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Category: on the road

Building a minimal VW T6 campervan (twice)

Posted on by Rick Hurst

A while ago, I wrote about minimal campervan conversions – i.e. what is the least you can do to call your van a campervan? In 2023, I found out for myself.

I had a tight deadline, and limited budget to get something ready for a European road trip with my wife in the summer. So with very little time, I had to get a campervan road-trip ready.

The base van

Having owned several old campervans which I’ve spent as much time crawling around underneath as I have driving them, I put most of the budget into a decent base van. I started with an “approved used” 2018 VW Transporter T6, which came conveniently ply-lined. This was absolutely key: it meant I could screw things directly to the ply without worrying too much about structural support or damaging the van itself. Drilling in to the metal of a van is not for faint-hearted, so being able to avoid that for most of the initial build is very handy.

The first job was to remove the factory bulkhead, which simply unbolts, though this does leave a lip along the floor, which needs to be removed if you want to fit a rotating seat (more on that later).

With the bulkhead removed, this was my starting point:

Flooring and tongue-and-groove cladding

Thanks to the existing ply-lining, installing tongue and groove cladding on the walls was a breeze. I just cut it to size and screwed it directly into the ply with short screws. The flooring is wood-effect vinyl which is laid directly onto the ply-lined flooring, cut to shape and lightly glued down with contact adhesive.

I left the factory-fitted ceiling in, knowing that at some later point we would want a pop-top roof fitted, and this would be removed anyway.

The bed

I found a brilliantly simple pull-out double bed design featured in this YouTube video. I loosely copied it, using 2×4 section wood and IKEA bed slats for the base. The main structure is screwed to ply of the wall and floor. The pull-out section isn’t attached in any mechanical way, it just sits there by gravity. But thanks to the weight and friction, the pull out part stays put. It’s been brilliant, and I’d use the same design again – maybe with thinner-section wood for the main structure to save weight – it’s somewhat over-engineered!

This was the project that convinced me to buy a pocket hole drill. Game-changer. It made everything sturdier, faster to build, and more professional-looking than anything I’d done with wood before.

For the mattress, I had two foam sections custom-made, topped with a layer of memory foam and upholstered nicely. It was one of the pricier parts of the initial build, but worth it for the flexibility – bed by night, sofa by day.

Storage and kitchen unit

I also threw together a compact kitchen unit using pine shelf from Wickes for a work top. For the sink, I went ultra-minimal: a stainless steel salad bowl that already had a plug fitting. Drainage is handled by a 10L container, and I used a 12V submersible pump feeding fresh water from another 10L container into a standard domestic mixer tap. A switch drives the pump – the tap just needs to be left open for water to flow. No hot water in this version!

The plumbing was… let’s say “experimental,” but after a few false starts it works. If I did it again, I’d use proper adapters for connecting camper-style plumbing to standard taps.

Next, we needed a headboard, and some storage to fit our Decathlon chairs. The headboard served as both.

Power and fridge

With no time to fit a proper electrical system, I relied on my Bluetti EB55 portable power station, with off-grid runtime extended via a 200 Watt portable solar panel (see this earlier post for more on those). It is enough to run the tap, some lights, and a Dometic 12 volt compressor fridge mounted at the foot of the bed. The electrics really are basic – a simple fuse box mounted to the wall under the bed which feeds the lights, fridge, water-pump and some 12 volt and usb sockets. This is fed by a single 12 volt plug plugged into the bluetti. It has a 10 amp limit which I’ve not yet reached, and the wires do not get hot.

Cooking – portable camping stoves

For this initial minimal build I didn’t want to build in a permanent cooker or mess around with gas plumbing, so cooking and kettle boiling was taken care of by a pair of cheap halfords camping stoves, the type with the disposable gas canisters.

Add in some cab curtains for privacy, and that was Version 1 of the van, ready for Berlin and beyond.

A successful first trip

The trip was great. The setup held up really well, but showed it’s limitations during a 24-hour rainstorm in Copenhagen when we were cooped up too long inside in a windowless van, with only some USB fairly lights for lighting. And so we started planning phase 2!

