Hi there, we are Cazzy & Bradley!
Over the last 5 years we’ve travelled to 40+ countries around the world and have been blogging our adventures over at Dream Big, Travel Far. In early 2020 we found ourselves in sunny Malta, before being suddenly forced back to the UK into lockdown. Unable to backpack as we had been for the last few years, we decided it was the perfect time to fulfill our joint dream of converting our very own campervan!
Entering Vanlife with humble beginnings
Prior to beginning the conversion, we had precisely ZERO experience in using power tools, running electrics, understanding how gas works. Basically lacking in all the skills needed for such a job! But that didn’t stop us, and 3 months later we had our very own campervan! Check out our full 13 week conversion series here.
She is a long wheelbase Peugeot Boxer, with 107k miles on the clock at the time of buying. To help us in completing the job we watched a tonne of YouTube videos and had great support from various van groups on Facebook. We are incredibly happy with the finished product, and it exceeds even our wildest expectations of what we could have accomplished!
In fact, our layout is (as far as we are aware at least) entirely unique as we couldn’t find any previous van layouts that matched what we needed. It includes:
Fixed double bed
Second guest double bed
3 front seats and 2 rear belted seats
Large living/dining area
Shower & toilet
Midi Heki skylight above the bed
Maxxfan Deluxe roof Vent
Porthole windows in the rear doors
Oven
Large kitchen sink
HS2000 air heater
Malaga 5E water heater
70 litre onboard fresh water tank
50 litre underslung water tank
2 x 220ah AGM deep cycle leisure batteries
1500 watt inverter
480 watts of solar
60amp B2B charger
25 litre underslung LPG tank
Total build costs
In total, the build cost came to somewhere in the region of £16,000. Here’s a rough breakdown:
Van - £6500
Vehicle servicing/fixes - £400
Insulation - £200
Cladding - £150
Flooring - £200
Rear seats (fitted) - £220
Water system - £300
Solar setup - £700
Batteries - £600
Other electrics - £300
Gas system (oven, water heater, air heater) - £1600
Roof vent/skylight - £700
Toilet - £60
Shower - £250
Labour (auto-electrician, mechanic, gas engineer) - £700
Finishing touches (paints, curtains, plates, dishes, bedding, mattresses etc …) - £800
New All-Season tyres - £400
Windows - £250
Kitchen (sink, work surfaces etc …) - £150
Wood - £500
Tools - £400
Underslung LPG tank - £500
Other - £1000
What does the future hold?
As of writing, we have just returned from a 2 month trip around Scotland (which was epic). We’ve used the time being home to install an underslung LPG tank which freed up more space inside of the van for storage. It also means we can more easily fill up gas when abroad. We also re-did our entire gas piping system, this time installing a 3-way manifold which allows us to isolate the gas supply to each appliance.
After Christmas, the plan is to head over to Europe and spend 6 months touring around and discovering the countries we haven't yet finished. After that, the plan is to drive around the entire world (which was the reason behind converting our van in the first place). We will be vlogging our entire journey on Youtube (be sure to check us out!).
Thanks for reading!
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