That's right, our AirBnB budget has now become our van camping budget and we are pretty excited about it. We are borrowing the old family minivan (Sienna Le 2004), taking out the middle seats and packing up for a 10 day roadtrip of #vanlife
What we're planning on having:
*Post has been updated to reflect our thoughts on our initial setup
1) Jackery Battery
If we were going to be living in the van, doing minimal work from the van, and taking our vlogging equipment with us (not to mention just daily phone use) we knew we needed some sort of power bank. Jackery has built quite the name for themselves with a variety of large power banks and solar systems geared towards off grid life. We chose a "Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 240" that we got on sale for less than $200. This is the smallest Jackery unit, but we knew it would be more than capable of keeping our cameras/laptops/phones/lights charged for the whole of our trip. We felt confident in not needing to even purchase any solar panels for it and planned on charging while driving (spoiler, I think we only charged it once).
The 240 Explorer is a 240Wh lithium battery (110V/200W) with different outlets, LCD display, weighing less than 7lbs. We have found it easy to use, easy to store, and overall a great investment (even just for emergency power outages at home).
2) Bed
Since it's two of us in the van we decided on getting a full FOLDABLE mattress. We already sleep on a full size bed and had measured the van to be able to accomodate one. While we could've gone with an air mattress, we felt a thick mattress pad situation would be easier for us and looked at two different ones on Amazon: a more expensive version from Milliard and a cheaper version from Giantex. Both have different folding points and can fold into a little "sofa" or just folded in half. We ended up going with the cheaper mattress and have no complaints. In addition we brought a fitted sheet, one pillow, and two blankets (as we were traveling in the summer).
This mattress we keep folded next to our couch and has become a household favorite--whether it be for kids to jump/tumble on or to help the dog climb onto the couch independently it was has more than been worth the ~$150
3) Travel Toilet
First off, do we really need a toilet? As Amy is a chronic one-pee-in-the-middle-of-the-night-every-night person it was a bit of a must......and well, SO MANY OPTIONS. Do we just get a bucket with a seat lid? No....we're going to need a well-sealed system. Okay, how much do we spend? These things can be hundreds of dollars and for one trip we didn't need that...
We landed on a $70 two-tank flushable toilet. Is it pretty? No. Is it fancy? Fancier than a bucket.....While it took us while to really figure it out we do enjoy this toilet and the freedom/flexibility/peace of mind it gives us (especially Amy). The top tank has water (and now we put a solution in as well) to flush with and the bottom tank is where everything ends up. The two pieces clip and seal together and there is a trap door that you open and close every time you go. It is worth mentioning that we use this toilet for NUMBER ONE only. It is also worth mentioning that when just the water tank is filled it is very top heavy and needs to be secured while driving unless you want a water spill (thankfully we only had this problem when first situating it in the car and never had a real spill). It takes up little space, does a pretty good job of keeping odors sealed up, and is something we never thought we'd own.
4) Car Privacy Shades
Our game plan ...... we have 4 sides to cover:
1) the front section behind the driver and passenger seat (the easiest surprisingly)
2) the driver side: two windows, one regular window and one odd shaped back window
3) the passenger side which is the same set up as the driver side
4) the large trunk window that is at an angle
This was a fairly complicated and potentially expensive ordeal. Finding something that would fit well, store easily and give us privacy at a reasonable price was not easy--reviews were always mixed and the product just wasn't there. Our first purchase was a beautiful, simple and most wonderful curtain to separate the cab of the car and the back of the car. We happily spent about $20 for these black curtains on a string with two clips that go directly into a manufactured piece of the car (so no assembly required) and magnets to close the two curtains for easy privacy but also separation for driving visibility. We love this curtain and wish the
rest of the window covers were that easy to cover.
