Field report · An old U-Haul, headed very far north
MY $2,000
HOUSE!
It started as an old U-Haul. Now I’m driving it to the Arctic Circle. Join me on the adventure!
Waypoint 01 — Start here
Hey — I’m Matt.
“If you came from Instagram, you already know this little white-and-green box. Here’s the bigger story: what I built, why I built it, and where I’m taking it next.”
— Matt, @its.matt.makes
Waypoint 02 — The build
$2,000
Total build budget · give or take
A retired U-Haul, gutted and rebuilt into a tiny house — insulated, livable, and road-ready. No workshop full of fancy tools, no bottomless budget. Just a stubborn idea that a moving truck had one more adventure in it.
Read the origin story →Waypoint 03 — From the archive
The transformation
Three frames out of a very long build. The rest is on Instagram.
Waypoint 04 — The road north
A very big drive
The Arctic Circle sits at 66.5° north — a line most houses never get anywhere near, mostly because houses don’t have wheels. Mine does. The plan: get the house ready for the cold, point it north, and keep going until we cross the line.
Prep, breakdowns, detours, and the day-to-day of the drive all get documented as they happen — that part of the story lives on Instagram, in real time.
Follow the drive →Route notes
- ORIGINHome — where the build happened
- HEADINGNorth. Then more north.
- DESTINATIONArctic Circle · 66.5°N
- VEHICLEOne $2,000 former U-Haul
- STATUSPreparing for departure
Waypoint 05 — How Matt makes
Built cheap. Dreamed big.
Use what's there
Salvaged materials, secondhand finds, and a lot of measuring twice. The budget isn't a limitation — it's the whole point.
Figure it out
Nobody hands you a manual for turning a moving truck into a house. Half the fun is improvising when plan A falls apart.
Show the mess
The mistakes stay in the story. If something goes sideways on the build or the road, you'll see that too.
Waypoint 06 — Live from the road
The daily story
This site is home base — the day-to-day adventure gets documented on social, as it happens.
For press, sponsors, and collaborators
Making something together? Covering the trip? There’s a quiet, professional way in.
Work with Matt →