Choosing A Camping Vehicle.

Something we will be doing over the next 6 months is researching cars that might be suitable as a camping vehicle.

Do we want something that we can just throw a mattress in for sleeping but doing all cooking outside and this could be a station wagon, a panel van or 4x4 of some sort, old courier van or similar…

Or a properly set up camper van?  Buy one ready to go or buy an empty van and built it ourselves.

Four wheel drive or will 2 wheel drive be OK?

I suppose I need to know what I want to be using this car for before we can make a decision on what will be suitable. 

At the moment we have a Toyota Landcruiser trayback that has a canopy on the back.  We haven’t used this as a camping car yet but will in a couple of weeks.  I am a bit of a sook and have a few concerns with this.

Mozzies.  I hate mozzies buzzing around my ears and biting me so I have a mosquito net that will go over the swag to protect me.

Security.  I will have Hubby there to protect me. 

Height.  I don’t have much but this car does.  My concern is that I will have trouble getting up and down from the tray.  Some days I don’t have the arm strength to pull myself up and over the sides onto the tray.  We will take a ladder to overcome this and hope I don’t slip off it.  Maybe we’ll need a vidio camera, just in case…

So going by these thoughts I know that I want something that is enclosed like a real car because I want to have access to the front seat in case we need a quick getaway.  Yeah I know.  A tad melodramatic but there you go.  Sookylala thoughts.  There may be fewer bugs with this one too.

I need something that is easy to get in and out of.

I need something that I will be able to drive.  This means that it can’t be too big, must have power steering, an automatic would be better than manual. 

I had nearly decided on a 4x4 camper van but wonder if the motor being under the seats would be a hassle.  Would it make the car hot?.  No frontal protection in a prang.   But any camper van would have the same issues and a roo bar  could overcome the prang thing.

I am tight so don’t want to spend a lot of money getting what I want and what we buy will need to be reliable but cheapish to run and maintain.  

A 4x4 camper van, automatic, power steering, fully set-up and ready to go for no more than $5000.  Air con would be a plus but not essential.  That's not asking for too much is it.

More looking, more reading, more saving, more dreaming…