The Camper Van that I’ve been Drooling Over..... (March 2018 flashback)

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while… and so my wife asked me “do you want to start this weekend?” Yes! (This is an adventure from March of 2018... Hope you like it)

Just a few weeks ago my wife was racking her brain trying to figure out what to do for my birthday. Of course I was absolutely no help. The surf around me has been crap or it was raining and the water was dirty or I just felt like crap. Somehow the planets aligned and she found the Sprinter camper van that I’ve been drooling over and things just started coming together.

My wife booked a three day weekend for us in the Sprinter camper van that I’ve been drooling over for the last year. It’s a custom build by VanCraft that looks to fit all my wanderlust requirements.

I’ve wanted a surf van for years. The one that was on the top of my list is the VW T5 California van with a backpack and they don’t even sell it in California. Actually they don’t sell it in the USA at all (ironic right). I think the VanCraft layout is the next best thing (plus they DO sell them in the USA!).

The weather was all over the place leading up to the Van trip weekend and I really didn’t think I’d be doing any surfing, but figured I’d bring at least one board just in case. The team at Outdoorsy said that I could fit a 6’10” in the back of the van in a storage slot for surf boards so that’s what I brought. Along with some Polarstuff sleeping bag ponchos and other fun camping gear. My 6’10” board didn’t fit in the back- bummer right. It did fit in front of the oven up to the e-brake nicely. Over the weekend I actually took the pepsi challenge and tried a few board configurations. This is what I found out.

·       In the back:

o   A 6’4 funboard fits best in the back. I could probably fit a 6”6 but a 6’4” fits best without worry about slamming the door into it.

o   This configuration frees up the floor in the main cabin (roomier)

·       Inside the main cabin (in front of the stove):

o   6’10” to 7’4” fits in front of the stove on the ground and runs from the bench seat to the driver’s right side (no obstructions). (I didn’t check my 7’6”)

o   7’10” fits but the end is sitting up on the bench seat. Same as my 9’0”

o   The 6’10” only takes up and extra two or three inches when added next to the 7’10”.

o   This configuration blocks the bottom drawer under the bench seat and the stove, but it sure beats leaving the boards behind. I also ran a bungee cord around the board and hooked onto the stove just to keep it from possibly sliding around (that worked out well). The best thing is to have racks on top, but I’d probably just keep boards inside if I was by myself.

I’m used to driving smaller cars like my Honda Element. I can drive a 20’ box truck and a big Toyota Tundra (if I have to), but that comes with its own challenges (damn blind spots). The driver side mirror is fine for me, it’s the passenger side mirror that I have trouble seeing the little round blind spot mirror.  That probably just take getting used to. I pretty much just asked my Co-Pilot (wife) when it was clear if I wasn’t 100% sure. Great gas mileage (diesel). A 4 hour day of driving (2 hrs there/ 2 hrs back) would use about an 1/8^th tank of gas and that’s better than my car. Most of the time we cruised around the freeway between 15 MPH and about 70 MPH depending on traffic. Turning radius was good, parking was pretty good (I even parallel parked the 19-foot beast). I think a backup camera would really help me out.

Surf exploration- worth it! Co-Pilots moral is way up! So the old way of traveling was me with 3 or 4 boards piled up inside my Honda Element. And “if” my wife came along she was stuck in the back seat behind me- cramped. The new way is big front seats that allow her to kick up feet up on the dashboard and still have room for out rottie either under her feet or between us!

Happy wife happy life- no really! I’d surf, shed’ take a few pictures and then make lunch of us. Can’t beat that! So the oven is made by Camp Chef. Worked fine for us heating up water for coffee, we love that Copper Cow stuff (easy for traveling). Plus she made cinnamon rolls! The drawer below the overs was stock with pretty much everything we needed. My wife said it was stocked better than some of the Air-BNB places we’ve stayed at. The fridge was good enough for a weekend trip and always runs off the solar power- very cool stuff there. It would’ve been nice to have some sort of fold-out table like they have on sailboats for eating or using the laptop.

For some people not having a bathroom might be a deal breaker. That doesn’t bother me, I mean I don’t have a bathroom in my Honda Element either. I’m pretty sure someone could add some type of collapsible emergency toilet if they had to. There was actually a small sign next to the sink that said, ”Please Don’t Pee in the Sink.” I should’ve taken a picture of that (damn missed opportunity there). The van did have a hot water shower off the back, perfect for a nice hot 80 degree rinse off after surfing 57-degree water. There was also lots of storage back there. Actually, there was lots of storage everywhere.

My wife and I are both pretty handy when it comes to building stuff or just figuring it out. She’s an artistic woodworker and I’m an engineer so together we are like a dynamic duo. I’m sure we could build our own camper van. We narrowed it down to three types of vans:

                1)     The Dodge Ram Promaster

                2)     The Mercedes Sprinter

                3)     The Ford Transit

I’d prefer 4WD and that really narrows it down to just the Sprinter. We even went to the Mercedes dealership and test drove the 4WD Sprinter (140 WB) and that was cool. The sticker price is a bit rough, but there’s not that many options for 4WD vans that size (trust me I’ve researched it).