Why We Built A Minivan Camper: Discovering The Weekend Van Life

People often ask us why a minivan camper? Especially since we already own a 28 foot Jayco travel trailer. Let me explain why.

Our adventure into building a minivan camper began with a trip, a very long trip, a 22-week trip to be exact. On that trip we drove across the United States and into Western Canada in a red GMC Sierra pulling a 28 foot traveler. We explored many National Parks along the way as well as beaches, cities, museums, and restaurants.

 

We took our three children with us who were at that time 14, 16 and 21. It was a trip of a lifetime. It was a trip that grew the desire within my husband and me to see more of the beauty of creation. We knew when our feet hit the front doormat of our home after 22 weeks of travel that we wanted to explore more.  We wanted to get out there–and not just on the three weeks off my husband has each year from his job as an RN, but at least one weekend a month too.

However, our current income versus expenses doesn’t allow for that much travel–at least not doing it the most popular way where you stay in hotels and eat every meal out. And so like always when I am faced with a problem I want to solve, I laced up my running shoes and I hit the ground running, trying to figure out how to fit more travel into our budget and our daily lives.

 

Why We Built A Minivan Camper: Discovering The Weekend Van Life

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During one run I was listening to the audiobook Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century and the author mentioned a subculture of people who live full time in their vehicles as well as a Youtube channel called CheapRVliving and in that very moment, the beginning of an idea was planted in my head. 

Later that day I got on the CheapRVliving channel and the first video that popped up was a tour of a lady living full time in her minivan. She called it a minivan camper and those two words began an afternoon of hopping all over Youtube, Pinterest, and Google looking at pictures, videos and blogs of minivan campers. By the time my husband got home from work, I was convinced I had found the solution to our desire to travel just the two of us inexpensively one weekend a month.

A Minivan Camper Solves Three Problems We Were Currently Facing

It provides cheap accommodations

We can camp either for free in our minivan using recommendations found through the All Stays app or we can pay a reasonably small fee for a State Park campsite if we want to.

It fixes our problems with short stays and last-minute traveling in our travel trailer

Although my husband and I do own a very nice travel trailer, it does have a few negatives to it.

If we can’t find a campsite available in the area we want to explore, a minivan can be parked at Walmart or another free camping spot. Yes, a 28-foot traveler trailer could too, but it isn’t as easy to find a place to park it during the day while you go hiking. Hiking trails have perhaps half a dozen regular-sized parking spots at their trailheads at best. Our truck and trailer parked sideways across those parking spots would take up all of them, which isn’t allowed, and even if it were, we would not do it because it would be rude.

One last problem is that we live in the midwest where it gets cold enough in the winter to require us to have to winterize the travel trailer’s plumbing. We also like to cover it with a heavy-duty tarp before the first snowfall to avoid any damage freezing, and thawing snow may do to its exterior. Once those two things are done, it would be a pain to undo them for a weekend of camping only to redo them when we got home.

It fixes our need for another vehicle

Our agreement with our children has always been that when they hit the college years, we would provide them with free room and board and a vehicle to drive to and from class–they have to come up with a way to pay tuition. Until lately, we had been surviving off two vehicles since I work at home and Thomas takes college classes online. However, since Thomas got a job this spring and Aiden started college at a campus nearby in June, a third vehicle became necessary.

The Hunt For The Right Minivan Began

With our minds made up to buy a new-to-us minivan and convert it to a minivan camper, we began researching what brand of minivan would be best. We were looking for good fuel economy, reliability, and a little bit of style (can a minivan have style?).

After comparing the data and asking for recommendations from friends, we decided to go for either a Honda Odyssey or a Toyota Sienna. In the end, we purchased a black 2009 Honda Odyssey with just under 150,000 miles on it. We have friends who have one with over 300,000 and theirs is still kicking so we hope ours lasts that long too. However, so far, we have not been so blessed. Ours has required extensive repairs over the last few months. Hopefully, those will soon come to an end.

The Hunt For The Right Minivan Camper Plans Began

While we were minivan hunting, I became obsessed with Youtube videos on converting a minivan into a minivan camper. So much so that I started a Google Drive folder with documents marked “kitchen ideas,” “storage ideas,” and “bed ideas,” and in each were several links to YouTube videos sharing my favorite ideas for each component of the build.