Upgrades: version 2

Two years later, with a bit of budget and time, I booked the van in at Skyline Roofs to have a pop-top fitted.

We also asked Skyline to do a few other jobs:

  • Install a swivel base on the double passenger seat.
  • Fit flush opening side windows (which we supplied).
  • Fit some 12 volt LED downlights with switch.

With these upgrades on the way, I stripped the van back to the bare metal—everything I had previously built ended up in our dining room temporarily.

In the photo below you can see the metal lip running along the floor and up the B pillars behind the seat bases, which the bulkhead was previously bolted to. Removing this lip requires drilling or angle grinding the welds – a job I left to the pros at Skyline!

This was a great opportunity to:

  • Clean up the interior.
  • Apply rustproofing to the screw holes from the factory ply.
  • Add sound deadening and some insulation.

We went for a hinged bed board in the roof, which adds standing room almost all the way to the rear.

The insulation dilemma

Insulation is a hot topic in the van world, with strong opinions and loads of conflicting advice. Our experience? The van worked fine without it. Many factory conversions like the VW California don’t include insulation (not sure if that’s true for all versions), relying on (inefficiently) heating the van instead. We have used the van on electric hook-up in winter running an oil-filled radiator and it was toasty.

Still, since I had everything pulled out, I added some some aluminium backed sticky foam over some sound-deadening strips, and added some basic recycled plastic insulation in most of the cavities. I skipped the floor insulation to avoid raising the floor height. Will these sections of insulation make a huge difference? Hard to say yet – more cold-weather testing needed. The sound deadening strips certainly helped make the van less “echoey”.

When refitting the interior, I also extended the headboard while also providing another storage space.

With the double passenger seat rotated and the roof up, the interior is totally transformed.

What’s Next?

The Bluetti power station has been great, but it’s a workaround. I want a permanent, integrated 12V electrical system. Here’s the plan:

  • A LiFePO4 battery under the driver’s seat.
  • A battery-to-battery charger (required for smart alternators, where a voltage-sensing relay would have been fine on.. err… dumb alternators).
  • A solar controller, integrated if possible with the battery to battery charger.
  • A fixed solar panel, though I’m reluctant to drill through the pop-top roof to feed cables. We don’t have a driveway, so a solar trickle charge while the van is parked at the side of the street is ideal for keeping the system topped up and ready to go.
  • Mains Electric hook-up under the bonnet, just feeding a mains plug strip – nearly every power requirement I have is 12 volt or USB-C, no need to run mains wiring around the van.
  • Maybe an inverter, but I would likely use a larger powerbank with built in inverter to drive appliances (e.g. induction hob, air-fryer) and leave the built-in battery to run the basic 12 volt system.
  • More storage – there’s never enough!

That’s the journey so far – from minimal dark and cramped, to comfortable (but still minimal-ish). I’ll post again once the electrics go in.

From Lead Acid to Lithium: 15 Years of Battery Tech on the Road

Posted on by Rick Hurst

Fifteen years ago, I sat under an awning at a Devon campsite, juggling cables, adapters, a 20Ah Halfords-branded lead acid power pack, and an ageing MacBook that would wheeze its way through two hours of work – on a good day. Back then, trying to work remotely from a campsite felt more like a mad experiment than a lifestyle. Every percentage of battery charge was a precious resource. Every cloudy day a threat to productivity. Yet, somehow, I made it work.

Fast forward to 2025, and it’s genuinely hard to believe how far portable power tech has come. These days, I’m running a MacBook Air with the M3 chip, which casually sips power through a full day of development, writing, and Zoom calls. The machine itself has a battery life I would have barely dared to dream of in 2010. But what’s really game-changing is how easy it is now to keep everything else powered alongside it.

Power That Keeps Up With the Lifestyle

My current mobile setup includes a Bluetti EB55 power station paired with a 200W AllPowers solar panel. On a sunny day (and even on a not-so-sunny one), this combo allows my wife and I to:

  • Charge two MacBook Airs.
  • Keep two smartphones topped up.
  • Boil water for several cups of coffee throughout the morning using my compact travel kettle.
  • Run a 12 volt compressor fridge (most of the time).

