The Ultimate Campervan Travel Guide for Beginners

Ever dreamed of travelling Europe in a campervan? After 18 months of full-time van life and countless weekend adventures, we're here to share our insights. This campervan travel guide is packed with tips and advice to help you embark on your own unforgettable journey.

 

Why vanlife? 

If you've stumbled upon this blog, then the chances are you're already pretty interested in the concept of van life so you might not need a lot of convincing. Here are some of the reasons why we love travelling in a campervan so much.

🗺️ Freedom - the ability to go anywhere and change your plans whenever based on how you feel that day.

💎 Off the beaten track - discovering hidden gems and seeing places you might not see in other forms of travel.

💰 Affordability - generally vanlife is a lot cheaper than other forms of travel because you’re accommodation and transport are all rolled into one.

🌱 Immersed in nature - vanlife allows you to be fully immersed in nature, waking up with the sound of birds or falling asleep to the crashing of waves by the sea. 

🚐 Waking up wherever you want - with a campervan, you don’t have to stay in one place and you have the freedom to wake up wherever you want to be that day.

Campervan travel guide: Setup & essentials

It's very easy to overthink this part of a campervan, and while it is important to prepare, if you're upgrading from a tent then you're probably going to be pretty happy with whatever situation you have in your campervna.

What are the essential items I need to enjoy vanlife? (e.g., water storage, cooking equipment, solar panels, etc.)

The set up of your van will really depend on the type of trips you plan to do and how long you plan to travel at a time. If it’s only going to be a weekend camper, you’re not going to need as much as if you are planning to live in your van full time. 

Having said that, even the most basic of campers, you’re probably going to want:

• A comfortable bed, whether it's a fixed bed, a sofa bed, or simply a mattress, it's an essential in your campervan.
• Electricity, whether you have solar panels powering a portable power bank or a fixed electrical system, it's essential for keeping your devices charged and your lights running.
• Adequate water storage for fresh water is a neccessity for cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene.
• Cooking equipment, ranging from a simple portable camping stove to a fully equipped kitchen, will allow you to prepare delicious meals in your home away from home
• Washing up equipment, even if this is just a bucket.
• Camping chairs, so you can enjoy the nature around you since this is one of the best parts of vanlife. 

If you want to take it up a notch and have a slightly more luxurious campervan, here are some other items:

• A toilet can really enhance your comfort and convenience, especially during trips as it can get tiring always needing to search for public toilets.
• A shower, ranging from a simple shower pump to a fully installed shower with hot water, will allow you to stay refreshed on your adventures.
• A 12-volt fridge will keep your food and drinks cool, making your summer adventures even more enjoyable.

Need some inspiration on what you need to pack for a campervan adventure, check out our packing list below. 

🧳 FREE road trip packing list

How to store everything in your van

Another thing to consider when you’re packing up your van is where is everything going to go? Surprisingly, you can fit a lot in a campervan, we were always surprised at the amount of stuff we managed to pack, and if you can't take everything, well you'll probably learn to liv without it!

Here are some storage tips we've found useful on our travels:

• Packing cubes for clothes because you can fit a lot more clothes into them and condense it down. 
• Car nets are great for putting small items in that you want to access easily, especially if you have carpet on your walls you will be able to get velcro nets that stick to these. 
• A roof box for items that you don't want to access everyday, for example we put our paddle boards and also a big supply of our dog food in there. 

Campervan travel guide: Planning & logistics

How do I find safe and legal places to park and camp?

One of the most frequently asked questions in any campervan travel guide is where to find safe and legal places to park and camp. 🏕️

If you want to wild camp then the best app for this has got to be Park4night. As it’s a community led app, you can find places to stay anywhere and the app is full of reviews so you know what to expect. 

If you travel to Europe, there are often aries - motorhome areas, that allow you to stay for free or a small charge. These often also have access to water and somewhere to empty your waste, so they can be a great option. 

Alternatively, you can book into a campsite. There are lots of ways to find these, you can use park4night to find these as well but you can also use websites like Hipcamp and pitchup.

This part of vanlife can seem like a double edged sword because while it is amazing being able to wake up anywhere you like, it can also get tiring finding somewhere to stay every night.

Tip: Remember you can always find a campsite to use as a base and simply explore from there, you don’t always have to be on the move all of the time. 

How do I plan my route and itinerary?

It can be quite overwhelming planning a road trip because you can literally go anywhere! When you’re just getting into vanlife travel, you probably have a pretty big list of places to go. 

This will look different for everyone, because we all like to do different things. Think about what you most want to do on your road trip, do you want to hike, visit castles, explore towns, stroll on beaches, be in nature? 

If you’re travelling for a short time, a week or two or less. Decide an area that you want to visit and then research the places you would like to visit it there.

For some people, sitting down and planning is their worst nightmare. If that sounds like you, that’s why we’ve written our campervan travel guides so that we can help people see amazing places without having to spend so much time finding them!

What are the best apps and resources for vanlife?

Like everything these days, there are so many apps that can make the process of vanlife that little bit easier. We’ve already mentioned park4night but we haven’t even mentioned so many other reasons why it's great. Not only including amazing places to stay but you can also find places to fill up water, empty your waste tank and fill up with camping gas. 

We also love apps like AllTrails and maps.me to find amazing hikes to do and this is one of our favourite ways to find activities close to where we are parked or to help plan our route. 

If you're interested in some other apps that make vanlife easier, check out our blog below.

👉 8 essential apps for vanlife

How do I travel on a budget ? 

In our opinion, van life travel is very budget friendly, especially if you like to be outside like we do because there are endless free activities you can enjoy. In saying that, we aren't very big spenders and don't do expensive activities in day-to-day life so we don't need to be that conscious when we're away. 

There are some obvious ways to stick to a budget when doing vanlife such as not staying at campsites, cooking your own food and one that people might forget which is to not move as quickly because moving costs money!

If you usually spend a lot of money while travelling, why not look for some free or cheaper activities like visiting waterfalls, beaches and hikes.