Ultimately, we took a bit from each plan and created a build that suited us best.

And Then We Built It And Travelled And Built It Some More

As I write, we have already taken the minivan camper out two times. Once when it was half built and once when it was fully built–well, almost. The second trip ended with us making a list of things we want to change. I have a feeling though, that every trip will end with a similar list.

Currently, we are in the hot summer months here in the midwest, so we are using our travel trailer with its air-conditioning for our weekend trips. This does mean we have to plan our weekends away a bit more in advance, and that we have to be flexible about what State Park we visit so we can be sure to have a camping spot, but we are pampered people who love our cold air for sleeping at night.

However, we plan to winterize our travel trailer after our October trip and then use the minivan camper for our trips from November until May.

Get A Closer Look At How We Built Our Minivan Camper

Here are more details about what we used in building our minivan camper. 

What Happened To Our Minivan Camper

Our minivan was involved in an accident after the above was written. Thankfully our son, who was driving it, is okay, but sadly our Honda Odyssey did not survive. Through our travels, in Blacky we fell in love with vehicle camping.

We have gone on to build not one, but two different DIY truck topper campers and are also proud owners of a 20-plus-year-old Northstar popup truck camper.

• Here is our first truck topper camper build, complete with a sink, a place to cook, and a table.
• Our second truck cap camper build is super simple. It can stay in the back of a truck, leaving plenty of room for other things.

We are considering building another minivan camper eventually since there are so many awesome advantages to #minivanlife

30 Reasons Why A Minivan Camper Rocks

1. Excellent Mileage

Depending on the year, make, and model of the minivan you choose, you can get a range of 22 to 36 mpg.

To provide some perspective on how good this is compared to camping in an RV, we get a whopping 8 to 10 miles per gallon when we pull our travel trailer and 12 to 14 miles per gallon when we use our truck camper on the back of our F-250. (we don’t have our minivan camper right now, more on that later)

2. Super Easy To Park

A minivan fits in a regular parking spot. Unless you have driven a bigger setup, you probably don’t realize what a treat that is. When we travel with our Jayco, we use the Allstays app to find restaurants close enough to places with big parking lots like Walmart so that we can find the several spots in the row we need to fit our 28 feet of travel trailer plus 20 feet of truck needed to haul it.

3 Better For Exploring Urban Areas

Since a minivan fits in a regular parking spot, you can take it into the city and explore museums, art galleries, farmers’ markets, and more without the hassle of finding parking for a bigger vehicle.

After dropping off our travel trailer at a campsite, we can do this with our truck. But those with motorhomes can’t do this unless they tow an extra vehicle. Plus, a truck is longer than a van and therefore isn’t as easy to park in cramped street parking spots.

And then there is the lack of campgrounds in urban areas meaning that those with larger setups are forced to commute in and out of urban areas. You can blend in and sleep within the city limits with a minivan.

4.   Can Sleep Up To Six

A minivan can sleep four adults and two children. The common setup is two in the back on a full mattress. With the addition of a stronger roof rack, you can add a rooftop tent and double the sleeping capacity.

You can also create a bed to fit across the front seats that could fit one child (here is an example of something similar made for a contractor van). The last child could fit on a bed spanning across the van’s width, over top of their parent’s feet. A folding four-foot table like this one is an easy way to create such a bed.

5. Doesn’t Scream, I Am A Camper Van

If you want to be spontaneous with your travels, chances are you will end up without a campsite to camp in now and again. With a minivan conversion,  this isn’t as problematic as it blends into it surroundings making it perfect for stealth camping. Sprinter van owners claim they can do this too, but with the growing popularity of #vanlife, it really isn’t as easy for them to do this as it once was. I see a commercial van tall enough to stand in and automatically think, “is it renovated into a camper.” I don’t do that when I see a minivan.

Minivans are still mainly used to transport kids, not for sleeping in, so as long as you don’t have solar panels or a vent on your roof, your camper conversion should appear to be just another minivan parked on the side of the street.

Please note it is always best to obey the local parking regulations and rules.

6. Cheap Way To Get Into #vanlife

If you already own a minivan, all you need to do is fold down the rear seats and remove the middle row, plunk down an air mattress, pack a cooler, some kitchen essentials, and your clothes, and you are ready to hit the highway on your first road trip.

