Our latest challenge is set: we want to convert a van into a camper for our next trips!

Why?

Again and again the idea came to us during our trip to Asia in 2017. As great as we found the 11 months in Asia, two points that annoyed us the longer the more were on the one hand the constant search for a new accommodation and on the other the backpack packing every 3 days. Clearly luxury problems, but that’s where the idea of always having your own home with you came from. Another huge advantage is the possibility to cook! We often strolled past the most wonderful vegetables in the markets in Asia. But since it is difficult to find accommodation with a kitchen for short periods of time, we cooked very rarely ourselves.

Trial run

Mimi is completely enthusiastic about the idea of building her own camper right from the start. Also, because the planning and the conversion itself is a super exciting challenge. Paddy thinks the idea is not bad, but it is still a big and far-reaching decision. So we decide to give it a try.

In Switzerland, there is an ingenious website called MyCamper.ch. On this site, private individuals can rent out their motorhomes, caravans and camper vans that they have converted themselves. So in the summer of 2020, we’ll rent a Ford Transit, also a handmade conversion, and set off for 3 weeks of testing. This trip will take us via northern Italy and Slovenia to Croatia, along the entire Croatian Mediterranean coast and back home via Austria. Some nights we spent on official campsites and others we just parked somewhere and camped wild. In the process, we found out a lot about our needs in the camper. Among other things, for example, that we would actually like to travel undetected when camping wild (especially in cities) – keyword stealth camping.

In the fall of 2020, we rented another camper for a long weekend, this time a slightly smaller one and one that you cannot see that it is used as a camper.

These two test runs were priceless for us! We found out exactly what is important to us, what is less important and what we can’t do without. This is how we came up with our key points, which you can read in the next section.

We really recommend a test run to you, should you consider acquiring a camper or you even want to build one yourself!

Corner-points

Well, a camper it should be, but to find the right vehicle and the right size, first we must gather the relevant points for us. It is also important that we plan a larger trip sometime in the future and if we are on the road with the camper 1 year or longer, we do not want to get upset about compromises that we have made when buying or converting the camper and then bother us every day.

In addition, we will not only be on the road in fair weather and summer temperatures and thus probably also spend a rainy day in the camper and work. This is less the case when you “only” go on 2 weeks vacation in the Mediterranean.

 

The following are our must-haves:

Stealth-Camping

For us it is important that our camper is not perceived as a camper from the outside. Not everyone should know that someone is sleeping inside. Of course, this influences the interior layout, but also the basic vehicle: we only want roof hatches, if possible, at most additional windows in the rear doors, but none in the side walls. This brings us to the conclusion that the vehicle for us must be a delivery van.

 

Height

Paddy is 1.86m tall and does not want to always have to move crouched in the camper. This in turn actually gives us the height already, we need an interior height of 1.90m minimum.

 

Lengthwise lying surface

Again, Paddy’s size is crucial, he often sleeps fully stretched out. Many campers have the bed crosswise inside. Most delivery vans, however, have an interior width of 1.85cm. Minus about 5cm substructure and insulation on both side walls, we are still at a lying surface of 1.75cm which is definitely too short to sleep stretched out. Therefore, we decide to plan the bed lengthwise, but this makes the interior layout and thus the required vehicle length longer.

 

No conversion of seating into sleeping area

We don’t have quite the same daily rhythm. While Mimi likes to get up earlier and go to bed timely in the evening, Paddy is a late riser and night owl. In most situations this works quite well for us. In the camper, however, this does not work when we have to convert the sitting area into a bed. On the one hand, there is the situation that Paddy still wants to sit at the table for a while and possibly still works, while Mimi wants to go to sleep. On the other hand, we have found in the first test camper that it bothers us in the long run to have to convert the camper every evening.

In addition, we would like to be able to use the space under the bed for storage – more on that in our upcoming post Layout Planning.

 

Kitchen

We both like to cook and cook also together. Therefore, a solid kitchen must be installed. We already have a clear idea at the beginning. But we will certainly write a separate article about this, and afterwards we will link it here.

With these 5 must-haves, we are on the search for the right vehicle.

Vehicle brand

In general, 7 car brands come into question, because mainly these brands build vans in the size we imagine. Our camper should have an external height of about 2.70m, which corresponds to a high roof, so that Paddy can stand in it. Furthermore, the camper should have a total length between 6.30m and 6.90m.

We are looking at the following types of vehicles:

• • Peugeot Boxer
  • Citroen Jumper
  • Renault Master
  • Ford Transit
  • Mercedes Sprinter
  • VW Crafter
  • Iveco Daily

Whereby it can be said that the French (Peugeot, Citroen and Renault) are more or less identical in construction.

Purely from the gut feeling, the three French brands fall out relatively quickly and also the Iveco turns out to be difficult, because the dimensions do not quite fit with our wishes. In addition, the Iveco is quickly reaching over the 3.5T total weight, which you can drive with the normal (Swiss) driver’s license. Therefore, we narrow down our search to Ford, Mercedes and VW. We go to test drive all three vehicles and from the driving experience and the noise while driving, the Ford falls clearly behind.

The Mercedes Sprinter and the VW Crafter remain.

Vehicle requirements

For us it is clear that we buy a used car. On the one hand, it is clearly the financial aspect, on the other hand, it also hurts a bit to convert a brand-new car directly.

For the vehicle search, however, we have marked out a few points:

• • not more than 150‘000 km
  • manual, no automatic transmission
  • cruise control
  • diesel, no gasoline
  • freshly made vehicle inspection
  • no car with a previous accident

And with all the considerations in this post, we’re off into the jungle of used car listings in search of the perfect vehicle for us.

With that, we’ve given you some insight into our thoughts on the base car for a camper van. If you are also thinking about converting a van, we hope to give you a few clues for your considerations along the way.