It did not take a lot to convince us that we wanted to jump into the van life lifestyle. However, we quickly learned that deciding to start van life is ironically the easiest part of van life. Determining which vehicle to buy, and how to buy it, are much more difficult tasks.
Buying a van or RV for van life should be fun, but it can quickly become an overwhelming process due to the vast number of choices, and considerations. However, if you take an honest look at your personal preferences and lifestyle, keep your choices simple, and follow your intuition, you will be on the path to buying the best camper van, and starting your van life journey quickly, and smoothly.
In this article we do a deep dive into 7 lessons that we learned from our years of trying to find the elusive ‘perfect’ camper. Hopefully you will learn from our mistakes, and by following our lessons you will get on the road quicker, and cheaper than we did.
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Buying the Right Type of Camper Van to Match Your Van Life Lifestyle: The Lifestyle Audit
The first step before considering buying a camper van is to determine what your individual van lifestyle is. Once you know this you will be much better equipped to decide what the best kind of van for you is. The decision of the ideal camper van takes into account a number of factors including the van model, the overall van size and length, the layout, as well as essential features.
Beyond the vehicle itself you also need to determine how you will be using your van. For example, are you using it to live in a city, and still work an office job? Are you using it to get into nature for a long weekend? Or are you planning on a multi year journey around the world? The answer to each of those questions will help determine what you need in your van.
Understanding how you will travel, and how you want to live in your van is an extremely important first step. If you do not know the answer to these questions, you may need to spend some money and rent a van for a few days to figure it out. Although van rentals can be expensive it is definitely worth paying for, as it can save you a lot of headaches and expense down the road.
During your rental period you will learn a lot of things about how you like to travel. For example you may discover that you love the community, and facilities that campgrounds and RV Parks can provide. Alternatively, you might learn that getting deep into the woods and waking up to nothing but the sound of birds is how you want to live. These examples are obviously very black and white, and most of us will land somewhere on the spectrum between the two.
In our case after arriving back in Canada we bought a brand new Bigfoot truck camper, mainly because we were able to get a really good deal on it. It was a well outfitted model, but just like the majority of new campers it did not have any solar panels, and was equipped with a single basic AGM battery. In line with RV industry standards both the heating, and the fridge ran off propane.
Unfortunately for us we decided to start van life in the middle of a Canadian winter. The downside to trying to wild camp in -40 C (F) is that propane is not a very efficient source of heat. Having to refill our propane bottles constantly was both expensive, and an absolute pain as it meant having to leave a wild camping spot, and drive all the way back to the nearest major city that could refill our propane bottles.
After only a few weeks in the Bigfoot truck camper, we quickly confirmed that we much preferred wild camping over campgrounds. Although we did have a very good couple of weeks at the Banff National Park campground when we almost had the whole campground to ourselves.
The lesson for us was that we needed a vehicle that did not rely on propane for heating or cooling the fridge, and ideally not even for cooking, although that does not use anywhere near as much propane as heating does. We also learnt that we needed to have a high quality battery system, along with a substantial solar setup, so that we could stay out in the wild for longer.
If you plan on spending most of your time in nature, away from campgrounds, then you will want to make sure that the RV you buy comes with a good battery and solar set up, otherwise you need to leave enough money in your budget to retrofit them.
Understand the Pros and Cons of Different Types of Camper Vans or RVs for Van Life
Every van life setup has its own set of advantages and compromises, and it is important to understand which compromises you can live with, and which ones are a dealbreaker. A lot of this will also relate back to your van life lifestyle that we discussed in the previous point.
A great example of this is a pop top camper. There are a lot of advantages to this sort of setup because you get to maintain a low vehicle height. Some of the benefits of this include fitting in a parking garage, and being able to enter parking lots with a height restriction, something that has become increasingly common in Europe, even to enter ordinary grocery store parking lots. Having a lower roof height will also help you explore more overgrown roads, where the tree branches are low.
Those are all excellent benefits, but of course the big downside is that when you pop the top the upper half of your vehicle is now a tent. This means there is very little insulation, either from noise or weather.
