We’re Sami and Si, the founders of the website.
Here you will find everything we have learned about how to convert a van into a campervan.
Almost every article will appear in the same format.
- What the thing is (and how important it is or isn’t)
- What you need to look out for, related to the thing
- Options for the thing
- How to install the thing
- What we did (and have subsequently learned) on the thing
Our story
We met in 2021, during the pandemic, when Sami moved to Cornwall. She was already working for herself and wanted to spend the next lockdown closer to the sea.
After a few sub-one-hour-social-distanced-beach walks we hit it off. During the winter of ‘21 Si was telling Sami about some of the vans he’d converted and it sparked a discussion of if it was something we fancied doing together.
We watched some youtube and looked at some Instagram and realised we did.
Plans were formed, Facebook marketplace was abused, ebay listings were watched and in April 2022 we were the proud owners of a Long Wheel Based VW Crafter campervan.
Our trajectory was to work on the van for 3 months, at which point Si was to quit his job and we both leave work behind for 6 months, traversing Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and finish up the year sipping Ouzo in 20 degree December sunshine.
Between April 2022 and July 2022, we ripped everything out of our campervan, researched incessantly, said goodbye to our short term social life and built the van of our dreams.
The Crafter
The van is a 2015 VW Crafter, bought with 113,000 miles on the clock, from eBay.
It was a campervan project for the previous owner who had (professionally) put in some windows, roof vents, and bought some fairly decent equipment for the inside, but had completely bodged the interior build.
The terrible interior, coupled with a very poorly written sales description meant it sat around unnoticed on eBay for a month with no interest and we got it for what we considered a great price.
We did some pretty cool things with the van, and the feature list includes:
- Custom layout we hadn’t (and are yet to) see on any other van.
- Scandinavian decoration, with high quality plywood, hidden latches and handles, and clean straight lines everywhere you look.
- A 2.4m long L shaped sofa, big enough to lounge and entertain.
- A full, watertight bathroom in a box
- Custom laminated plywood worktop
- Cinema
- Big designer sink and beautiful 3 way tap for hot, cold and 100% filtered water
- Full semi-convertible bed that sleep lengthways, for full length sleeping
- Full width garage
- Hot water tanks powered by our engine coolant (so our hot water is free)
- Refillable LPG with retractable hose for cooking inside or outside
- Day bed set up above the garage
- Solar panels, split charge and a 240v set up
- Custom bluetooth driven sound system
The van allows us to travel full time and packs all the ‘rooms’ of a normal house into one space. We can travel for- just about – a week without needing to fill up or get rid of fluids (fresh water, or, what comes after drinking fresh water).
It’s super stylish.
We have space for all the food we need, cool the beers we want to drink, and cook up basically anything we fancy.
We have all the privacy we need to go to the toilet and shower inside the van, and can park up almost anywhere, stealthily, without anyone knowing we are inside.
And it allows us to sleep soundly, longways, on a memory foam mattress in black out conditions, in a space that doesn’t feel like a vehicle.
It carries us, and basically everything we own around with it. Along autobahns, up dirt roads, down serpentines, around lakes and along beach fronts.
The Trip
Our first trip started in the heatwave of 2022. Eugh. We quickly learned about the importance of insulation, ventilation, water storage and the effects of the sun.
Through July we visited a pal and a brother in Copenhagen before driving through Poland to Prague. From Prague we bounced to Bratislava and then onto Budapest.
In August we went through Hungary to Slovenia, where we spent weeks in the mountains, walking up big hills and being Wim Hoff in Waterfall pools.
September saw a drive down the entire Croatian Coast, dodging the Police and their fines, getting lost in incredible old towns, relaxing on the beaches (beaches = kind of like concrete and pebbles and the sea), and even visiting Bears in the mountains. We saw off the month learning to wingfoil in Viganj.
In October we skipped across to Bosnia, the beautiful Mostar, mysterious Blagaj and humbling Sarajevo before driving the mountain roads back to Croatia and the beautiful old town of Dubrovnik. Further south we spent weeks in Montenegro, in awe of Kotor, up in the Lovcen national park, and chilling on the black sand beaches in the south.
November we dipped into Albania, starting with the amazing Theth to Valbone mountain hike, before a short stay in Tirana, a nip across the country to North Macedonia, and back to track the coast down the deserted Albanian riviera.
December was spent in Greece, exploring Athens and the entire Peloponnese coastline, in, hm, not exactly 20 degree heat. We finished our tour of southern Greece in the mystic Monasteries of Meteora before high tailing back for Christmas through, a literal Beast from the East, seeing temperatures dip below zero at night, and driving through snow.
The 10,000 mile trip was amazing and the van held up incredibly.
What next?
We’ve created this website for a few reasons.
- We had done loads of research on the best way to do things, and figured it might as well be all in one place.
- We wanted to learn a bit about building a website.
- We figured it might be useful to someone else. We’re not complete experts, but we might have something of interest to you here.
- If anyone ever actually looks at this, maybe there’s a way it pays us a bit of money for van upgrades in the future.
This Spring (‘23) we are taking the van up to Scotland before seeing family and friends down in Cornwall, and disappearing into Scandinavia for a few months afterwards. The hope is to be in the arctic circle when the sun doesn’t go down. We think, but have not confirmed, that we’d like to do Norway via Denmark, Sweden into Finland and track back to the UK through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Northern Germany, to be away for a total of 4 months.
All this is possible with a campervan.
Now you’re here, we invite you to search through the various sections of the van build process. We’d recommend that you start here if you’re totally green, and make sure that van life is for you.