TintopTales

We like to refer to ourselves as ‘part-time vanlifers’, we’re very lucky in that we have a foot in both worlds, a bricks and mortar home in the Cornish countryside and also a cosy self built tin top home on wheels, both are spaces that we love to spend time in.

With the house comes security, a warm and welcoming place to hole up for winter and with space to entertain our family and friends, while the van delivers freedom, adventure and answers our burning desire to be outdoors and exploring nature as much as we can.

When we bought the van we lost track of how many times we heard, or read the quote ‘it’s not just a van, it’s a way of life’, we very quickly came to understand what that meant. With the van comes freedom, a whole heap of freedom and if you let it, a completely different way of living! We’re a bit partial to jumping in the van after a busy day at the office, making our way to the nearest cliff top and rustling up a one pot dinner while watching the sunlight fizzle out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Dinner with a view

Wherever we travel we have a kitchen, bedroom and a wardrobe with us and if we’re ‘caught short’ there’s a loo on board too. We always keep the basics in our food cupboard so traffic jams aren’t a problem, and when we stumble upon a beautiful place we can pull over and make a brew, or even rustle up a pasta Arrabbiata if we’re feeling peckish.

Our main reason for not taking the leap into full-time vanlife is our jobs. We both have rewarding jobs, and having a regular income means we can travel and enjoy vanlife without the stress of trying to find money should anything go wrong. Also our van is too small to live in permanently so we would need to buy and build something bigger. Then there’s the weather, if we were to do this full time we’d want to do it somewhere other than the UK, where the weather is drier and more reliable, somewhere with wider horizons and where it’s easier to travel between countries.

So money and security are our biggest concerns. We’d like nothing more than to throw caution to the wind and adopt a more simplistic lifestyle, but as explored in our last blog post having an older van can be bit of a strain on the finances and we’re not sure how we’d afford to maintain a full-time life on the road. We keep telling ourselves that it must be only a matter of time until we’ve replaced or fixed all the bits we possibly can and can then start saving for other things, like more road trips! This week was MOT week, the time of year we dread, the time of year that has the potential to deplete our savings in one foul swoop. The phonecall came from the garage and as we took a sharp intake of breath we heard those all too familiar words, our van had failed………but this time only on two worn tyres, Hoorah! The best MOT result we’ve had so far, these vans are actually very solid and with care will keep on rolling.

We have so much admiration for all the inspirational full-time and nomadic vanlifers out there but as like many of you, part-time vanlife is the sweet spot for us right now. For now we’re content with having a foot in both worlds and experiencing the perks that each has to offer, but as each road trip draws to an end we’re finding it harder and harder to fight the temptation to just keep on driving. And who knows, perhaps the day will come when we’ll be ready to take the plunge and experience the perks of full-time vanlife too…

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One of our favourite cliff top spots

A couple of years or so before we bought the van we’d already decided that we would be looking for a VW transporter type 4. The van would be our daily drive so it needed to be economical, reliable, small enough so as not be restricted by height barriers and parking spaces, but also a comfortable enough size for us to live in when travelling. Quite a tall order to ask of any van, but the t4 ticked all of our boxes. We’re based in Cornwall, UK and fine examples of these vans can always be spotted travelling along the Cornish roads, before we knew it we were well and truly hooked.

We began our search for a base van to tidy up and convert ourselves and our meagre budget meant we were looking for something relatively cheap. At this point however, we’d already fallen in love with a beautiful little blue and cream camper we’d seen at a local beach, and from that day nothing we viewed came close to tempting us to part with our money. When the camper was put up for sale a while later we jumped at it, completely blowing our budget out of the water!

It was down to luck that the camper came with the ‘no frills’ 1.9td ABL engine which is renowned for its reliability and easy maintenance, meaning that we are able to fix any basic mechanical problems ourselves.  There is no ECU (Engine Control Unit) with this engine so it really is quite basic, the only issue we’ve found with not having an ECU is that during the colder dry months we get static shocks from the body of the van. Also with only 68bhp these vans don’t go anywhere very fast, but being such a pleasure to drive we’re never in a hurry to get to our destination.

The van already had a basic ‘day van’ conversion so all we needed was a gas canister to feed the stove and we were good to go! We had some awesome early road trips before it became obvious that the interior wasn’t really suiting our needs.

The lack of storage space started to niggle us, it was very dark and we yearned for something prettier, cosy and more homely. At the beginning of the following winter we stripped out the back of the van; reinsulated, ply-lined, carpet-lined, installed an opening side window and started designing and building our own custom interior. It was a nervous time stripping out a fully functional living space and rendering ourselves campervanless, not knowing if we could even put it back together again. After all, neither of us had any experience with woodworking and had never done anything like this before!

There’s no escaping the fact that our living space in the van is tiny. Storage is always an issue but we’ve successfully built an array of cupboard space in the kitchen area meaning that we no longer have to move ‘stuff’ from one place to another as we move around inside the van. We have also fitted a canopy rail which extends our living space outside the van, a priceless addition especially when it’s rainy.

We are constantly improving and trying out new ideas. Our recent modifications are;

• building a wardrobe at the back of the van, with interior light
• shelves for our bits and pieces
• dedicated cupboard for bedding
• additional water containers
• a camping toilet
• touch sensitive LED ceiling lights
• Canopy rail fixed to roof
• Solar panel with MPPT unit
• Solar powered warm glow fairy lights, for cosy evenings
• rerouted radio to the leisure battery
• additional 12 volt sockets for phone/ computer charging.

We were asked recently via our Instagram account how we cope financially with the making of our van. There’s no lie, at times it’s a struggle. Our van is a bit older and it sometimes feels like all of our money is spent on maintenance. Many times we’ve reached a savings goal for projects such as the solar panel or to replace a rusted out body panel only to have the money snatched away by worn tyres, cambelt changes and other vitally important things.

But we’ve learnt to be patient and the fun jobs will eventually happen. Having to build savings again also gives you time to ‘reality check’ your ideas and think about whether they are worth the effort or if they are actually needed. We recently thought it would be a great idea to buy and fit a tow bar so that we could tow a small trailer, but being forced to put the project on hold gave us the time we needed to realise we didn’t need the trailer after all…we just needed a better and cheaper storage solution inside the van.

Knowing that we’ve successfully built ourselves a cosy home on wheels having never  tried our hand at anything like this before is the most rewarding thing we’ve ever done, and we can’t recommend self-building highly enough. If you’re looking to self build just do it, throw yourself into it and enjoy!

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