We Bought A VAN!

September 17, 2018 |

After talking about the idea for what seems like an eternity we finally did it! We bought a friggen van! With the way Sydney’s housing market is at the moment it has always appealed to us to own a van that we could sleep in for the purpose of enjoying sunrises by the beach and adventures around this beautiful country.

While we have been contemplating the idea for ages our idea of what van to buy hasn’t always been so straight forward. I assume everything thinks the same when they start, i’ll get a Kombi! That will be cool! Then you hop onto Gumtree and quickly realise your hipster budget can’t actually afford a Kombi that will get you up the street let alone 30,000km around Australia! Similarly we went through this process, quickly moving from a Kombi to something cheap with everything we need (a bed, kitchen and some storage). We came across quite a few that seem to linger on Gumtree and Facebook but nothing ever really appealed… Then… my friend bought a van which not only highlighted that we should decide what we actually want out of the van.

We decided we want a van that was big enough and comfortable enough potentially travel and live from at least a month on end.

So we created a checklist.

  1. It must have a ceiling height tall enough to stand in.
  2. It must be stealth so that we can park by the beach without looking like a “camper” (this ruled out pop top-vans)
  3. It shouldn’t have more than 200,000km – The chances of additional maintenance costs would probably costs us further down the track.
  4. Ideally it should be wide enough to be able to sleep in side ways to maximise the layout of the van.
  5. It shouldn’t be longer than your standard parking bay

This checklist left us with a few popular options in Australia that we looked out for through a few different sources.

Our options:

  1. Fiat Ducato
  2. Renault Master
  3. Mercedes Sprinter
  4. Iveco Daily
  5. Volkswagon Crafer

Want to see what these Large vans look like? Check out this review on car advice. Keep in mind these are reviews based on the latest versions in 2015 and a rated based on their suitability as working vans.

We kept a look out on a few different website and car re-sellers, each of which have their own benefits and drawbacks. (Keep in mind these are Australian based websites).

  1. Pickles Auctions
  2. Manheims
  3. Grays Online
  4. Gumtree
  5. Ebay

Eventually after months of scouring, we finally found a van that actually fit our specs! A flight to Adelaide and comprehensive check and we finally owned our very own Van! For $8500 (what we think is a steal) we were able to get a medium wheelbase, high roof Fiat Ducato just under 140,000km on the clock. Thanks for reading, in our next blog we will outline what it takes to convert an empty shell into the perfect road-trip camper.

BLOG 2 – CONVERSION TIME – CURRENTLY IN THE MAKING In the meantime, follow the progress and feel to ask questions through our Instagram, @wanderlustaussies.

#vanlife #FiatDucatoVanconversion #VanconversionAustralia #CampervanConversionAustralia #fiatducatocampervanconversion #Vanlifewanderslust