The travel kettle pulls about 650 watts and takes roughly five minutes to boil. While that’s a decent draw, it’s well within the EB55’s capability. And thanks to the solar panel – providing between 0 and 120+ watts depending on cloud cover – I can keep the energy flowing steadily throughout the day.

And all of this, more or less indefinitely. No more rationing screen time or hoarding battery percentages. No more panicked trips to the campsite loo block to find a working plug socket.

That said, I have found the limits of the EB55. When I’m using it to power the campervan fridge alongside everything else, it can get depleted within 24 hours on a cloudy day. I knew that would be the case going in, and in a way it’s helpful – it’s given me a clearer picture of what I’ll need to spec out a more capable, permanent solution for the VW T6 campervan setup.

Why the EB55?

One important advantage of incorporating a portable powerbank like the EB55 into my campervan setup is the flexibility to hunt out a sunny patch away from the van to get the best possible solar input. I do have some long leads which allow me to locate the solar panels away from the van, but using them reduces charging efficiency, so having a portable powerbank that can be easily relocated is a huge plus.

The Bluetti EB55 hit a sweet spot for me, mainly because of its price point. I wanted something portable and capable, but without dropping a grand or more on a bigger system. For the cost, the EB55 packs in an impressive set of features: multiple DC outputs, a 700W inverter (with a 1400W surge), and a compact form factor that fits easily in my van or under a table when I’m set up outside.

It’s also pulled double duty as part of my live music gear, powering both a guitar amp and a bass amp for mobile gigs with my surf-rock band, Los Savages. Not something I had originally planned for, but a very welcome bonus!

That said, if I were building a van power system entirely from scratch and didn’t want to wire in a full DIY lithium setup, one of the larger Bluetti models (like the AC200P or AC180) could easily be the central power hub for a campervan. These units can:

  • Power a 12V fridge.
  • Run interior lighting.
  • Keep a water pump going.
  • Provide USB and 12V outputs for devices.
  • And even power appliances like air fryers, induction hobs, or a hair dryer via the built-in pure sine wave inverter.

For a lot of people, these newer generation power stations are becoming viable alternatives to traditional campervan leisure battery systems, especially when paired with solar or shore power.

USB-C: The Quiet Revolution

One of the most underrated advances in recent years has been the standardisation around USB-C charging. Where I once needed a mishmash of proprietary cables, inefficient DC-DC converters, and power inverters to keep everything topped up, now I can charge almost all my key devices – laptops, phones, small powerbanks, even some bike lights. It’s streamlined my power setup massively and eliminated a lot of energy waste from voltage conversion. This might seem like a small change, but in practice, it’s made remote working and living on the road much more seamless.

Looking Back: A Timeline of My Mobile Power Evolution

Here’s a rough timeline of the gear that’s powered my digital nomad experiments over the years:

  • 2010 – Camping with a 20Ah lead-acid jump starter and a power inverter. Preparation & charging
  • 2010 – One week running on battery and solar power. A week on battery and solar power and Day 2
  • 2010 – Reflections after 6 weeks on the road. Lessons learned
  • 2013 – T25 mobile office experiments. T25 mobile office
  • 2013 – Early solar dreaming with the Solar Gorilla. Solar Gorilla, Nexus 4 and solar daydreams
  • 2018 – Got back into van life with a VW T4 that included a large lead-acid leisure battery, charged via a simple split-charge relay or 100W portable solar panel. We have a van again
  • 2018 – Running a home office using solar power. Part 1
  • 2021-2025 – Bluetti, EcoFlow and Jackery power stations become mainstream in these kind of set-ups.
  • 2025-2026 – Planning and building out a full VW T6 campervan lithium battery and solar setup

What’s Next?

Although I’m a weekend warrior who works mostly from my garden shed, I’m building this system with the future in mind. I want to be ready for longer-term vanlife digital nomad adventures when the opportunity arises.

With the VW T6 campervan conversion underway, I’m pushing into more permanent off-grid territory. Here’s a teaser of what I’m planning:

  • A LiFePO4 battery permanently installed under the driver’s seat – chosen for both size and price-point.
  • A DC-DC charger compatible with the van’s smart alternator, making alternator charging the primary source of power (especially important in UK winters).
  • Wired to drive the lights, fridge, water pump (for the tap, not the one under the bonnet!), and multiple USB-C charging points.

