Hey guys! We are Bradley and Cazzy, travel fanatics and new members of #vanlife! For the past 4 years, we’ve travelled to 50+ countries, but Covid saw us grounded, back at home living with our parents! We took it upon ourselves to fulfil our dream of converting our very own camper, and the whole journey took about 3 months.
We went into the build knowing absolutely NOTHING about using tools or how to convert a van, but in the end, we are super happy with our van! It is entirely custom and based around our own needs and wants.
Our plan is to drive around the entire world, so we needed to create a van that is fully off-grid and capable of withstanding all sorts of climates and landscapes. And with so much time on the road, we needed it to be cozy and spacious enough for us to live and work for a good couple years.
So here’s a tour to help you see what we came up with …
The Van Itself...
She’s a 2016 plate long-wheelbase Peugeot Boxer (L3H2). We found her through AutoTrader and fell in love immediately! She had done 107,000 miles at the time of buying and comes with a few optional upgrades like built-in sat-nav, cruise control and reversing cameras (which I definitely make full use of!).
Our Living Area
Our plan was always to have enough space for friends and family to join us on our adventure, which is why there are two more fixed seats in the back. These, and the bench seat opposite, form a pretty large living area which is tonnes of room for 4 people. It also doubles as a spacious work area for when it’s just me and Cazzy in the van.
The Kitchen
Having a decent kitchen was really important for us, especially as we would be living in the van full time. That’s why we opted for an oven, as well as a full-size household sink and draining board. We also have an 80-litre 12v fridge which draws very little power and can be left on 24/7.
Our Bedroom
We decided early on that we wanted a fixed double bed, as we couldn’t bear the thought of having to take our bed down and put it back up again every day! It also works well for allowing a garage area underneath. The other benefit is that we can stare through the large sky light directly above the bed at night time; and I can even climb through and onto the roof to access the solar panels!
A Shower...?
A shower was another must-have for us, in particular an internal one, as we didn’t fancy showering outside in minus temperatures! It’s possibly my favourite part of the entire build, and is the perfect size to house a Porta-Potti toilet as well!
Secondary Guest Bed
With guests coming to stay with us, we needed a cosy second double bed for them to stay in! In the end, the setup we designed is, as far as I could find, entirely unique! The table folds down to form part of the bed, and then a part of the kitchen work surfaces also detaches to form the other end. It’s a very small double, in fact, you could probably more accurately describe it as a very large single! But it’s perfect for a few nights of non-fussy van guests!
The "Garage"
This is home to all the technical or extra storage stuff that we don’t need every day up the front of the van. As you can see, only about a third of this space can be used for general storage. The space slowly got eaten up by more important things, such as our water, heater, fridge and batteries but it is just enough space for what we realistically need to take with us.
The Technical Stuff
The Electrical System
Creating a fully off-grid electrical system was important for us, as we work every day in the van so needed to never rely on mains hook up to charge our devices. Here’s a quick rundown of the electrical power we have in our van:
- 2 x 220ah deep cycle AGM leisure batteries
- 1500 watt pure sine inverter
- 60amp B2B charger
- 480 watts of solar panels
- 40 amp MPPT solar charge controller
Gas Setup
We have a 25 litre underslung LPG tank which runs 3 gas appliances inside of the van. This includes our Malaga 5E water heater, Voyager 4500 oven and HS2000 air heater. Initially, we had a 10kg LPG tank inside of the van, but it was expensive to swap and took up a lot of space. I can definitely recommend underslung LPG am the way forward for space-saving and money-saving option if you plan on using the van a lot like us.
Our Adventure
As mentioned earlier, our plan is to drive around the entire world. We have in mind a very rough route that will take us from the UK, through Europe, across Asia, over to Australia, up to Canada, down through the USA, Central America and South America, across to Africa and then straight back up to the UK.
It’s a mission that is fraught with plenty of challenges, not to mention Covid now thrown into the mix, but we are excited to get started as soon as possible. So, if you’re keen to follow our journey it’s best to follow us over at YouTube where we will be vlogging the entire journey, or you can instead check out our blog for recent posts and updates!
