🚐 Why you should probably try van camping for your next vacation
PLUS a photo-journal from our recent 🇳🇴 trip
In the last 12 months; me, my wife, and our doggo have tried a new way to travel - camping in a mini-van.
So here goes - a little journal with photos (I needed an excuse to share them; just like with my previous post above) & then general tips (mostly related to the most recent trip as well as the overall sum of the travel format).
(pro tip - you can click on each individual photo)
First, trialing the concept in Yosemite for 2 nights in 2025.
In winter. The very first night, we froze. Second, we left the car on. The trip & hikes were wonderful though. The car was ok (Chrysler Voyager) - not great; not bad. Unremarkable. I didn’t even take photos of it.
Second, we decided to go on a full-blown road adventure in the place that seemed like the best fit possible.
Norway’s West Fjords - we returned just last week!
While also trialing the car I’m considering to buy - VW ID Buzz (but only when they release their native camper version - not sure that I want to do a custom job for now).
Here’s what I learned so far (through lived experience) from both:
Before going, consider the type of the car you want to get. A full-blown RV/motorhome; a bigger camper-van or a smaller camper-van that was likely customized from a delivery van.
We opted for the latter both times because I rather enjoy driving compact cars (and not necessarily have the permit to drive a bigger car).
I would say this was a good decision - my feel is that if the weather is alright (not raining/freezing) you don’t need a lot of extra space and it forces you to spend more time outdoors.
The van is also still better than a tent IMO - it’s a lot easier to get used to.
Maybe next time we’ll get a bigger camper-van just to see the difference.
Going electric is an additional thrill (for various reasons; including feeling more connected to nature) - but only if the charging network is great. Norway is perfect for that - I ended up using solely Tesla’s Supercharger stations for convenience. And even in Norway (the most expensive country with their own oil) that was cheaper than gas.
Highly recommend ID Buzz for this.
You don’t need to stay on camping sites if you’re in a minivan. Most often; the main values of camping sites can be boiled down to:
Shower/toilet + additionally paid washing/drying machines
Electricity - either for charging (nice for ~30% overnight) or heating (not really needed in summer)
Maybe a shared kitchen / living room
In a lot of places; you can sleep in your car wherever you can park.
Norway is especially great because you can park in nature in beautiful spots as long as you’re 150m from the nearest house & on uncultivated land.
There’s it’s own fun in cooking your meals outdoors. We were constantly rotating:
Granolas w yoghurts / crispbreads with salmon / fresh filter coffee for breakfast
Various pastas / soups / fish sashimis / BBQ for dinner (we eat twice a day)
Over the course of the last trip we tried all of our favourite types of “outdoor” foods:
BBQ over a grill (in a camping site)
Hot-dogs
Cheeseburgers over a grill
Fish burgers
There’s something amazing in being free to choose where you’re going to spend the night (and the view being 99% better than most hotels in the world).
Free public toilets are your best friend for pre-sleep routines: brushing teeth; cleaning yourself and simply getting washed.
Saunas every few days are a perfect way to get clean after a few days of driving and hiking.
I love All Trails for finding info about various hikes. It has an amazing topographic feature where you can see the map in 3D, especially useful for places like Norway!
Getting offline helps a lot to immerse yourself in the journey - highly recommend!
One obvious perk of going somewhere in the summer is that you enjoy a LOOOONG day-time. This helps to make the most out of the trip as well as not to feel rushed to find a spot etc. E.g. in west Norway in June (not even peak) the sun was only down from say 23.30 to 3.30.
One obvious downside of going somewhere in the winter is that it’s REALLY cold at night. When it’s -10 celcius it’s not much fun to suddenly want to pee at night. Also, in the US National Parks, you can’t camp outside of the camping site, which is a big miss IMO.
Would love to hear about more “vacation ideas” you think we should try. The more obscure (while staying above a certain level of comfort), being able to make you truly disconnect, the better.