Living in my camper is just like living anywhere else really, except you can wake up in a completely different place whenever you want to! It is actually very comfortable and pretty damn easy.
The camper lives on the back of my truck. It is a Vantage model by Active Campers. It is secured against any movement (I hope) by four tie downs at each corner. There are legs that can be attached if I want to separate the camper from the truck, but I haven’t bothered with this process yet.
Arriving at my chosen camping spot, my set up involves getting out of the truck, undoing two latches on the front of the camper, opening the door, stepping inside. I then push a button which raises the roof to its full height.
Next I set up my outdoor table and chair and grab a beer out of the fridge!
The entire set up process takes about one minute. It can’t get much simpler than this.
The camper is quite small but with the roof up, headroom is fine for me. There is not much room inside but you get used to that. When I first moved in, I did whack into things, but these days I am pretty good at moving around without incident (most of the time, anyway).
Because it is small, it is easy to keep neat and tidy. But conversely, because it is small it is actually difficult to keep neat and tidy. Trust me, anything out of place quickly makes the small space look untidy, which upsets my sense of ‘balance’ (I’m a typical Libra).
This means you can only have the things you really need to live comfortably. All your ‘stuff’ takes up space and you need somewhere to keep this stuff. Lots of fellow travellers advise me I need such-and-such to make life ‘better’, but even if I like the idea, I have to think: “Yeah, but where the hell would I put it?”
The bed in the camper is very comfortable. As you sleep with your head to the front, it is extremely important to park on the level (a little bit uphill is okay, too). Trying to sleep while sloping downhill is just not nice!
Unfortunately, the bed also makes a handy platform for locating lots of my junk, so I often have to move stuff around when I want to get into bed. Which should be incentive to keep things neat and tidy or indeed just have less junk?
In the kitchen area is a three burner gas stove, a sink with hot and cold water, cupboards and drawers for storage and bench space for food prep (something many campers don’t have).
The fridge certainly keeps the beer cold but has pretty limited on freezer space. It also doesn’t keep food frozen too well, so I don’t keep frozen goods long.
There is a seating area, which has an adjustable table. This converts into a bed (definitely not as comfortable as the main bed, though). From here it is another step up onto the main bed area.
There is storage under the seats; I use one side for my clothing and the other as the pantry. There is nowhere to hang shirts or trousers, so everything I wear comes out crumpled. Most people will appreciate I’m not overly worried about looking crumpled but sometimes it would be nice to be able to hang things up.
There are plenty of windows around the camper to allow cross breezes. Screens supposedly keep the bugs out, but bugs are crafty little buggers and still find a way inside some nights!
For any cold places I might visit, there is a gas air heater. This exhausts to the outside, so it is safe and it really warms up the camper very quickly. But it can get a bit like a sauna inside, too.
Power wise I can connect to the mains, or there are solar panels on the roof and the batteries also charge from the car when I am driving. Provided I get sun, I have been off-grid for 14 days so far without issues.
Two gas bottles keep the stove, hot water and gas heater chugging along, with each bottle lasting about two months. Another gas bottle powers a cooker that I set up outside, which is where I do most of my cooking.
Hidden away in one corner of the camper is a shower and toilet. This actually has a fair amount of space so no banging of elbows in this shower. I have learnt that it’s important to park near level when using the shower, otherwise the water flows away from the drain…
There is an 85 litre water tank, which is actually not a lot of water so I just need to be mindful of my water usage. If I am in a campground with amenities, I use those anyway.
I carry several 10 or 15 litre containers of drinking water. The unopened containers live in the shower out of the way (if the containers are cardboard, I have to move them out if I shower). There is a 20 litre grey water tank for waste water.
Outside there is a storage hatch accessible on either side of the camper. These are for anything that doesn’t really belong inside the camper (outdoor things live here).
There is an attachable awning I can set up for shelter, but I generally don’t bother with this. It only takes five minutes to set up but I can usually find a shady spot to sit outside anyway. And if it is windy or raining, the awning is a complete pain.
So, I really do have everything I need to make my life exactly what I want it to be.