I’m not planning to add a mains inverter to this setup- at least for now. For 240V needs I’ll continue to use the Bluetti (and may upgrade to a larger model to handle higher loads needed for e.g. an air fryer or induction hob).

I may also add a solar charge controller and roof-mounted solar later, but given the limited winter sun in the UK, alternator charging will remain the most viable option for year-round reliability.

I’ll be documenting that process in detail soon, so stay tuned. that process in detail soon, so stay tuned.

Freerange Freelance (aka Camper Van Things) integrated into this blog

Posted on by Rick Hurst

Back in 2010 I started writing about “Remote Working”, initially on this blog, then split off into a separate “Rick on the Road” blog, written using my own (now abandoned) database-less blog software, which I called “eatStatic”. I even did a talk on this subject at the Anywhere Working event in 2013, talking about a summer spent freelance working from France, while touring France with my family in a vw beetle. A few years later, the blog morphed into “Camper Van Things” where the focus became more about the vehicle used for my nomadic working aspirations, than the work itself. Then I rebranded it as “Freerange Freelance”, to bring the focus back onto the remote working lifestyle. Just like this blog, each iteration eventually got a bit neglected, until some time last year, I mothballed it.

Seeing as I had already written some migration scripts to migrate content from my static blog engine to WordPress, it didn’t take much to adapt the script to pull content from the wordpress API and merge it with content from this blog. You can find all that content under the category “on the road“. I should probably take all of this as a warning about buying new domain names on a whim, and creating niche blogs!

 

Down the Rabbit Hole of #vanlife on social media

Posted on by Rick Hurst

When I started this blog (as “Rick on the Road”) in 2010, Instagram was yet to be launched, and it was another two years before Foster Huntington popularised the #vanlife hashtag on instagram. There were plenty of campervan-related videos on YouTube, but relatively few dedicated channels – at least compared to the massive amount that exist today. The first channels I remember watching were Chad DeRosa’s “Living The Van Life” and Where’s my office now (both US based) and Campervan Culture (UK based). Campervan Culture in particular raised the bar for the quality of video production as time went on, and was certainly the first time i’d seen drone footage in an “amateur” campervan video.

At time of writing there is a massive amount of choice of vanlife-related youtube channels, most of which have a parallel life in the form of an instagram account.

But what does “vanlife” actually mean?

This is a contentious issue, it seems. It’s a made-up word, with the word van and life joined together, and it seems to refer mainly to people who live in vans. I’ve seen comments on instagram and youtube where a full-time “vanlifer” will angrily claim the term for themselves, but with over 3.7 million instagram posts (at time of writing) using the tag, and i’d hazard a guess that only a tiny proportion of those pictures depict people living full-time in a van, so it’s a pretty generic term covering pretty much anything campervan-related whether it’s living in one, building one, or lying in the back of one looking at a sunrise while you pretend you haven’t just scrambled to set up the self-timer on your camera.

Is it possible to make a living making vanlife youtube videos?

It seems some people are, but they’ve had to work at it – regular videos with decent content, subscribers built up over a period of years, well designed thumbnails to draw people in (sometimes, dare I say, using clickbait tactics!). I was curious to know how much income some of these channels might generate, purely on youtube ad revenue – socialblade is a really useful site, if you want to get an idea. In short, even the most popular channels I watch aren’t making that much – a living possibly, but only if you have no rent/mortgage to pay because you live in a van! Having said that – youtube ad revenue is only part of the story, with sponsorships/ ad placement/ merchandise sales etc. also being a source of revenue. There’s also Patreon which is a sponsorship platform that some of the channels use for subscription-only content.

Vanlife community

While we were planning and saving up for our current van, I started regularly watching van-related youtube channels and it became like reality TV for me. Most of the vans in the videos have their instagram names displayed so potential followers (instagram) or subscribers (youtube) can easily find them online if you spot them in the real world.

