Introduction
This blog will chronical my project to buy and upfit a cargo van for use as a campervan on outdoor adventures. I’m starting this blog with the design of the van I was looking to bring to life. I’ll discuss the van selection and purchase. Then, most of the blog will be dedicated to the upfit of the van, which I am performing myself instead of paying someone to do it….more on that later.
Why a van?
I’ve been talking to my family about my desire to have a campervan for at least ten years. I think it started on family vacations when I would always wish that I could do more different types of activities (but I couldn’t carry all that gear in my car) and wanting to spend more time in an area that I found interesting (but our hotel reservations limited how much time we had). So, I see a campervan as a way of hauling all kinds of different adventure gear and a way to easily stay in an interesting area without needing expensive and hard to obtain hotel reservations.
I love having outdoor adventures. Being close to nature is a wonderful experience, and now being retired I plan to spend a lot of time outside. I see myself getting a lot of use out of a new van, especially if it is built to meet my specific adventure needs.
What is important to me?
I started by asking myself what I wanted in a van. My first decision was, “who was going to be using the van.” I asked Elizabeth repeatedly about how she felt about accompanying me on van adventures. No matter how I tried to make it sound appealing to her, she still declined to participate. So, I knew that the van design would have to be for me to have solo adventures and allow for a friend to go with me.
Elizabeth is super supportive of me building this van and going on adventures…its just not her thing. She even has committed to letting me convert our two-car garage into my workshop for the van build, which means she will have to park her car outside for the duration of the build.
I listed out the important characteristics of the van and what would be nice to have.
Key features
- Primarily sole trips, but could include a friend. So, two twin beds.
- The van needs to hold bicycles inside to keep them out of the elements and keep them safe.
- Need a good place to work on a laptop.
- Need to be able to perform my daily exercises (on floor stretching, body weight exercises, dumbbells).
- Need to be able to eat well/healthy. Freezer for frozen fruits/veggies. Fridge for Almond Milk and fruits/veggies. Kitchen to cook meals.
- Need storage for adventure gear. Two bikes. Biking gear. Hiking gear. Campsite gear. Backpacking gear. Skiing gear. Swim gear. Kayak/boat gear.
- Need to be secure, as I may be gone from van for a few days.
- Need a toilet in case of emergency. Won’t be used much (hopefully never), but better safe than sorry.
- Need to be able to take a shower, if needed. Again (similar to the toilet), hopefully not ever needed, but want to be able to shower if I need it.
- A/C and Heater for comfort.
- Electrical system to power it all and allow for off-grid stops.
Nice to haves
- All electric. No propane.
- No water system. To complicated. Just a simple sink. Bag shower outside of van is fine for me.
- Second screen for my computer
- Cell boost antenna to help insure I have internet for my laptop, or Starlink.
- Lots of windows to let the light in. Screens on windows to let fresh air in.
After I had outlined my requirements, I started sketching out my van design. I used Excel to sketch it out by sizing the column width the same as the row height – basically making the spreadsheet a piece of graph paper. Probably would have been better to do in Visio, but I didn’t have that software. Anyway, I measured out stuff (like how long and wide my bicycle was) and laid blocks into the van design. I also did research on the major components that I would put into the van to understand their size so I could put them into the layout.
A byproduct of this research was that I knew the model of most of the major components that I wanted to put into my van, and had some preliminary numbers on the cost. I also had a much better understanding of the process of building a van and how complex it was.
The twin beds (which will be bunk beds) and the bike storage inside the van forced me to go with an extended length van. I was hoping to keep it to a standard size van, but was okay with the extended version, as it also gave me more storage for adventure gear. I also realized that if I wanted to take a kayak, it would have to be stored on the outside of the van.
Armed with a rough layout/design, I met with a company that upfits campervans to see what they thought. I was hoping to have someone perform the upfit for me, as I was sure they would do a better job than I could. I had sent them my layout/design to them in advance of the meeting. Our meeting lasted all of ten minutes, because they started with telling me that their price would be $130k to upfit the van (that’s without the cost of the van) and that they couldn’t start working on it for nine months, and it would take six months to complete. After hearing that, I told them that I was going to save us some time and end the call right there. No way I’m paying that much, especially since I already knew what the components cost. And, no way I’m waiting that long for them to do it – I ain’t getting any younger.
It was at this point that I decided to upfit the van myself. The decision was easy, but it made me nervous because of the magnitude of the project. I had plans to do several bike touring adventures in the spring, and they would likely have to be put on hold for a while. I’m an engineer and I’m pretty handy, but I’ve never tackled a project this complex. I spent several weeks looking at YouTube videos on all aspects of the build process. I wanted to know what I was getting myself into. I decided that I could do it, and if I needed to out-source elements of the build, I would do it.
The next step was to order the van.