Deciding the layout for your van is a very personal thing.  We checked out heaps of websites looking for sensible advice and you are encouraged to do the same thing.  Why? Because we don’t understand YOUR particular needs.

To set our scene… .  This process has been designed to fit OUR needs (a couple doing the round-Australia road trip, after retirement).  So:

• We are not in a hurry,
• No kids are travelling with us,
• We love our independence
• We want to be comfortable, :-)
• We will be in this for months at a time.

This is an evolving story! So, our experience (so far) is…

Well, it started out looking at a converted bus.  That sounded exciting and flexible and I already have a bus license so that wasn’t an issue.  Let’s look at some pros and cons:

Pros.

• Many of the big buses have great storage bins underneath
• No wheel arches to consider, a flat uninterrupted surface to plan
• There is a regular stream of ‘old’ coaches coming onto the market
• They have sufficient grunt to tow another vehicle (if desired)
• Big ‘scenic’ windows.

Cons

• They are BIG
• They are heavy (and therefore likely to cost more to run)
• They can’t go to all of the places we may want to explore
• If you forget something at the shop you have to pack up the rig to go and get that item (unless you tow something smaller, or take a bike, roller-skates, etc)

Of these things the fact they may not be able to go everywhere we may want to go was the deciding factor.  Added to this was the fact that we could tow a small 4WD but that would add to cost and if we were towing it was probably better to tow a van, rather than the ‘van’ towing the 4WD.

The icing on the cake for the decision was the cost. It was out of our range :-(

Similarly the motor-homes had the same issues.

OK, so that meant we were looking at a van and 4WD or a fifth-wheeler.  Where to from there?  We started looking at where we were likely to go and that is probably not limited to black top (bitumen) but probably not something as rugged as the Canning, or Tanami.  That sort of puts us into a mix between off-road and blacktop (let’s call it a cross-trail), and it probably cuts out the fifth-wheeler (though I am still open to this option).

Well, that only leaves hundreds of floor plan designs, right?

Next on our list was the practical layout.

Remember this is OUR thinking, designed to satisfy OUR needs and you should not take this as the right way – it’s just OUR way.

We want the flexibility of a shower and toilet, giving us the freedom to stay in a caravan park OR free camp if the opportunity should arise.

We launched into looking at vans at the Sydney caravan show.

Quickly we became convinced that an East-West bed was not acceptable to us as it meant that we had to:

• Extend the bed at night, and
• Walk over the wheel arch each time we wanted to go around the extended bed.

You may think these minor inconveniences should not be important.  Again I say that we were looking for a design to suit US!  These are significant enough issues for us to discount East-West beds.

OK now we are down to a North-South bed (also called an island bed) or one that was against a wall.  The latter we discounted as not suitable by us.  Hooray, we are making progress!

We still have about 20% of the available designs available (and that means about 100).  And so on to narrow the choice.

Next we decided that we did not want a combined toilet/shower.  That’s a personal choice, but one that suits us.

Next we looked at the location of the toilet and shower.  Most vans we looked at had the ensuite across one end, toilet on one side, shower on the other and vanity in between. That was OK, but it meant that these facilities were normally at the other end of the van from the bed.  We see these facilities as being used by us, not as a facility we would share with others.  That being the case we were keen to have them close to the ‘bedroom’.

Can you see where our thinking is going?

While at the caravan show (on our third visit if I remember) we saw a van that had central facilities and the kitchen and dining area at one end.  It was open and welcoming and we could have the opportunity to close off the ‘bedroom’ end (with a curtain or concertina door).  Wow, we thought! Someone thinks the same as us!  Of course we found out that this is called the grandfather design.  What’s in a name?

So where does that leave us right now?

Well we are looking at vans that have a north-south, queen size bed at one end, with split toilet and shower in the centre of the van, isolatable from the rest of the van.  Further in the van we have a central (and probably split) kitchen with a dining end around the end of the van.

This is a SMALL segment of the market, which means we can now go in detail to those specific manufacturers and look at their specific models with the confidence that we have (probably) done the basic thinking to get us a van that will meet our needs.

Will it work out? Well watch this space and see if we change our minds!

Please remember… this is OUR thinking, designed to satisfy OUR needs and you should not take this as the right way – it’s just OUR way.

Now early 2012...

We are expanding our thinking (sorry no pun intended)

We are looking at the possibility of a slide out from companies such as Koolrv, Sunliner, Supreme or Jayco.  It will give us more 'living' space in the middle of the van.

More options than we can poke a stick at.