The Westy
Bravo Story

In 2017, I sold my house in Southern California and moved into my 1982 Westfalia, Penny. I was still running my business remotely, but I wanted to find out how it felt to pare my possessions down to the essentials and live as simply as I comfortably could.

I drove north to Seattle, across the country to New York, on to Nova Scotia, and then south to Florida. From there I crossed the Deep South, made my way back to Seattle, and eventually returned to Southern California. It was a long, wonderfully indirect way of finding out what I actually needed.

It remains one of the best periods of my life. Working, traveling, and living in the same little space gave me time to learn Penny inside and out. I loved sitting in the van and thinking about all the ways I could make it work better.

When your van is your home, unused space gets your attention. For me, it was the back of the Westfalia wardrobe cabinet. I kept looking at that surface and thinking about what it could hold. Several very bad sketches later, I had settled on a tool organizer.

I knew what I wanted the organizer to do and where it should live. Getting that picture out of my head was another matter. My drawing skills were—and, sadly, still are—not much help. Even my stick figures were bad.

So I looked for someone who could help me turn the idea into a workable design. Damon Butler was a fellow Westy enthusiast I knew who also happened to be a talented shoe designer. I brought the idea and my experience of living with the van; Damon brought the drawing and design skills I needed. We became partners and developed the first iteration together.

While traveling in Asia, I had the first physical prototype made in Chiang Mai, Thailand. At last, I could hold the thing I had been imagining. Unfortunately, it was underwhelming.

The leather wasn’t what I wanted, and the design needed work. The tool slots were flat, for example, rather than shaped outward to give the tools room. Seeing the organizer in leather made the shortcomings obvious in a way my sketches never could. I had a starting point, and a much clearer idea of what needed to improve.

After returning from Thailand, I bought a houseboat in San Diego Bay. I still believed in the organizer, but two big questions remained: where could I find the right leather, and who could make it properly?

Around that time, a good friend and I took my van down the Baja peninsula. I had never been farther south than Ensenada. The rest of Baja felt like the unexplored part of the map in a PC strategy game: a whole world I had yet to reveal.

For three weeks, we traveled down to the tip and back. I loved it. Along the way, I also noticed how much leatherwork there was. That observation gave my search a direction. Where was the leather coming from, and who was making these things?

My research led me toward Guanajuato, in central Mexico. Getting from that discovery to an actual tannery took a less formal approach. I knocked on doors in Tijuana, trying to explain the unusual thing I wanted to have made. One shop owner called a friend, who called a cousin, whose uncle knew someone with a tannery in Guanajuato.

Before long, I was on a plane, traveling alone to meet people I had found through that chain of introductions. There was no neat supplier directory at the end of this part of the story. There was a flight, an introduction, and a lot for me to learn.

My host met me at the airport in cowboy boots, jeans, a button-down shirt, and a cowboy hat. He looked very serious. Over the next couple of days, he gave me a crash course in leather tanning.

I picked through stacks of hides, learning as I went, until I settled on a leather he called “Crazy Horse.” Despite the name, it was cowhide, with a waxed finish. It was the leather I had been looking for.

We talked through pricing, and I flew home with a major piece of the puzzle finally in place. I had gone from knowing very little about leather to choosing the material for my own product. And boy, was it beautiful.

But a hide is a long way from a finished organizer. I still needed people who could cut it, sew it, and fit the snaps with the care the design deserved.

I returned to central Mexico to find a workshop. Once again, I went from door to door, explaining my rather unusual product and looking for someone willing to make it in small quantities.

This was a tool organizer designed around a very particular space in a very particular camper. I needed a workshop that could understand what I was trying to achieve, even if the Westfalia itself was unfamiliar to them.

I toured dozens of places. Some weren’t clean or organized enough. Others simply didn’t feel right. I kept looking until I found a workshop that made beautiful products, ran an orderly operation, and took pride in how it treated its workers. Those things mattered to me alongside the quality of the finished leatherwork.

With Damon helping refine the design, the leather selected, and a workshop ready to bring it together, the Westy Bravo was becoming a real product. Each stage had asked something different of me: noticing the opportunity, finding the right help, learning about materials, and persisting until I found the people to make it.

Now came the question I couldn’t answer by visiting another workshop: would anyone else want one?

At Syncrofest in 2018, we arrived with two finished prototypes, one installed in each of our vans. It was the first time we showed the Westy Bravo to the community it had been made for.

The response was immediate. People understood the idea, and several vendors agreed to distribute the first Westy Bravos. After the sketches, the disappointing prototype, the flights, and all those workshop visits, I finally had an answer: other Westy owners wanted this thing, too.

That same weekend, Penny won Best 2WD Van. I had launched my first product and received an award for the van that had inspired it. Talk about a good weekend.

Over time, we sold more than 1,000 Westy Bravos. An idea that had begun with me sitting in my own van had found its way into the lives of other owners. That was a very satisfying outcome for a project that started with a patch of unused cabinet space.

The Westy Bravo encouraged me to keep exploring. My travels took me to Oaxaca and Guatemala, where I learned from Indigenous artisans about dyeing wool with local plants and insects, and about weaving on a loom.

Those relationships and experiences helped us develop colorful rugs, Seat Ponchos, and leather storage for other parts of our vans. The approach was familiar: make something we wanted to use ourselves, work with people who knew their craft, and see whether other owners found it useful, too.

Some ideas worked better than others. A few missed the mark. But together, they became a lineup of products shaped by travel, practical needs, and the things I learned from the people I met along the way.

In 2024, after seven years as partners, I purchased the business from Damon and took on the responsibility of carrying it forward.

Damon was a fantastic partner and remains a great friend. His design skills helped make the Westy Bravo possible, and I learned a tremendous amount from working with him. His technical drawings were works of art. We shared some wonderful adventures, made products we were proud of, and contributed something useful to the Westfalia community.

One lesson from that partnership has stayed with me: don’t compromise on the things that make a product good. The leather, the construction, and the design all deserve care. I don’t need to make something for everyone, but I do need to be proud of what I put into the world.

That is the standard I want to carry forward. It connects the next chapter to the reason I started: I was an owner living in my van, seeing an opportunity to improve it, and deciding to follow that idea all the way through.

Today, that story continues at our own workshop in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. We now make our leather products in-house, with our team doing the work right here in La Paz.

I sell the products through Expedition Leatherworks, a new company I own. It is the next chapter of the idea I started in Penny, and a way for me to carry that work forward under a name of its own.

When I first set out, I was knocking on doors, looking for people who could help me turn a rough idea into a finished product. Now I have brought production into our own workshop. The experience I gained along the way—learning about leather, developing the designs, and finding out what other owners valued—comes with me into this chapter.

You can explore the collection in the Expedition Leatherworks storefront here on LiveTheVanLife. From that first patch of unused space in my van to the products we make in La Paz today, I am still following the same curiosity that got me started.