Stealth Camping Van

[markkee]

I have been working on and off for a few months building our family stealth camping van. It's a 1998 Ford Club Wagon, 4.2 liter v6. It looks like the thousands of other white window vans running around town. Nobody notices it.

I have a good friend who can design just about anything. We came up with the idea of 2 folding beds-1 in the rear cargo area that folds up for easy in and out. The front folding bed rests on the 2nd row bench seat. I used narrow door hinges on both beds. I settled on 3/8" plywood for the front bed as it makes it lighter. All the legs fold in.

[Mike]

Re: Stealth Camping Van

Looks really cool. Do you have children or only you and your wife?

When I was a kid in the sixties and seventies, my Dad would pack us up in the Volkswagon camper van and drive to some of the most remote places imaginable. We would bounce around on barely graded gravel roads scratched into the sides of steep mountains most probably by miners one hundred years earlier. There were no barriers between our rolling wheels and the edge of an endless drop. Sometimes we would drive on desert paths for days at a time. These were not even dirt roads. They were just paths. Some led to long forgotten mining villages. Others went nowhere. Even as a young kid I knew that if anything ever happened to the van, we were so remote that nobody would find us and we would have been screwed.

Ya, we did stealth camping, but there was never anybody around for a hundred miles or more to hassle us for camping where we camped.

BUT real adventure is nothing without some degree of danger so we always had a great times and memories. We all slept INSIDE that camper van - Mom, Dad, and FIVE kids. Mom made hammocks that got strung up in the narrows of the camper. The front seat turned into a bunk bed for me and my brother. Clearance from bottom to top was only eighteen inches so it got miserable and claustraphobic as we grew.

I hope your van brings you great adventures

[markkee]

Re: Stealth Camping Van

Mike,

Sounds like you had some great adventures too! Please elaborate and write some of your past experiences. Back in the 8o's, I used to hitch hiker all over the US. Other times I would ride my bicycle for months camping out until I ran out of cash.

My wife and 2 boys sleep in the van. It's huge compared to the VW. We have room for 6 adults and can sleep 4 comfortably. We could probably sleep 2 more under the platform bed.

We have put on 7000 miles in the past year camping out. We leave in a week for a month long trip.

[Mike]

Re: Stealth Camping Van

Wow, how absolutely fantastic. I have read many of your previous posts and know that you and your family truly enjoy the outdoors and take camping adventure to the next level.

The van sounds very nice. I cannot even imagine the size that could sleep four to six adults. What do you do with the front seat(s)? Do you take them out or fold them down?

It sounds like you have more room than our old VW camper van. You know, it was a cool vehicle at the time because it had tables, chairs that converted to beds, a sink, an ice-box cooler, storage in odd places. Somehow, though, we used it to camp and sleep seven people. My dad had a bad experience with bears when he was camping solo, so he did not like the idea of any of us sleeping in tents outside, especially when we were way off in the boonies.

What I can tell you is that when we would drive to some of the really remote mining villages back in the 1960's the abandoned buildings were full of stuff - whisky bottles, beds, tables, all kinds of stuff from the early days of mining. We could have camped inside of them but they were too rickety and spooky. Those were the days before the motorcycle gangs got their kicks from burning the old abandoned villages and pulling down the buildings.

I remember fishing along pristine ice cold mountain streams in Colorado and my mom catching trout using only a fish line and hook and a piece of aluminum foil from her cigarette wrapper. No pole, no reel, just those three pieces of hardware and we would have rainbow trout or speckled trout frying in the pan. Dad would be off fishing serious and mom would fish with stuff she found laying around so she could entertain us kids. She would often catch more than dad.

We drove that camper van with all seven of us from the southerm part of the USA to Canada and camped on the shores of the Great Lakes which was like paradise to us at the time. We had never seen water that big or waves so big that you could body surf. As a kid, I learned that Canada had their own money, their own postage stamps, and girls my age that I could end up having a crush on.

Your kids will remember you for the gift of experiences you are giving them now.