Well, size IS apparently everything!

With Dave hanging around at 6ft3, we quickly realised by watching video’s posted by other campers who had their beds sideways across the van – “I can fit in snugly at 5ft10” – we were going to have a possible size issue.

And we wanted to fit in at least 3 bikes…

I saw the NEC Motorhome & Caravan Show was on – this is a great day out. We went to a talk by Dave Hurrell with Top Tips & Advice when you’re new to Motorhomes – this was really valuable.

But we found that all the ‘off the shelf’ campers, nice as they were, didn’t have enough garage room in the back for our bikes/kit….or Dave.

This answered our query – we couldn’t buy ready-made, we would need to build our own.

We wanted to try before we went full steam ahead & bought a panel van to remodel into our home. And that’s where Quirky Campers Campervan Hire came to our rescue.

They rent out all sorts of campers that are well put together self builds – different from the manufactured norm. We hired Maggie for a week in February. A Mercedes Sprinter van with a ‘garage’ in the boot for bikes, double bed above the garage & a kitchen/living area.

We did a mini tour around the South Downs and Brighton, getting a feel for driving a 7m van on country lanes and in the city.

Give the van you’re thinking of living in a try – see how you move around in the space. We found that internally the Sprinter is the same height as Dave, which means it’s a fraction too short for him to live comfortably in. This gave us the answer of what type of van we’d be after – high!

Suddenly we became knowledgeable about van sizes and terms – we were after an L4H3 = long & tall.

We started the search trying to find a second hand van, it’s not easy – turns out that there are lots of long vans but they’re all the lower height (H2).

To buy a new van it would take 3-4 months minimum.

After LOTS of calls to second hand van garages and to dealers, Dave finally got a lead and we were off up the M5/M6 to pick up our future ‘home’.

The message is – try before you buy and if you need to be fussy about your van, don’t just think the right van is going to fall into your lap straight away. You may have to compromise on some of your specifications, but keep looking and something will turn up!