Here are some of the channels i’ve been watching recently. I’ve realised these are all UK-based channels – this wasn’t intentional but i’ve found the content to be more relevant to me than most of the US-based ones i’ve watched (plenty of good ones, maybe i’ll do another post on those), so i’ve just gravitated towards these channels.

Indie Projects

This is probably the most popular uk-based vanlife channel – i’ve been following Theo and Bee on instagram before they even came up with the indie projects name. Their videos are a mixture of their own van adventures, initially in a VW T4, van tours of other people’s vans, their new van self-build sprinter van and their plans for a homestead in Portugal.

Youtube Channel

Instagram

Beyond the van

Rich from beyond the van popped up in a couple of Indie Projects videos and I started watching his various van conversion and European trip videos. The van conversions range from a Renault Kangoo up to an LDV Luton van. Loads of practical content to be found on the channel.

Youtube Channel

From Rust to Roadtrip

A really good travel series from Lucy and Ben, a couple travelling Europe in their self-converted LDV Convoy. Nicely filmed and narrated, plenty of travel inspiration to be found in these videos, even with the frequent breakdowns!

Youtube Channel

Instagram

Website

A Bus and Beyond

All the channels mentioned so far cover self-build vans and vanlife on a budget – Shaun and Lizzy cover the other end of the vanlife spectrum reviewing new stuff that costs almost as much as a house, and staying on actual campsites. Very watchable, and it’s interesting to see what’s on offer to buy off the shelf if budget wasn’t an issue.

Youtube Channel 

Instagram

Website

Project Amber

“When life gives you lemons, piss off somewhere and be a hippy”. Wise words. Very entertaining channel following this guys European adventures in a converted ambulance.

Youtube Channel

Instagram

Sarah and the Bear

A relatively new channel, these two are very chilled travelling the country and national trust properties in their white VW T25 (makes me very nostalgic for Rocky, our previous van!).

Youtube channel

Instagram

Never read the comments on YouTube!

Youtube seems to attract the best and the worst when it comes to comments – I think the majority of the comments on these channels are positive, but there’s a lot of idiots commenting too – best avoided if you don’t want to come crashing straight back down to earth after a dose of vicarious vanlife!

Freerange Freelance on Social Media

No immediate plans for a Freerange Freelance youtube channel, though I wouldn’t rule it out entirely. But we are on instagram and twitter.

Do you have a vanlife channel/instagram channel that we should be following? Nudge us on instagram and let us know!

Running a home office using solar power – part 1

Posted on by Rick Hurst

Photonic Universe portable 100 watt solar panel kit

Although I like to use our campervan as a mobile office, I mainly work from a home “office” built in an existing shed. The breeze-block building was already there when we moved in, and luckily it is big enough to create an area where I can work.

It’s a typical “ongoing” project, started a few years ago by partitioning off an end section to remain as a proper shed, and then building out an insulated area with it’s own entrance. Nowhere near finished, it still looks very much like a shed on the inside, but I have plans for wood panelling (inside and out) and stylish lighting to make it instagram worthy!

We do actually have mains electric running out to the shed, so it doesn’t need to be off-grid, but as I already have most of the kit needed, why not?

The Solar panel

I recently bought a 100 watt portable solar panel kit made by Photonics Universe to use with the camper van, but also wanted to see if it would be possible to use it to keep my home office powered. The kit has a waterproof charge controller mounted on the back, so all you need to do is attach it to the battery, either with the crocodile clips as supplied, or via eyelets. I bought a second connector cable so there is one permanently wired into the van leisure battery and one on the portable battery, making it easy to swap from one to the other.

Photonic Universe portable 100 watt solar panel kit showing charge controller

The “Office” kit

It’s a pretty minimal set-up – like when i’m in the van, I work mainly from the laptop, but with the added luxury of an external monitor, which is pretty handy when i’m working on any visual layout stuff for a website or web app.

My laptop these days is a 2015 era 13 inch macbook pro, and from looking at the plug-in current meter that I use, it looks though this requires about 20-30 watts to maintain an already charged laptop and 40+ watts when charging. The monitor requires a further 25 watts. In addition to this, I plan to occasionally run a USB powered fan and 12 volt LED lighting, both of which don’t require much power – at least in comparison to the mains appliances.