We had to learn this the hard way, as we had purchased a pop top camper to mount on our pickup truck, however we quickly turned around and sold it once we realised it was not suitable for how we wanted to live and travel.
Pop top campers are just one small example, but similar lessons can be applied to the length and width of your vehicle. For example, I would love to travel the world in a 35’ school bus, but we would have been forced to skip a lot of fascinating places that we were able to drive to in our 21’ van.
As with all things in life, the right camper for you will always be unique. Some of us will want a huge bus in order to prioritise space for full time living, while others want the most hardcore off road vehicle on the market, and will put up with having to cook outside as a result. Neither of those two options are inherently wrong, but it is important to understand the downsides, and upsides of every vehicle.
Overthinking What Kinds of Camper Vans are Best for Van Life
When you first begin thinking about van life the amount of choices, and advice can be overwhelming. In order not to get too bogged down in all the choices, and recommendations, I recommend writing out a very honest list of priorities for your vehicle, along with how you want to travel. Once you have that list you should set yourself a deadline to make a decision by. Unless your circumstances genuinely change, make sure you stick to your original list, and dismiss options that do not fit it.
The latter point is extremely important to follow, otherwise you risk ending up with what I like to call ‘kid in a candy store’ syndrome, and you will be distracted by every single new option that you discover. This will result in spending far too much time going down the rabbit hole of research for an option that, if you take a moment to think about it, you know will never be right for you.
If you take a look at our post on Mistakes Buying a Camper Van, you will see that we made this exact mistake twice. First, when we thought we could squeeze 3 dogs and 2 cats into a VW California camper, and second, when we thought we would enjoy travelling in a pop top truck camper, when our German Shepherd reacts to every strange voice or noise he hears.
You will also find that everyone who presents their vehicle on YouTube thinks that it is the bees knees, and simply the ultimate choice. That may all be true for them, but it does not mean that it will be true for you.
For example, I have a huge admiration for GrizzlynBear and their overlanding setup, a Land Rover Defender with a small pop top camper on it. Despite my admiration for that set up, I also know that it would not work for us because our priorities are different than that of Leigh, and Steph.
The key takeaway here is not to be hindered by analysis paralysis, or to continuously jump around from one type of camping vehicle to another. Once you have your priorities list, stick to it like glue, and keep your approach to buying a camper van and starting van life as simple as possible.
Do Not Buy a Brand New Camper Van or RV
The biggest reason to be careful about buying a new van or motorhome is depreciation, which is essentially an accounting term for an asset losing value as time goes by. For new campers, and new cars the biggest depreciation takes place in the first year of ownership. A general guideline is to expect a 25% loss in value during your first year of ownership. As such unless you have a very healthy budget, and are building a custom camper, I would steer away from buying a brand new camper, or empty van.
You should also avoid buying a new RV if you want to spend a significant amount of time off grid, or wild camping. At the beginning of this post we talked about our experience buying a new Bigfoot truck camper, and how it was not suitable for wild camping. Since the camper itself was plenty spacious for us, and we absolutely loved our truck we looked into doing the necessary upgrades to make it off grid. In the end we decided to sell the truck camper as refitting it with a diesel heater, a 12/24V fridge, solar panels, and upgrading the electrical system would have cost us almost $10,000 and there was no way we would recoup that investment on a brand new truck camper. As with anything, it’s best not to put more into something than you can get out of it, as you never know what life has in store.
Because new vehicles lose so much value in their first year, buying a gently used one to three year old van or RV is almost always a better bet than buying a new vehicle. This applies equally to an empty cargo van for a DIY van conversion, or a traditional RV. The only exception to this rule is if the price difference between a new and a used vehicle is negligible.
Buying a Used Campervan or RV to Hit the Road Quickly or Converting Your Own
A lot of people wonder whether it Is better to convert your own van, or to buy a pre-built RV or campervan. The answer is, as with most things, more nuanced than a simple yes or no. A used motorhome can be a really good way to start vanlife a lot quicker than having to complete your own conversion first.
