About Us
Finding Inspiration in Every Turn
Outerly is a one stop shop van life solutions brand always innovating new products to make living on the road that much more enjoyable. We are building new custom designed van builds everyday our innovation team is always designing new products and coming up with simple solutions for van life issues. Our products and vans are truly put to the test before being released to our customers. Outerly's focus is to make a durable, long lasting, and lightweight products that can withstand many years of four-season adventures.
Founder's Story
Michael Soares as a young handy outdoor enthusiast was always striving for the next adventure. In his younger years Michael was a big snowboard enthusiast and went from being a snowboard salesman to a sales rep of snowboard gear and apparel companies in the winter. Michael quickly fell in love with life on the road traveling to different shops and teaching them about snowboard technologies. In the spring and summer months Michael was a building high end custom homes and being a jack of all trades, he did everything from electrical, plumbing, carpentry and designing custom resin river dining tables.
Michael moved to Lake Tahoe and started doing research on van life. Ended up buying a beat up 2003 Dodge Sprinter van, did a minimal build and lived in it for a year. In this year he felt the freedom of being able to live wherever his heart desired and knew this was the life for him. Michael then got an offer he could not refuse on his van and quickly purchased his second van a Mercedes Sprinter.
After the purchase of his second van, he was forced to travel back to his hometown to help his family. In a few months he had finished the van in his family’s driveway. The plan was to continue his van life journey when he was no longer needed. While on Long Island in NY he would take his finished van to the beaches with his friends and would have a crowd of people surround the van all wanting a van of their own. With people constantly asking Michael to build them a van he made business cards and handed them out.
Michael finished his first customer build with a rush delivery on it in 3 weeks by himself. During which he was renting out his van to customers trying to try before they commit to a build. Michael quickly outgrew the small shop space with 8 vans waiting to be built in the parking lot and a completely booked build schedule for the next year. Michael found a 10,000 sqft facility on the north fork of Long Island in the middle of wine country where Outerly now resides with the ability to work on 7 vans at a time. This space also allowed Michael to hire a team and start the design and fabrication of all the new innovative van life products he had been dreaming of building since the start of Outerly.
