In the past year and a bit we have gone from buying and revamping a second hand Ford Transit van to having to buy an ex-rental motor home when our Ford Transit got written off. So we feel we’ve had our fair share of experience what what are campervan essentials and what you really need to include in a van build of your own. We definitely learnt the hard way about some things and got lucky with others. We have learnt a bit off watching others’ freedom camping as well. In our opinion, these are the 6 things you absolutely can’t do full-time van life without.
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Solar
A van build must have to make freedom camping at all practical. Solar means we can stay camped up for days at a time without having to turn on the engine. Our fridge, lights, water pump and electronics everything that requires power runs off our two house batteries. Without solar, they wouldn’t stay charged for more than a 2 days, especially with how often we charge our laptop!
Obviously, the fewer appliances and smaller fridge you have, the more you will get out of your batteries. Solar just takes the stress out of it all and saves us having to waste petrol turning the engine on to charge our batteries.
In saying this, make sure you also have your house batteries connected to your engine so that when you are driving, you charge these batteries at the same time. Our first van didn’t have this, and we did get low a few times in the middle of winter when there isn’t a lot of sun around.
Indoor Kitchen
In case you don’t know, it rains an awful lot in Aotearoa. It’s been particularly wet this year. We feel like we didn’t get much of a summer. Without an indoor kitchen, you’re either left eating out a lot more than you want to or standing out in the rain cooking your food.
We have seen so many van set ups that leave people standing under their boot door cooking in the cold and rain. It honestly looks miserable. Do yourself a favour and make sure you can cook inside when you need to. Obviously, when the weather is good, it’s great to cook outside and we do this with our baby Weber. Some people have portable stoves they use inside and take outside when the weather is nice. We have also seen kitchens that can pull out of the van when the weather is nice.
It’s your van build, so get creative. Just make sure you’re snug inside when it’s raining with plenty of ventilation too!
Gas Locker
Ventilation when cooking inside is a must. As is a gas locker if you are cooking with gas. It is, in our opinion, the only safe way to cook with gas and live in your van. In Australia, all motor homes have to have a gas locker by law. It doesn’t seem to be that way in New Zealand, so be careful if you are buying a secondhand van to check that it has one. Alternatively, you can cook on an electric stove or use an alcohol stove top.
Fixed Toilet
At the moment, you only need to have a toilet in your van to qualify as a self contained vehicle, thus allowing you to freedom camp in designated areas all over Aotearoa. This means that many people have a toilet but no way to properly use it inside their vehicle. There is talk that these laws will be changing in some regard to make sure all toilets in self contained vans are actually usable inside the vehicle.
So one reason to have a fixed toilet is to make sure you don’t get caught out when or if these laws change. The main reason this is a Van build must have, however, is that it’s just great to actually have a toilet that works and you can use in private!
When we first set out to get a van, we were actually looking for one with a toilet that isn’t in a separate room and thus not considered a fixed toilet. We figured having a shower was pointless (this is usually where a fixed toilet lives) so we would have the toilet tucked away under the bed and pull it out to use when necessary to give ourselves more storage space in the van.
That’s all well and good, but it means you’ll be doing your business in the middle of your van with your partner in bed. It also means no smells are locked away and you can’t do anything else whilst someone is on the toilet. In short, it just doesn’t get used as this isn’t practical.
However, there are a lot of freedom camping spots that don’t have public toilets. If you have a toilet you can’t really use, then you get stuck. A fixed toilet gives you privacy and a toilet anywhere you take your van.
No more running to the toilet the second you get to a petrol station or town on a long road trip. Simply pull over somewhere safe and use your own! It’s literally the best thing ever! As you can see, we are very passionate about a fixed toilet.
Good Fridge
The best investment we made was buying ourselves a big (for a van big, not big in the way a fridge in your house is big) new fridge with a freezer that actually freezes things. We cook for ourselves a lot in our van, so having something to store fresh food in was a must for us.
We lost some storage so we could put in a bigger fridge. Believe us when we say it’s worth it. We honestly would have loved something bigger if we could, which is why we upgraded again when we had to buy our second van. The more fridge space you have, the less often you have to go to the shops and the more leftovers you can have as well!
Insulation
We saved the most important one for last. INSULATE, like your life depends on it! If you live in a harsh climate, either extreme heat or extreme cold, your life will depend on it. You can’t have any gaps in your insulation or it won’t work. It is something that once you are done with your build, you can’t go back and change without having to rip everything out so really put the work in at the start to insulate and you’ll reap the rewards later when you don’t freeze in the winter or boil in summer.
We were told our first van Trev was insulated, but he definitely wasn’t insulated properly, we couldn’t freedom camp in winter. We had to be somewhere we could connect to power to run a heater, otherwise it was too cold to sleep. We have stayed in much colder areas with our new home, Vandalf, and have been fine without a heater and fewer blankets piled on the bed, so we know first-hand how much of a difference properly insulating can make.
What are your thoughts on our campervan essentials?
We couldn’t live full time on the road without these 6 things in our motorhome. We definitely struggled without proper insulation in our first van. We have two solar panels in our new van, which has made a big difference on cloudy days. Between the solar and our batteries charging when we drive, we managed an entire month of freedom camping with no need to plug into mains power. This goes a long way in helping us live more sustainably as well. Especially eliminating the need for a heater all night in winter.
We aim to leave the least amount of impact on any area we freedom camp in and with all the above, it’s very easy to do just that. Freedom camping sometimes gets a bad wrap as not everyone is so careful of the environment, especially those without proper toilets. In our experience, we are sure this isn’t true of all people without proper toilets in their van, but it does make it harder and we have unfortunately seen some really disappointing behaviour from people without proper set ups for waste containment.
Making sure you are comfortable in your home and looking after the earth and community in which you live is really important as a van lifer and these are simple things to include in your van build that go a long way in helping you do just that.
Keen for more inspo? Be sure to check out:
- The BEST New Zealand Freedom Camping Spots – Rolling Guide
- 10 Van Life Essentials For Life on the Road
- Working Holiday Budget – One Year of New Zealand