Minimal home office freelance web developer set-up

The Battery and electrics

A while ago I took a spare 90Ah car battery and built it into an old toolbox, with voltmeter, 12volt socket and USB sockets to use as a portable leisure battery set-up, so I have the solar panel charging this. Unlike the leisure battery in the van, this isn’t as proper leisure battery, so I need to be careful not to let the charge get too low, or risk permanently damaging it. The battery box has a fuse box inside with each item running off a separate fuse.

Leisure battery built into an old toolbox with USB sockets and voltmeter

I then wired in another external panel with voltmeter, usb sockets and 12 volt socket, which will eventually be mounted on the wall. I’ve then got plugged into this, an old Belkin 150 Watt (300 Watt peak) inverter that is usually in the van. I’ll likely replace this with something better – a pure sinewave inverter that gives a smoother AC output very similar to mains electricity.

12 volt panel with cigar lighter and USB socket

The challenge

The garden, whilst reasonably private for a city and offering plenty of shade, isn’t ideal for a solar panel. The light only reaches the garden from about 10am, and disappears about 6pm, even in mid-summer. The panel needs to be moved frequently to remain in the sun. I’ve spent time imagining building some kind of automated track system to do this for me, and although I have some ideas, I doubt I will ever have the time to realise them! We also live in the UK, not famed for it’s year-round sunshine…

Solar panel in a shady garden

From experience in the van keeping a powered coolbox going (~60 Watts), the panel will have real trouble providing 75+ watts constantly, unless it’s in decent all day direct sunlight, so the battery will likely discharge throughout the day, depending on when I finish, how much sun there is and how often I get up and move the panel to be in the optimum position.

I’ve already found that my external monitor isn’t happy running from the inverter – it keeps going into standby, then attempting to power up again then back to standby, as if switching it on causes a power spike that then causes it to go back to standby. Not sure if that’s the inverter struggling, or the battery not supplying sufficient current – if the battery is plugged into a mains charger, the monitor stays on, so the inverter is certainly capable, but maybe the battery isn’t. It will be interesting to see if a different inverter would make a difference here, or whether the battery isn’t up to the job.

I need to try this out long-term to get a realistic idea, but i’m sure that I would benefit from a higher capacity battery (or batteries), so I can rely more on falling back to battery power, which can then be topped up from solar charging over the weekend to keep me going during the week. Having said that, if we are away in the campervan, the solar panel comes with us, so that’s not going to work! If I had the budget to do this seriously, I think i’d at least double the solar capacity and the battery capacity.

Heating?

Even though it’s well insulated, there’s no chance of heating the space using solar (photovoltaic) power – any electric heating appliance, such as the Daewoo 2500 Watt oil filled radiator which I use in the winter uses way more wattage than could be provided by my inverter, and even with a high power inverter, massive bank of batteries and thousands of watts of solar panels you would struggle. The only realistic off-grid heating option is a wood burner or something gas powered, both of which aren’t cheap and would need to be carefully installed for obvious safety reasons.

Fitting a swivel seat base to a vw t4

Posted on by Rick Hurst

One of the first jobs on the list when we bought Hercules was a swivel base for the passenger seat. T4 vans come with either a double passenger seat, so you can fit three people up front (would be handy actually, as we only have four seat-belted seats), or a single passenger captain seat. Hercules came with the latter.

There are two main different types of seat swivel – a swivel plate, which fits between the seat and the standard seat base, and a swivel base, which replaces the standard seat base. After a bit of research I chose the latter, on the basis that this would leave the seat at the same height as it would be on the standard base, whereas a plate will usually raise it slightly. I actually used a swivel plate on Rocky, our last T25 camper.

I ordered one from SVB Accessories , on the basis that it was crash-tested and a good price. They also do a version with a built-in safe which I was tempted by, but i’m kind of reluctant to put a (visible) safe in the van, as to me it kind of advertises to a potential thief where you keep your valuables. Or maybe you could double-bluff and have a visible safe as a distraction, but keep your valuables somewhere else!

