By now you all would know that we have definitely made some BIG van life mistakes. The main one had nothing to do with our own decisions and more to do with other people, but that is still an ongoing saga, so we won’t delve into that here. This blog post is to do with the van mistakes we made that were within our control and that we won’t be making again when doing any future van builds.
Hopefully, you can all learn from our mistakes and start your own vanlife dreams with the perfect van! We made sure to avoid making any of these mistakes with our second van and let us tell you it makes a world of difference to being able to do this full time. So let’s dive into these vanlife mistakes we made and how you can avoid them!
Be sure to check out our Instagram to see more of our van life adventures!
Do it yourself!
Our number one piece of advice is to build your own van if you can. That way, you can pick the size vehicle you want and design the layout to suit your own specific needs. However, having said that we know it’s not always a practical way to start your vanlife dreams.
For one, it is incredibly expensive to buy a new van and then kit it out yourself. This becomes even less practical if you are doing it in a country you don’t live in like we did. You need time to do your own van build and if you have to pay to stay in accommodation for that time it gets very expensive very quickly. Obviously that’s why we opted for a second hand already converted van.
If you are looking to go down this route, especially in New Zealand, then be careful. Be picky with what you get and do as many checks on it as you can. We thought we had done everything we could to avoid getting a lemon, and we still ended up with one. It seems to be a common thing that happens to tourists here if Reddit is anything to go by, so please talk to us or anyone who’s done it before and get as much advice as you can before purchasing anything. We would never purchase privately again though, so recommend going through a dealer that offers some kind of warranty with the second hand vehicle.
Have a permanent toilet
Make sure you have a toilet that is easy to use. So many people say they don’t need one and we had thought from the start that we would have a toilet that you had to take out to use. Tiff had even sketched up a design to have the toilet come out of a seat and be used in the middle of the van when we needed to use it. The main reason we thought this would work is we naively believed we could get away without using the toilet.
Thank goodness we ended up getting a van with a toilet/shower in it. We never use the shower, but we use the toilet constantly. There are so many freedom camping spots that have no toilets or have really gross toilets. Whoever thinks it’s easy to just get up and drive to find a toilet is just kidding themselves. When you need to go in the morning, you need to go! So get a toilet and make sure it is accessible and easy to use whenever you may need it, whether that be in the morning or driving on a country road. Having a toilet that is clean and always there is literally the best thing ever.
If you are looking at vanlife in New Zealand, then you absolutely have to get a fixed toilet otherwise you will soon miss out on being able to freedom camp! The laws have very recently changed and are coming into effect soon, so if you are building or purchasing keep this in mind. Check out (link to laws here) for all the info on these changes.
Get a fixed bed!
We said from the start we would only get a van with a fixed bed. The more we looked around, however, the more we realised this wasn’t going to happen. Not many vans have a fixed bed because they take up so much room. If you are in a converted van, it’s not overly practical to have half the space be the bed. However, having to make and put away your bed every night and morning is so incredibly annoying!
We had a partially fixed bed too and still hated doing this every day. Our bed wasn’t long enough for us to lie in the width of the van, so Nathan built a slide out panel that covered our seating area and made it possible to lay out completely in bed. However, you had to pull this out and put it away each day and change the orientation of the sheets and pillows. Not a lot of work really, but frustrating having to do it every day and hard to do in the rain as well.
Bottom line, if you are living full time in the van, get a fixed bed. You’ll thank us for it and have heaps of extra storage under the bed too!
Think of the gas…
Have a gas vent and good exhaust over the stove so you can cook inside when it is raining! We had to open the door when we cooked in Trev our ford transit and whilst this was fine in summer, it was super annoying in winter when it’s raining. It also means all the bugs can get in too, which made for a lot of mosquito bites for us both.
In our new motor home we have better exhaust over the cooktop and we have a gas vent in the floor, so if there is a leak we are safe. The floor gas vent helps for others smells too… Our window by the stove also has a fly screen on it so we can open that when cooking if we need some extra ventilation. With our awning out, we are safe from any rain getting in this way, too.
Charge your batteries
Make sure your house batteries are charged not only by solar but also when you are driving. This wasn’t the case in Trev and we often found ourselves stuck at a powered campsite for a day whilst we recharged our batteries. We also had the house batteries behind a bookcase, which meant we had to take out all the books and unscrew the bookshelf of every time we needed to charge the batteries, which was so annoying! So make sure your batteries are within easy reach if you need to charge them.
Alternatively (and this is the much better option) get your electrics set up so that your batteries charge when you hook up to power. This is what happens in Vandalf and it is great! Not that we ever actually need to hook up to power that much as we have 2 solar panels and the batteries charge when we drive. Which brings us to our next point of making sure you have enough solar to power you needs!
The more solar, the better we think. It’s also helpful to have the batteries charge when you are driving. This way in winter, when there is less sun, you won’t have to pay for power at a campsite. If we go for a few days with no sun or driving, we do end up needing external power, but those days are few and far between.
Insulate like your life depends on it!
Not having enough insulation is the worst mistake on this list. Once you’ve done the build, you can’t really go back and insulate again. We were told Trev was fully insulated, but he definitely was not. We had major condensation issues with our back windows because of this. We were also so cold in Trev in winter that we had to stay at powered sites so we could have our little heater running all night.
In Vandalf we have stayed in much colder weather with no need of the heater at all! This means more freedom camping and less money spent on accommodation, not to mention being more environmentally friendly as we don’t need to use electricity to heat the van. So insulate as much as is physically possible if you are building yourself and if you aren’t building yourself, try to get as much info as you can from the person you are buying from. Insulation is just so important in winter and in summer.
We hope we can stop you making these same van life mistakes!
Overall, these things don’t seem too bad, but trust us when you live without them, you really do feel the difference! If we can help you to avoid our own mistakes, then we will be very happy. Living in a van is such a romanticised lifestyle at the moment that people don’t really understand what they are getting themselves into. We know we definitely didn’t!
So many people go on about how it doesn’t matter how you do your van, you’ll love it and learn to adapt to it, anyway. And whilst that is true to a certain extent, it’s nice to be real about the mistakes we’ve all made in our van builds so that others can get a head start on loving their own vans. So be realistic about what you need in a home and put that into your van.
You are going to spend a lot of time in this space, especially in winter, so you need to make it work for you! If you do your research and come into it with open eyes, you have a much better chance of finding and creating a realistic vanlife for yourself, which is much better than the filter vanlife of your Insta dreams.
Keen for more inspo? Be sure to check out:
- 10 Van Life Essentials For Life on the Road
- Campervan Essentials For Your Next Home on Wheels
- The BEST New Zealand Freedom Camping Spots
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