Mini VanLife

car camping in a 2006 Toyota sienna called bluebarry vanilow

After 18 years with Camperolla, my 1998 Toyota Corolla, I upgraded to a 2006 Toyota Sienna. I converted the minivan into a mini campervan I call BlueBarry Vanilow. In the two years together BBV has been through 31 states. In 2022, I lived out of BlueBarry for 10 and a half months, sleeping in the van for a total of 58 nights. In 2023, I’ve slept in the van for 78 nights so far.

VANLIFE NEWBIE: I ALREADY BROKE SOMETHING ⚠️

CAMPEROLLA has been UPGRADED! The car I've had for 18 years has finally been replaced. Say hello to my 2006 Toyota Sienna XLE AWD! It's not what I wanted but I'm not rich so this will have to do! In this video I give a little tour of the van before converting it into a campervan. With the help of my dad we removed the seats so we can start building a bed platform. I also have a surprise when I realize I broke one of my brake lights!

February 2022

At the end of 2021 I was confronted with the reality that Camperolla had seen its last days. I knew the day would come and after 18 years I figured it had a good long run. I had been wanting to get a hightop van for almost a decade since living in a van would be conducive to my wandering seasonal lifestyle, however, I didn’t have the kind of money needed for such a fancy Sprinter or the like. Since my budget limited my options I had to start compromising on elements of my dream van, foremost being the hightop part. I was seriously looking at the Ford Transit Connect since it was still a cargo van, but the reviews weren’t very good. Back to square one. I had wanted to go more of the cargo van way instead of a minivan because I don’t care for the stereotype of the minivan as a mom car. I’M NOT A MOM. But eventually I was more focused on getting a reliable car that got good gas mileage so I did a google search for ‘best minivan' and the Toyota Sienna came up. Since the Corolla is the only car I have ever had and it’s a Toyota I was partial to the Sienna. I also saw that it was the only minivan that had all wheel drive which was also important to me since I travel to snowy areas. SO I did a search for a Toyota Sienna AWD for around $10K and under 100K miles and one came up in Georgia. I recognized the town name because it is right off the Appalachian Trail, and I took that as a sign that it was meant to be. I contacted them and made a plan to be there in 5 hours. My dad and I stopped at the bank to get a cashier’s check and drove to Georgia. I got the van the very same day.

VAN CONVERSION

DUAL PURPOSE BED PLATFORM

With the help of my dad we took out all the back seats and started building a bed platform. I had watched many many YouTube videos of other people’s van conversions to get ideas, but in the end I came up with an original design for mine. Since it’s just me I don’t need a full size bed, and since we already had cushions from an outdoor bench that I had made, I decided to figure the width based on those. That way I wouldn’t have to buy or craft a mattress to size. Plus I had already used 2 of those cushions in the Camperolla. The cushions are 24” wide and then we measured out the length by just laying down. I’m 5’11” and so we went with 3 cushions long coming out to be 75” long. Having the bed raised rather than just sitting on the floor would allow for storage underneath, but my requirement was that I didn’t want to hit my head on the ceiling when sitting up so we factored in the depth of the cushions and came up with 9.5” raised off the floor. The other main requirement of the bed was that I wanted it to be dual-purpose. I wanted it to also act as a lounge chair for reading and working on my computer.

We used 2x4 and built a bottom and top with supports on the ends. Since part of the bed sits in the deep area where the seats could have been stowed we had to make those legs longer. We cut the platform at the point where I wanted it to hinge upwards as a seat and we attached a hinge there. We also attached a hinge to the side that way I can lift it up to access items inside. The sides are open but if the item is bulky I can’t really pull it out on the sides. A piece of spare wood acts as my prop to keep the back raised up in position. We thought we might have to add notches to hold it in place, but the way it sits in the platform it holds itself up. It’ll make more sense once you watch my van tour video. I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

I added a 1 inch cot mattress we had lying around to the top of the cushions to give it a more even distribution when laying on it. I put a fitted twin sheet around all the cushions and then safety pinned it underneath to keep the fabric from bunching up since a twin bed is wider than this cushion mattress I constructed. A wool blanket lies on top which makes the whole space come together. I have slept in BlueBarry in 3degrees during winter in Colorado. I use a 0 degree Montbell sleeping bag.

After a year and a half with the three cushions and cot mattress setup I upgraded to a trifold memory foam mattress topper a fellow car camper recommended and I have no complaints. I slept very well in the van.

SOLAR

Do I really need a fridge? Not really. I’m pretty basic (when I’m on the road) and I’m conditioned to eating cold soaked ramen on thru-hikes, so a fridge felt like a luxury, money to burn. However, this past year when traveling through Arizona I realized that ice just doesn’t last long in my dinky ass cooler and a cold guava La Croix really hits the spot while watching World Cup matches. In one of the, many, youtube videos I watched I heard that a fridge greatly increases quality of life in vanlife, so why the heck not go for it. However, since I was more focused on spending money on quality solar I decided not to go with the top of the line compressor fridge, but I also didn’t want to go the cheapest route, so I went just above cheapest. Again, after watching dozens of youtube videos and reading reviews I decided there wasn’t that much difference in brands and went with a JoyTutus 22 Liter 12 Volt Compressor Fridge. It’s been great and now I’m able to eat better while on the road and living out of the van.

WINDOW COVERINGS

For privacy and insulation, I bought a roll of Reflectix and cut them to fit into my side windows and my back gate window. The shades tuck into my side windows easily enough and I find that I don’t need magnets or velcro to keep them in place. At first I used velcro for the back gate’s window but the velco glue failed in Arizona heat so I got some Command hangers and hang the reflectix on that. For my back side windows I repurposed a sunshade I already had and cut it up and applied black contact paper to one side. Those also slide and tuck into the windows and do not need velcro. I do like the stealth look the black contact paper gives when viewing the windows from the outside. The silver reflectix is more noticeable from the outside so I have since adhered black contact paper to one side and now it looks like my windows are just completely blacked out.

I didn’t want to make shades for my front windows and windshield because I thought that would be more conspicuous and the whole point of sleeping in my van is to be somewhat stealthy that way folks don’t necessarily know if someone is sleeping inside. So I got a piece of black fabric from the thrift store for a dollar and paired with a piece of rope, paperclips, and binder clips, it hangs just behind my driver and passenger seat. It doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling but I find that when I’m lying down I can’t see out the windshield therefore others wouldn’t be able to see me. I have since added Command hangers to help hold the curtain up to the roof.

Misc.vibes

I thought I would want a rug on the floor to give it more homey vibes and to keep the van carpet from getting destroyed but I figured the rug would get dirty and be just as difficult to clean so when I saw a large excericse mat I knew that would work perfectly. It doesn’t cover the whole floor but it doesn’t matter because the bed platform takes up half the space. I like it because it’s easy to wipe/sweep off when it gets dirty and wet.

I hung string LED lights around the back of the van with paperclips—sometimes the simplest solution works the best. I bought two battery candles at thrift stores to give a romantic ambiance, which have since melted in the heat. A cute macrame bunting that I found digging through goodwill bins hangs up on the inside for some boho aes·thet·ic. Perhaps my favorite part of the van is Bruce, the moose, who hangs from my rearview mirror.

If you’re thinking about getting on the road and traveling, I encourage you to just go out and do it. There’s no need to wait around until you have the perfect set-up, just get going and make it work with what you have. Happy travels!

• I use freecampsites.net and ioverlander.com to help find free places to camp on my road trips.

• In addition to car camping I have started house & pet sitting in exchange for free housing on my road trips. More info found here —> Budget Travel: House & Pet Sitting