We are very lucky to have gone on a quick weekend trial run before our 10-day trip...because for the rest of the windows we first purchased these magnetic car shades/privacy curtains. We knew they weren't going to be an exact fit, so we got two to fit over the back trunk window. Regardless, these were awful and fell down constantly. They also were very bold and not easy on the eyes. Luckily we were able to get a refund and find a better solution before our trip. While there are a lot of pieces (suction cups) and it takes a few minutes to get everything into place, we found these privacy curtains held by small suction cups to be our best solution as of now. They aren't a perfect fit (we use a total of 8 for 5 windows: two on the large side windows and two on the trunk window), and occasionally suction cups don't suction as well as others (but we have plenty) but we feel very comfortable with the privacy they provide and the small space they take up. We do also often have some tape in the car to seal up any gaps if we're being fast
5) Fans + AC
We bought this plug in dashboard fan and never used it! We were able to return it but unfortunately we never even tried it out to know if we should recommend or not, haha! Just know it is an option or a backup in case you have an AC problem.
For nights we looked into battery powered "AC" units. Essentially they are just fans with a compartment to add cool water. They come in different sizes and are generally meant for desks but we thought that one might be beneficial for the summer nights.
We were going to borrow a unit similar to this from a family member but forgot and ended up surviving just fine. We did have some hot nights, but blasting the AC before parking for the night, shade, and eventually cracking the windows for airflow were enough to keep us mostly comfortable. Since we were in several states we only had a few places that didn't really cool off at night.
6) Environment Safe Soap
Believe it or not, we are pretty clean and tidy people. We wanted to make sure we had the option of turning a little swim into a little bath moment in between our shower stops. It's important to us to be as environmentally conscious as we can--Thanks to REI and outdoors-folks everywhere it's not too hard to find an all purpose soap for the outdoors. This one here is most popular--but many bar soaps are actually environmentally friendly as well, just be sure to check ingredients and labels. Surprisingly, we actually didn't end up using soap and instead now we mostly opt for antibacterial wipes, sanitizer, baby wipes, and running water.
7) Collapsible Dish Bin
We planned on eating some in the car and had a few dishes that wewould need to wash. We also wanted to have some sort of running water/sink option. Now, we mostly don't bring dishes and such--but when we do we bring this collapsible bin with a drain. We also love this dish "power wash" and find it works well (especially when we're just eating fruit and cereal to clean up after) with a paper towel swipe and a rinse. We found that we could store all our dishware in the bottom of our organizer and loved that we could collapse or not collapse this bin to fit our needs. This bin can also be used as a sink (it's not glamorous, but it works) and the drain is very easy to use!
8) Collapsible Water Cubes
We were going to be driving a lot; through places that don't always have water on the side of the road. For safety we wanted to make sure we had enough water to last us and keep us hydrated. There are lots of options, sizes, places to buy and we landed on these 5 gallon collapsible water cubes from Amazon. They do get heavy and a little cumbersome, and on most trips we partially fill these so we can move them and use them a little more easily. We've had no issues with the spicket and no leaks, at night it's easy to stack or squish against the wall for extra room.
9) Organizer
**I've linked something similar, but smaller**
It quickly became apparent that suitcases just might not be the easiest to deal with in the back of a van with limited floor spaces. Amy had the idea to use our plastic Sterlite drawers as a dresser/organizer for our trip. It's vertical storage taking up minimal floor space and each drawer serves as its own compartment making organization *hopefully* easier. We used bungee cords to secure it in place so it wouldn't topple while driving and loved how it allowed us to better use our vertical space even while driving as we layout different things while driving to avoid things falling over. We each had a couple drawers for clothes/toiletries, a drawer for food/towels, a drawer for outdoor gear, and a drawer for electronics. The few nights we stayed with family we would bring in our clothes/toiletry drawer and that was that. We even could've brought in the whole unit as it was pretty lightweight and on wheels.
This was great for our long trip, but when we take weekend trips we don't bring it with us anymore. We just use collapsible baskets/bags (think grocery style collapsing bags); we spread them while we drive and stack them at night.
Be sure to follow our YouTube channel to see how our setup evolves!
Happy travels, everyone :)
Comments