If you don’t own one, minivans are much cheaper than the commercial vans with high ceilings used to create the popular van builds you see all over social media.

7. Comfortable Road Trip Vehicle

Minivans are made for long road trips. They have comfy captain chairs, plenty of cup holders, numerous storage cubbies, at least two 12-volt plugs, moon roofs, built-in TVs, heated seats, tinted windows, and dual heat and a/c systems. Of course, what yours comes with depends on the one you get.

8. Easy To Find

Our daughter thought about taking a long road trip across North America in a converted commercial van such as a Ford Transit for a while. Finding one on the used market was next to impossible in our area. We searched for months, and then she gave up and decided to look into other options.

However, in the 25-plus years, we have been married, Jack and I have bought four used minivans, and the process from searching to buying has taken us less than a week for all of them.

9.  Inexpensive To Maintain

A minivan camper, unlike large motorhomes, doesn’t require a special mechanic to fix it.

10. Quick To Convert Into A Camping Van

Minivan camper conversions like the one we did to our Honday Odessy can be completed in a weekend. No-build versions using cots, plastic storage containers, small bookshelves, bungee cords, and zip ties can be done in an afternoon.

11. Forces You To Travel Light And Be Outdoors

Once you add a double bed and some headspace, there is not a lot of storage space in a minivan camper. Nor is there a lot of hangout space. If you want to get out of your comfort zone, travel light, and get outside even when the weather isn’t 100 percent perfect, a minivan camper will make you do that!

12. No Need To Reserve A Campsite

When we had our minivan camper, this was our favorite thing about it. No more being told where we could go based on what campgrounds had openings. If we couldn’t find a campsite, there was always Walmart, a rest area, or some free spot found with our AllStays App.

13. You Can Skip Expensive Hotels

Weekend getaways become budget friendly when you don’t need to shell out money for a hotel.

14. You Don’t Need A Special Place To Store It

If you have a tight parking space or an HOA that doesn’t allow RVs to be parked outside, you can end up shelling out money monthly to store a camper. Not so with a minivan, as it can be converted back into a passenger vehicle after returning home.

15.  Views In All Directions

There are commercial vans similar in size to a minivan, such as the Ford Transit Connect, that you could do a van build-out in, but they don’t offer 360-degree views like a minivan.

16. Minimal To No Need For Hookups

Most minivan builds don’t include items that need a huge amount of power and, therefore, can operate off a power station that can be recharged during the day while driving. If they have a bathroom set up, it is a  portable toilet that can be dumped in a dump station and dumped in an outhouse or any toilet. Water needs are also minimal.

17. You Can Go Through Drive-thrus

This doesn’t matter as much now that many places offer curbside pick-up and drive-thru, but it is still a plus.

18. More Headspace Than Sleeping In A SUV Or Car

Type the name of any vehicle plus DIY camper into the Youtube search bar, and you will find that someone has created a sleeping space in it –including Mini Coopers! A minivan has a tonne more head space than a Cooper.

19. It Is Simple To Remove Or Stow The Seats

Minivans were made with removable and stowaway seats. It’s like they were meant to be convertible vehicles.

20. Relatively Flat Building Surface

How flat the floor is of your minivan depends again on the make and model. Most minivans are a few inches higher in the back than the front, but creating a level bed platform is fairly simple.

21. Protects You From Rain Better Than A Tent

When you sleep in your vehicle, you can say goodbye to a camping weekend ruined by rain.

22. Hassle-Free Set Up At Your Campsite

Drive into your spot. Jump into the back, and go to sleep.

23. Fewer Chances Of A Run In With Wildlife Than Sleeping In A Tent

I am going to leave this at fewer, as we have shared our sleeping space when vehicle camping with smaller wildlife before.

24. Low Commitment

If you already own a minivan, use what camping gear you have the first time to sleep in it. If you absolutely hate it, you spent nothing to try it.

25. Ability To Grow

If you take my advice in number 24, you can grow your build from there. Add a tailgate kitchen with a camping stove, pump-style faucet, and basin sink. Add a beefier roof rack with a solar panel that can easily plug into your portable power station and runs a 12-volt fridge.

