How I Upgraded my Van After 1 Year of Vanlife
After 1 year of owning Marge and 6 months of full-time travel, I spent 3 months this winter doing little upgrades on the weekends. These upgrades will definitely make my upcoming trips much easier. Most of these upgrades are actually things that I wanted to do before I even left. But I talked myself out of them based on advice from others.
I definitely recommend doing all of these things before leaving for a big trip if you can!
Water Pump
If you read the write-up on my original build, you’ll see the water pump that we creatively made out of a battery-powered camp shower and a 12V plug. While it worked, it wasn’t optimal. It didn’t work if my water tank was less than half full. That meant I only got about a gallon and a half of water for washing dishes. I was also constantly having to unclog it’s very fine mesh filter and reposition it in the jug to get it to work.
Enter: the Whale Babyfoot Pump. This pump is amazing. It doesn’t require electricity – it’s foot-powered. It also has about twice the pressure of my previous pump and it actually uses 2.8 of my 3-gallon tank before it loses pressure. On top of that, it’s really easy to drain the system so I don’t have to worry about it freezing.
Passenger Seat & Fridge
I finally removed my passenger seat! I’ve been wanting to do this since I got the van, but until recently had nowhere to store it. Removing the passenger seat has made the van feel so much more spacious! I can finally dangle my feet off the end of my bed, set up a table and chair inside, and even seat 4 people inside my van comfortable when I’m at camp.
In its place, I’ve made a small platform for my fridge! It fits perfectly where my passenger seat was. This makes it much easier to get food out of my fridge, access my cabinets, and just generally move around inside. I am so pleased with how it’s turned out. I highly recommend doing this if you’re travelling solo in a small van!
Storage
I made a few storage upgrades which have made life way easier.
Cargo nets
I hung cargo nets above my sink and on my back doors. I use the ones above my sink for items that I’d want to keep on the counter if I wasn’t moving and also for drying dishes. The ones on the rear doors are used to store shoes.
Under Bed
Under my bed, I’ve put a large basket for dry food storage. I’ve also put a smaller basket that holds all of my dishes. This is much easier to see, access, and organize than the system I had in my cabinet – which required me to lay on the floor to see my messy pile of dishes!
Cabinets
Now that my cabinets no longer hold all of my dry food and dishes, I’ve moved my toiletries to the bottom shelf. This is a much better use of the space! The top shelf remains food storage for snacks and coffee.
Door Seals
We replaced the original door seals on the rear dutch doors with a brand new kit. Steele Rubber has finally released a kit specifically for this van and it worked a charm! My back doors are no longer leaking but something is still leaking in the rear of the van. That is a mystery I’m still working on solving… But I highly recommend Steele seal kits!
Inventory
I went through everything that I’ve been keeping in the van three times in the psat year. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of my belongings and put some stuff in storage! This has helped immensely. It’s hard to know when you’re leaving for a cross country trip of undetermined length what you’ll actually need.
I like to be prepared… Plus, in my mind, doing full time vanlife meant that this was my life now. After thruhiking with such a minimal gear load, I was excited to not need to worry about weight. While you don’t need to worry about weight, it’s actually really nice to have a space that isn’t cluttered!