A quick YouTube search will show you a ton of examples of people buying an older RV, modernising the interior, and making it off grid. As with all things, moderation is key, and if you buy a very old or particularly beat up motorhome then you will quickly find yourself spending a lot of time making costly, and time consuming repairs to it.
If you are going to buy an old motorhome, I would recommend talking to some motorhome repair shops first. When we were getting our Bigfoot truck camper winterized, I had a chance to chat with the owner of the RV service shop, and he was extremely knowledgeable about some of the common issues that plagued different types of motorhomes. For example, according to his experience, almost every single used Class C motorhome had leaks in the front overhang, which depending on how long the leak had been present for, could mean having to rebuild the whole front overhang, as most traditional RV’s use wood framing.
Even if you are buying a used motorhome, you still need to keep somewhat of an eye on the resale value of your project. This should not be the sole determining factor for your choices, but as with a new motorhome if you spend too much on modernising your old motorhome you may not recoup the whole cost.
In our case, instead of buying a new truck camper we should have bought a used Bigfoot or Northern Lite truck camper – both companies use a fibreglass clam shell construction style that essentially eliminates leaks – and then spruced up the interior, and made it off grid. If we had followed that lesson we would have been travelling a lot sooner, and saved a lot of money on Airbnbs.
The Best Vehicle to Start Travelling in is the One You Already Have
This is a really important mantra. If you already have a vehicle that could be used to start travelling in, then use it. You do not need to have the ‘perfect’ vehicle in order to enjoy travelling. For example if you have a large SUV, where you can take the back seats out, then you can easily throw in a mattress, buy some plastic boxes for storage, and bob’s your uncle you have a basic camping set up.
This might not be a great full time or long term set up, but it will allow you to start travelling, and learn what is most important to you. Chances are you will also end up talking to fellow travellers about their setups, and perhaps discover options you had no idea existed.
We made this mistake ourselves when we first set out to start van life. We had gotten a great deal on a long wheelbase Volkswagen Crafter, but after watching a lot of beautiful looking professional van builds on YouTube we were unsure that we could build it ourselves to that level. In hindsight we should have kept that van, and simply done the best we could. As long as you go easy on the glue, you can always upgrade your conversion after you have started travelling.
After only a few months of ownership, and a few road trips in the Crafter, we decided to sell the van. That decision ultimately resulted in us not starting van life until almost two years later. To read the full story on our journey to find the ‘perfect’ vehicle, take a look at this post. Learn from us, and prioritise travelling instead of finding, or building the perfect vehicle.
At the end of the day it is the experiences that you will remember the most, and after half a year or year of travelling you might want to take a break anyway, which is the perfect time to upgrade or renovate your vehicle.
The Most Critical Lesson when Choosing the Best Vehicle for Van Life
One last, but extremely important lesson that we want to highlight is to listen to your gut. Every time we bought the wrong type of camper for us we had a nagging feeling that it probably, all things considered, was not the right choice. In fact I vividly remember talking to Sita on the phone before we bought the VW California, we were both extremely unsure about buying it, and kept trying to convince ourselves that it was the right choice. Ultimately we uttered the fateful words of ‘what is the alternative’, and bought it anyway.
If a specific RV does not feel 100% right to you, then the alternative is always to do nothing. There will be other opportunities, and it will be a lot more pleasant waiting for the right opportunity, than buying the wrong RV and then immediately having to go through the hassle of selling it. Always listen to your intuition, and you will save yourself a lot of wasted time, and money.
Hopefully these lessons will help you as you start to prepare for your van life journey, all the lessons above are things that we wish we could have hammered into our silly brains when we first started working towards van life.
If you are thinking about jumping into van life, then take a look at our posts on 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Buying a Camper Van and How to Choose the Ultimate Van for Van Life, to help guide you through what is most important for you. If you have already bought your vehicle, and are starting to convert or upgrade it, then take a look at our 5 Tips for a Sustainable Non Toxic Van Conversion to get some tips on how to ensure a healthy indoor climate in your tiny home on wheels.
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