna Balynas and Govinda Carol built first — with little construction experience and a lot of secondhand materials — then listed on Airbnb just to see what would happen. It booked out almost immediately, the bookings kept coming, and a backyard experiment grew into a whole village of rentals and a full-time tiny-house building business. Today the Shanti lives on as the company’s “most simple and economical” model: a wide-open, single-level tiny house on wheels with a ground-floor queen bedroom, a real kitchen, and a full bathroom, starting around $30,000. Let’s take the tour of the home that started it all.
The Shanti tiny house by Simplify Further Tiny Homes. Images courtesy of Simplify Further Tiny Homes.
Yama Vans, a Canadian Sprinter upfitter, builds its adventure vans on a modular platform it calls the Gear Bus — “all of the thrills, some of the frills.” Peyto is one of those builds: a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 144 with all-wheel drive, finished in a deep coastal blue and set up less like a rolling apartment and more like a garage you can sleep in.
The owner uses it as a practical daily driver on Vancouver Island — commuting, running quick errands, and spending long days exploring coastal roads and forest trails by bike. Almost every design decision reflects that pace: cab seats that swivel, a small and efficient galley, gear walls in place of bulky cabinets, and a bed that folds up and out of the way when the bikes need the floor.
Meet Rolling Bear Tiny Homes, a Surrey, British Columbia builder we’re featuring for the first time, and the Honeycomb Mobile Office—a tiny house on wheels built not to live in but to work in, wrapping a full-size executive desk, a coffee-bar kitchenette, a sleeping-or-storage loft, and a bathroom inside a 16-by-8.5-foot log-cabin shell topped with a bright red standing-seam roof, so a freelancer, remote worker, or small-business owner can park a genuine private office wherever the view is best.
Some tiny houses chase minimalism; The Knoll celebrates color. Built by New Hampshire–based Backcountry Tiny Homes, this 38-foot gooseneck tiny house packs 390 square feet of bright, boho, art-filled living into a NOAH-certified home that sleeps up to five. As the builder puts it, “a large kitchen and ample storage are great features of this house, but the natural lighting and bright colors are what make it a home.” With a standing-height sleeping loft, a window-wrapped living room, a bold green kitchen, and an accessible floor plan that can change with you over the years, The Knoll proves a small footprint can feel genuinely joyful. Let’s take a look inside.
There’s a particular kind of freedom that arrives when the kids are grown and the calendar finally opens up. For Geoff and Leslie Adams, that freedom took the shape of a van. Fjord is their semi-retirement basecamp — a four-season Yama Vans build designed around ski days, slow mornings, and a deep attachment to one place they keep coming back to: Fernie, British Columbia.
Built on Yama’s flagship Logan01N platform — a 170″ all-wheel-drive Mercedes-Benz Sprinter — Fjord isn’t a van for chasing as many destinations as possible. It’s a van for staying. Longer stays in the mountains, deeper into winter, with the comfort and self-sufficiency to make a snowy trailhead parking lot feel like a cabin. After years of family life, the Adams finally have a home on wheels that runs on their schedule, not anyone else’s.
Rounding out Yama Vans’ gallery is the Fitz, a Teton01N build that’s as much about identity as it is about adventure. Its custom sage-green exterior was inspired by Grasmere Lake — a nod to home for the UK-born couple who own it, whose Canadian life is now shaped by cycling, wild swims, ski touring, and long stretches of time outdoors. Built by the Calgary, Canada shop on a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 144, the Fitz is the most family-and-friends-friendly of these builds: it seats four, adds a pop-top for extra sleeping, and pairs a bright, lake-toned interior with the same gear garage, induction galley, and off-road hardware that make a Yama van so capable far from the pavement.
Continuing through Yama Vans’ Robson01N builds, the Taiyō is one of the Calgary, Canada shop’s most lifestyle-driven conversions yet. It was built for two physicians who prioritize movement and low-impact living — a couple whose free time revolves around biking, skiing, paddling, and recharging off the grid. To support that, this two-seat Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 144 wraps a warm, energizing interior of burnt-orange and teal around the practical bones of an adventure rig: a full-length bed, a bike-loaded gear garage, a galley that expands when you need it, and the off-road and off-grid hardware to get deep into the mountains and stay there.
Yama Vans builds its Sprinter conversions around the lives of the people who’ll drive them, and the Furō — a Robson01N build from the Calgary, Canada shop — is dialed for one thing above all: motion. Built for an athlete who splits time between island training loops, race weekends, and remote work parked near the ocean, this two-seat Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 144 pairs a calm, coastal-toned interior with a fat-bike-ready gear garage, filtered drinking water, and the kind of meticulous storage that keeps an active life organized. It’s proof that a van built for movement can also be a genuinely beautiful place to come home to.
