I never imagined us in a van, in fact, I used to mock people who didn’t “rough it” saying they weren’t really camping. I didn’t think I would like it, but I ended up loving it.

We had always been outdoorsy people who loved camping and backpacking. We had a rooftop tent on our Highlander and found ourselves in the mountains often. We were not looking for anything more. Then in November of 2018 we were planning a trip to Pinnacles National Park and rain was in the forecast so my mom said, “Take the van.” We did and it opened up winter camping in a way we had not imagined it would. Our next trip was that December to Joshua Tree National Park and we asked if we could borrow the van again; she was happy to lend it.

After those 2 trips, we decided that we wanted a van of our own, and started taking notes about what we wanted for our van.

What we Learned

The van we borrowed was an early 2000’s model Roadtrek that was on a 170 wheelbase and was 2 wheel drive. It had a full bathroom with a sink, shower and toilet, a lounge that folded into a bed and a kitchen with a sink, fridge/freezer and cooktop. 

On a grocery stop, we realized parking and navigating a 170 in a small parking lot was tough. On a turn out of a parking lot, I scraped the side steps on the curb. We knew immediately for the kind of camping we did, we needed a shorter wheelbase and more clearance so set our sights on a 144 4x4.

In tent camping, there is a lot of shuffling around of stuff, setting up and taking down. We realized that in a van, if it was wet, we didn’t have to be outside or pack up wet gear; we were traveling with everything inside the van and everything had its place. Making the bed everyday to have a lounge area was a pain, especially finding space for all of our winter bedding so we knew we wanted a fixed bed and a separate lounge area. We could cook inside, protected from the elements. We had a fridge so we didn’t need to monitor the ice levels in our cooler. We also had a freezer so we could have ice cream. We wanted these options too.

We were in Joshua Tree during a government shutdown, it was complete chaos but we felt very safe inside the van. We had some of the coldest, windiest nights and while tent campers were being blown every which way, we were warm inside the van. When it rained, we were dry. In the middle of the night when I had to go to the bathroom, I didn’t have to climb down the ladder of the rooftop tent and wander to a bathroom; we had one inside the van. The downside was that we hated dumping the black tank and the full size bathroom took up a lot of space so we decided that a tucked away porta potti/cassette toilet was a better option for us and that we would only use it for #1.

Try before you buy

What you will want in a van is so personal to your needs and lifestyle. We were fortunate to be able to borrow a van but if you can’t borrow one like we did, you might consider one of the many companies that rent vans. Escape Campervans has a fleet of their own vans for rent and Outdoorsy lets van owners rent out their vans. While we have never used either company so we can’t recommend one over the other, we can recommend that you try out a van before you decide to buy as it is really important to know what you want before investing your hard earned money.