Nov 16, 2022
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IG: Wanderingjaye 🚍✨
Living in a van for us has only ever been about one thing: adventure.
It’s not about living the dream on a beach somewhere, it’s not about having the most aesthetically pleasing home we could build, it’s about taking that home on wheels out into the big wide world and seeing how far we can push it to its limits.
Our van is a vessel for our photography as we travel around seeking out documentary projects and video opportunities. It’s a place to rest our heads at night before we continue our exploration the next day. It enables us to travel to far flung corners of the countries we visit and encounter locals wherever we go.
Our van to us is so much more than a van; it’s our home, it’s the heart and soul of our adventures, and it’s taught us some valuable lessons along the way.
Whether we’re camped up beside the most serene and peaceful lake or bumping and crashing down a dirt track mountain road praying the suspension doesn’t break she’s there with us, our constant companion. We might be thousands of miles from where we began in a country where we don’t speak the language or broken down by the roadside but we will always have the comfort of our home on wheels to return to standing right there beside us.
What dinner for two looks like in our RV. It’s cozy and intimate, just the way we like it 🔥 (at Bishop, California)
99% of the time our van is not as tidy as it looks in photos.
It’s a tiny space, but it gets messy just as quickly as we can tidy it again.
Camera gear, shopping and clothes end up scattered across the floor, cupboards open while we’re driving, things fall over and smash on bumpy roads.
We squeeze as many days as we can out of our bedding and clothes before we have to wash them again, probably a few too many. When the cab’s not filled with puddles from the rain it’s usually coated in dust and mud.
Living in a van is far from the idyllic few minutes in which we snap the photos for our feed, before the mess overwhelms us again.
It’s challenging living your life in a 6m2 space shared between two of you. Our bed is our sofa, our office, our dining room; our kitchen doubles as a bathroom, a washroom, a hallway.
But that hour in the morning when all the clutter is cleared away, ready for the day’s adventure ahead, and those moments when we crawl into a freshly made bed with clean sheets from the laundrette, it’s little moments like these that seem somehow amplified and make us appreciate the simple things in life all the more.
When we converted our van, one part we were always disappointed in was the back doors. We’d tried to cover them up with curtains and tapestries, hide them from view, but we were at a loss for how to make them look like a part of our van. They were just this big ugly expanse of metal and paint that leaked in cold air and made us shiver at night.
Finally, last summer, we decided to do something about it. We drew up a plan, a vision for how we wanted them to look, then spent months trying to bring that vision to life. We have almost no carpentry skills, very basic DIY knowledge, and tended to cover up any unsightly areas in our van rather than address them. This was going to be a big challenge.
But bit by bit we worked it out, pieced things together like one great puzzle, and gradually the final unfinished piece of our van fell into place. First the door cards, insulated and made of out plywood, then the cladding, cut into shape and fitted together like dozens of misshapen puzzle pieces. We charred the wood, added in windows made of Perspex, gave them a lick of blue paint and some adorable curtains to match our van, and finally we could stand back and admire our work.
Our van felt warm and homely, but most importantly it felt finished. After four years of living in it, making constant changes and improvements, finally we were happy to call our tiny home on wheels complete.
Well, until the next bright idea comes along.
We knew nothing about converting a van when we started, not a single thing.
There was no guide, no manual for what we wanted to do; just an idea between us of travelling around the world in a camper van.⠀
We couldn’t afford one outright, certainly not the dreamy classic VW camper everyone imagines themselves driving off into the sunset in, so we built our own.
We bought a cheap van halfway up the country and drove it home through the night; we didn’t care that it was rusty and covered in tie-dye spray paint, we were just excited to see this tin can sitting in the driveway and the whispers of freedom she promised.
It was a long, arduous 10 months converting it over the winter, with many trials and errors and the bad weather against us. We faced many setbacks; leaks, holes in the metal floor, a saggy roof, but we had so much still to learn back then.
Summer came around and with it our first break for freedom; we thought it would last forever. But all too soon it was over, we returned home to save some more pennies and set about rebuilding our van with newfound confidence. This happened once more before we ended up with the van we have today and we do love it.⠀
It’s got character and charm, a few dents and scrapes but a lot of stories to tell. But most of all it’s the product of skills learned and perseverance, and the tenacity to follow our dreams even in the face of challenges.
If you want to learn more about how we built our van then pop over to our YouTube channel to watch our van tour 🙌
NEW videos EVERY SUNDAY. Two Cornish travellers exploring the UK and Europe in their LDV Convoy home. Creating travelogues, filming document