Having had much older vehicles, I wasn’t sure how long this job would take, but luckily it went entirely to plan. Firstly, I slid the seat all the way back, and undid the allen bolts which hold the seat rails to the base.

Then I slid the seat all the way forwards and undid the allen bolts at the rear of the rails.

Then you can remove the seat, with rails still attached.

Using a socket wrench, you then undo the four nuts on the bolts which attach the seat base to the cab floor.

Then you bolt the swivel seat base in, and attach the rails to it. The base came provided with bolts, but I used the original allen bolts (as they sit flush inside the rails) with the nuts from the provided bolts.

All in all probably 25 minutes, which is a miracle for me, as I have been known to make a 25 minute job last all weekend!

Introducing Freerange Freelance!

Posted on by Rick Hurst

Those of you who have followed a link to campervanthings.com might be confused to see a different domain name and site title “Freerange Freelance”. Let me explain!

The first version of this blog was called “Rick on the Road”, which started as a travel blog years ago, when my wife and I started looking at the idea of spending the summer touring france, with our (then) young kid while I carried on working as a freelance web developer, attempting to keep an old plastic macbook with a two-hour max battery life charged from an inadequate portable solar panel, and attempting to keep in touch with clients and upload code over sketchy campsite wifi.

After that trip, the blog lost momentum until we bought a camper van and I enthusiastically relaunched it as “camper van things”, and wrote almost exclusively about camper van things.

It then lost momentum again, particularly after we sold the camper. This year having bought another van I thought I would give it a refresh and start writing again, and in doing so, I decided that the name of the blog didn’t really reflect what this blog is about.

So what is this blog about then?

I’ve worked (mostly) as a freelance web developer for over ten years now and the goal has always been flexible working. I’m lucky enough to have built a career that revolves around the internet and remote-working tools, and so most of the time I only need a charged laptop and a decent internet connection (wifi or 3G/4G)  to do my job. Moreover, I prefer flexible work hours, and not having to commute to an office “day job”. All of those aspirations can be difficult to achieve sometimes, which I will talk about on this blog.

But you’re still going on about camper vans?

Yep! As far as i’m concerned, a camper van makes the perfect mobile office, and is the best way to combine travel, adventure and freelance work. Plus I just love camper vans, so they will still feature prominently, particularly the one we own.

Freerange Freelance

Naming a blog is almost as difficult as naming a band. My wife is also freelance (TV/Video production/Copywriting) and we threw around a few ideas before coming up with this, then impulsively reserving the domain name and instagram handle. Twitter username character limit wasn’t long enough, so I left that one as @campervanthings for now. I think Freerange Freelance better covers the scope of this blog and any associated social media accounts.

Web development stuff

I’ll refrain from talking too much about web development on this blog, as I have another blog for that – if you’re interested in code, take a look at rickhurst.co.uk.

Using a cheap Quechua tarp fresh as a campervan awning

Posted on by Rick Hurst

Using Quechua Tarp Fresh as campervan awning

We are using a Quechua tarp fresh as an awning/canopy. We already had the tarp, which we used for tent camping to provide some outdoor rain cover or shade. We bought a couple of spare poles to give us more height and options to set it up as standalone canopy.

Our T4 had an awning “C” rail fitted in the roof gutter, and a quick bit of research showed that you can attach a “kador” strip to these. I ordered a length of kador strip off ebay and wondered if I should sew it to the tarp, but in the end I decided to put some brass eyelets in the strip then attach to the awning using toggles and some elastic shock cord.

C channel in the roof gutter of a VW t4, fitted with kador strip

The advantage of this over sewing is that if we need to move the van, the toggles can be removed and the kador strip pulled out, without needing to unpeg the awning. Plus I can’t sew!

Awning attached to kador strip using toggles and eyelets

Our T4 is the short wheelbase version – the awning is slightly wider than the rail so I tie either end down across the windscreen and tailgate.

Awning attached to kador strip using toggles and eyelets

We have a van again!

Posted on by Rick Hurst
New (To Us) VW T4 campervan

Far longer in the planning than i’d like, but we now have a campervan again! This one is a 2001 VW T4 2.5 tdi short wheelbase which is mostly converted to a camper already – rock n roll bed, side windows, sink with running tap, leisure battery, insulation etc.

