A photographer lives full-time in a 66-square-foot van that has a king-size bed, roof deck, and secret compartments that disappear into the walls

When asked about his nomadic lifestyle and what made him take the first step, Schrock points towards the username on his Instagram page, "everchanging horizon."

"My username is @everchanginghorizon. So basically, my job is to continually be moving and experiencing the world and capturing it and sharing it with whoever's interested," he said.

The interior of the tiny home is wrapped in wood panels that Schrock told Insider cost him about $10,000. Other amenities and appliances added up and brought the total amount he's invested in the van, so far, close to $100,000.

He also notes that he got some "really nice components" in the van through sponsorship deals. "I am paying for these things because I was working for these companies, creating content for them," he added.

Schrock was "traveling through South America" and working on assignments in a different van when countries started going into lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. He drove to the nearest port, in Chile, put his van on a barge to the US, and flew back home.

That initial van was supposed to be back in the US with him in a month but it ended up taking three times as long to get there.

"It was my actual home. I didn't have a home," he said of his old van.

While he was van-less, Schrock moved in with his parents and decided to start converting a new van, with the goal of potentially selling the old one once it finally got back to him.

Schrock says that while it might have taken him five months to physically build the van, he's been learning the skills required for the conversion for at least the last four years.

"I've just been getting really into interior design and minimalism and tiny-home architecture," he told Insider.

"It started to become more of my passion than photography, although photography is my profession currently," he said.

While breaking the layout down, Schrock explains that his newest van is "probably 75% style, and 25% function." It departs from his previous van, where he says he was mostly focused on the functionality.

In his last van, Schrock chose to have white walls that made it look like a "suburban house."

"I wanted it to sell the fact that if I was on the road and I didn't want to be on the road, because I've been a travel photographer for six years, I could just kind of play mind games with myself and tell me that I was actually living a normal life. Like I actually had a house," Schrock told Insider.

By comparison, he focused on making his current van "pleasing to the eye."

He said he made "a lot of modifications" to get the van to look the way he wanted.

"Starting from the very beginning, I cut a hole for the fan on the top of the roof, I cut a big hole for the window that I put on the sliding door, I cut two holes in the back for vents," Schrock told Insider.

Over the next five months, he installed wood paneling, blackout curtains, and appliances to turn the car into a home.

The pocket of space has a small table that can move around, two seats in the front (including the driver's seat) that swivel, and a footrest that doubles as shoe storage.

In between the seating area, in the living space, and the driver's seat, there's a "false compartment" hidden in the wooden paneling. This compartment opens up to let down blackout curtains for the van. He also has similar covers for all the windows.

The kitchen space is laid out on either side of the wall — with the induction burner on one and the faucet on the other. They each have extendable, additional, counter space that can hang to the side when not in use.

The side with the faucet has a "false drawer" with dishwashing supplies that collapses into the counter.

His Dometic fridge, Schrock says, was designed especially for van life, keeping the amount of energy it draws in mind.

As for the toaster oven, he said he went for the smallest one he could find.

The van's storage compartments hold clothes, electronic wires, and other things Schrock needs to have on the road with him.

The kitchen has one such storage compartment for spices and oils, and the bathroom has another for toiletries and deodorants. They all disappear into the wall.

His toothbrush and toothpaste sit in a nook in the wall right underneath the mirror.

He has a compost toilet that goes under the counters and a shower in the back, with hot and cold water.

Due to the convenient design of the wooden panel, Schrock can simply slip the tablet in between any two wooden panels and take his "TV" with him wherever he's going in the van — the kitchen, the bed, or the seating area.

Schrock said he borrowed a lot of ideas from other people who also work on van conversions, but many ideas came to him late at night, when he couldn't sleep. The extendable bed is one of his own ideas.

He modified the back of the van so there's now a base that pops out where the extra 18 inches, that turn a queen-sized bed into a king-sized bed, rest.

There's also a charging station under the bed with outlets and USB ports. The storage space under the bed is divided into different drawers, like in a dresser, with each containing his clothes, camera gear, and other important items.

When the weather warms up, Schrock has a portable AC unit in one of the under-the-bed compartments as well.

The roof deck is walkable and lined with a 500-watt panel.

Schrock calls himself an "assisted van lifer" in that he spends about half the time parked in a relative or friend's driveway (though still living inside the van, not inside the relative or friend's home). When he's parked, he hooks up the water hose to replenish his water supply.

Once he has his water and he's been to the grocery store for supplies, he's typically self-sufficient for up to two weeks at a time.

Schrock calls "running out of water" the single biggest drawback of full-time van life. He also sometimes feels the lack of privacy and space are other major drawbacks for him — especially when he needs to wash up.

While some people who spend more money on modifications manage to have full showers in their vans, he doesn't.

"I can't just have the privacy I would normally have in a house where I'm like 'I smell so I'm just going to jump in the shower real quick,'" Schrock told Insider. "It's more like, 'Oh man I gotta take a shower, we gotta find somewhere secluded.'"

He also notes that it can get cramped if there's another person in the van with him.

"If somebody's in the kitchen, cooking, and you want to get to the bed, sometimes it's just a little crowded," he said.

Plus, it's cheaper to live this way than he expected it to be.

Schrock says that when you're traveling or on a vacation, you tend to spend more liberally than you would. But when you're living on the road full time, you rein in the spending.

Schrock says his van helps him get closer to the places he photographs and also helps him to document and share his process with other people.

As much as he loves the van he lives in now, he plans to continue making other ones. When Insider spoke to him in December, he told us that he'd just taken on his first van flip for a client.

"With the van conversions, it's kind of like when I get a really cool shot as a photographer. It's not like I go to bed that night and wake up the next morning and think, 'Okay, I'm done. I got the shot. That's the perfect shot, I don't have to go out and do anything else,'" Schrock told Insider.

"It's more like, 'oh, I got an awesome shot yesterday. Let's see if I can get a better one today,'" he added.

You can follow Schrock and his van on Instagram.

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