Find a conversion company like oasis campervans and change your minivan into a permanent campervan. Or go with Riverleaf, which builds amazing removable minivan camper kits.

Go crazy, add a tow package and start towing a pop-up tent trailer on longer trips or times when the weather is too extreme to keep the minivan at a conducive temperature for sleep. Minivans can tow between 3000 to 3600 pounds.

26. You Get To Sleep Your Favorite Bedding

This is a BIG plus for people who have trouble falling asleep in different places. You get to pick the mattress, the sheets, the pillows, and the blankets you bring along. Make the bed in your minivan as close to the bed you have in your home as you want.

27. No Worries About Leaving Something Behind

I check hotel rooms three times before we leave to ensure we haven’t left something behind –and then I still question myself for at least an hour or so after we checkout.  In a minivan camper, everything stays inside.

28. Serves As A Multipurpose Vehicle

Our travel trailer sits there unused whenever we are not camping. However, a minivan can still be used as a daily driver even if you do permanently build out the back into a camper. With a removable build, you can use your minivan to transport passengers or to pick up several sheets of plywood for home renovations.

29. Super Easy To Pull Into A Gas Station And Fill It Up

If you haven’t tried to pull a truck attached to a trailer into a gas station, let me tell you it isn’t easy, and the longer the RV, the harder it is.

30. You Can Start With What You Have And Build It As You Can Afford It

As I mentioned before, you can use what you have the first time you take your minivan out to camp in it. Not only will this allow you to get a feel for the build you want, but it will also allow you time to save up the money and do the build as you can afford it. You can’t do that when purchasing a travel trailer.

10 Reasons Why A Minivan Camper Sucks

1. Not Great For Reaching Off-Road Destinations

This is the main reason we have fallen in LOVE with truck camping. We can now go down 98 percent of roads with confidence that we won’t get stuck.

2. You Can’t Stand In It

As you age, your back begins to complain about being unable to stand to do things like dressing and undressing.

Jack and I both agree if we were to do a minivan camper again, we would love to include a pop-top that would allow us to stand up and get ready at night and in the morning.

3. No Indoor Shower

There are ways to take an outdoor shower, but no room for an indoor one. Your indoor shower options include campgrounds, truck stops, gyms, and friends’ homes.

4. Tight Space, Especially For More Than One Person

Our daughter now owns a minivan and often does a DIY no build to spend the weekend camping solo in it. I am jealous of all the space she gets!

5.  Little Storage

Sure being minimal can be freeing, but it can also be limiting.

6. Not Great In Extremely Hot Or Cold Weather

Unless you are willing to spend money to install a diesel heater for winter and a portable air unit for summer (which will require being plugged in), there are times in the year when the temperatures will be too hot or too cold for sleeping in the back of a van.

7. Not Accepted By Boondockers Welcome Or Harvest Host

With Campgrounds being full months out, having as many different camping options open to you as possible is nice. Boondockers Welcome and Harvest Host are great for one-night stays, but they only allow self-contained RVs, and their definition clearly states that minivans are not accepted.

However, Hipcamp hosts will accept you.

8. Not Accepted At Some Commercial Campgrounds

A small handful of commercial RV parks will not accept vehicle dwellers.

9.  Depending On How You Build It, Storage Areas Can Be A Pain To Access

In our minivan build, the trunk space was easy to access, as was the area under the bed by the sliding doors. The storage space under the bed’s upper part near the trunk area was a real pain to access. So much so that we didn’t put stuff from there away and instead moved it from one area of the van to another whenever it got in the way.

10.  Tiny Space To Hang Out On Bad Weather Days

Our build had a permanent bed. We were forced to stay in bed and read if a storm rolled in. Not a bad problem to have now and again. However, I can see this being an issue on long road trips. After a while, the unplanned slow-down days could become claustrophobic.

I hope this long blog post full of the positives and negatives of minivan camping helps you decide whether you want to try it or not.

If you sleep in the back of your vehicle instead of a self-contained RV, you don’t qualify for a Boondockers Welcome or Harvest Host membership, but you can use Hipcamp to find unique campsites. Check out our post about our first time using Hipcamp. (spoiler alert, it wasn’t our last time using Hipcamp).