We were considering getting a bare van and doing the conversion ourselves, but with the summer getting closer by the minute I thought i’d see what was around already ready to camp in and this one had just been advertised – we all decided it would be perfect.

So far we’ve added a cooker and table, the cooker is a Vango Combi IR Grill Cooker, which is now screwed to the worktop.

Vango combi IR Grill cooker in campervan
Vango combi IR Grill cooker in campervan

The table is DIY, and attaches to the side unit using a Reimo sliding table rail.

Making the table
Table attached via Reimo sliding table rail
Reimo sliding table rail

Future ambitions include a pop-top, swivel passenger seat (or both seats, but leisure battery would need to be moved), and to create, or buy, a full length side unit for extra storage.

The van came with a cab bunk, but our teenager is too tall for that now, so during an experimental overnight camping trip we worked out that they could actually sleep on a self-inflating mattress on the floor, mostly under the bed but with head and shoulders in the space at the foot of the bed. Not ideal, and they’ll more likely be in their own tent until we get the pop top, but it’s good to know we can all sleep in the van as it is if we need to e.g. at an Aire du camping or other stopover where a tent can’t be pitched.

Minimal campervan conversion – what actually constitutes a campervan?

Posted on by Rick Hurst

Minimal campervan

A year on from saying goodbye to our last campervan, we are really missing vanlife, so making plans for the next one. Our last van came to us fully converted as a 4-berth camper with pop-top roof, cooker, fridge, rock and roll bed, table wardrobe, cupboards etc., but this time we are planning a full DIY conversion ourselves, on a more modern van.

Being the master of unfinished projects, I don’t want to spend months and months converting it before we get to use it, so the idea is a phased approach, starting from the bare minimum, then adding to it over time.

So what actually constitutes a campervan? It will be a van, a short wheelbase panel van of some kind – we need to be able to park it on our crowded streets and drive it as a family car. Obviously, we want to be able to camp in it – sleep, cook and have somewhere to sit comfortably inside.

In theory, all you need then is to use it like a “tin tent” – chuck some camping gear and airbeds in the back and you have a campervan, but the basic DVLA criteria to be able to officially reclassify a panel van as a motorhome in the UK include:-

  • A fixed bed
  • Cooker
  • Side Window
  • Fixed table
  • Sink and tap

My first campervan didn’t meet these criteria, it was a very minimal conversion – a fold-down single bed made from an ikea futon frame, a freestanding gas cooker from a caravan bungeed to the rear of the passenger seat, and some rugs and stuff. At a push you could sleep 3 people – one on the bed, one on the floor and one across the engine bay diagonally, but only one of these options was remotely comfortable. That van was more of a hippy ex-student road-trip bus, not a family campervan.

I’ve also read that some campsites and festivals won’t accept a van unless it appears to be a camper van – nominally for safety regulations, but probably also to stop people just turning up in hired vans or builder’s vans with an airbed in the back and binbags taped over the windows.

So there’s some “official” criteria we need to meet eventually, if we want to reclassify it as a motorhome but there are also some minumum requirements of our own, to enjoy it as a family campervan. We want to be able to sleep three people comfortably – two adults and a taller-by-the-day teenager. This will be the biggest challenge until such a time we fit a pop-top to gain an extra double bed. I have some ideas, which may or may-not work, but there’s always awnings/ pop-up tents if we can’t all sleep comfortably inside straight away.

We need to cook, so I plan to build a unit to house our existing camping gas cooker, to keep it secure and to be able to store the gas bottle securely underneath. We can survive without a sink initally – even with the sink and tap in our last camper, we tended to wash up on a table using a washing up bowl.

We also need to be able to sit comfortably inside – many of our UK trips have been rainy and cold, so whatever bed arrangement I build needs to be able to be reconfigured during the day to allow us to sit around in a mobile living-room.

I’ll certainly want a leisure battery to keep interior lights, music and phones/ laptops running away from electric hook-up for a weekend. I have a plan for that, which i’ll cover in another blog post.