Everything I know about van life

Buying a van, conversion options, where to sleep and working remotely

Just over a year ago, in April 2022, I took a one-way train from Bristol to Dorset to buy a tiny blue van from a girl I’d chatted to on Facebook Marketplace. In December I wrote a piece about my first six months of van life, covering all the whys behind it and how I’d found nomadic life so far. This time I’m sharing more about the nuts and bolts of it all, including:

• Choosing a van

• Van conversion options

• Electricity and lighting

• Cooking

• Where to sleep

• Working remotely

• Feeling like a hypocrite

I dabbled in “full-time” van life last summer. Heavy emphasis on the quotation marks because realistically I was also popping back to my parents’ or staying with friends a lot, which I realise is very different to people who sell all their excess possessions and properly move into their vans long-term with no end date. I learned that full-time nomadism wasn’t for me but it served as a useful research project when it came to deciding where I did want to live. I found that I just kept wanting to come back to the Lake Districts, so in January I moved to Kendal and now I’m just a weekends and holidays van-lifer.

Or I am when my van isn’t in the garage which is… less often than I’d like. Our relationship is starting to feel quite toxic. I get buoyed up by one glorious adventure together, then the next thing I know I’m left stranded and crying on the hard shoulder of the M6 at 1am. It’s been a huge financial drain so far this year and I keep saying I’m going to cut my losses and sell it but I just can’t quite bring myself to do it. I feel weirdly attached to this little blue metal box and all the freedom it represents.