I bought a campervan

27 April 2026

To keep exploring New Zealand in winter and not freeze to death in a tent, I decided to buy a campervan. Autumn is a great time to buy vans as the supply is high and demand is low. Many people travel New Zealand for a few months starting in spring and ending in autumn. That means many vans are on the market come autumn and prices are relatively low.

This beauty is a 2012 Nissan Caravan kitted out with everything needed for a green self containment sticker. It's got a fresh and grey water system, a toilet, a second battery, a fridge, a cooking setup, a bed that converts to benches with a table, cutlery and dishes and much much more.

Part of the reason I bought the van was to have a project to work on. As I state on my home page, I like building things. This van seems like it has the perfect foundation to make my it own. While I could theoretically start from scratch using a tradie van, already having the basics and a green sticker is a great start.

Some things on the to do list are:

A new fresh and grey water system
A cut-out in the kitchen panel for better rear mirror viewing
Rounding off some sharp panel corners
New curtains
Sanding and/or painting panels
Adding support beams
Countersinking screws
Attaching new hinges
Connecting the fairy lights to the battery

The TLDR of the current setup is that is works but could be much better.

I'm fascinated by the "interesting" choices made by the previous owners and feel the need to share some of them. I'm by no means an expert, but badly designed things tend to catch my eye. Here's a collection of the less-than-perfect aspects of the build.

Why cut a panel to the appropriate size when you can join two at an angle using connector plates?

The complete lack of perpendicular support. It looks like there used to be a cross beam but it got removed for some reason.

This plywood panel has a good looking side and a bad looking side. They managed to put the bad looking side outward facing. At both benches!

This panel has two shades of beautiful brown and it gives off a very chaotic look. Also, the electricity cables are not routed very neatly.

There's velcro in places that don't make sense.

Hey, what's this weird orange trim around this hole in the bench doing here? Forgive the awful quality of this image.

Oh... They weren't a big proponent of measure twice, cut once.

A collection of screws that stick out or are too long for the wood they were screwed in to:

And finally, some random nails that stick out and do nothing accompanied by a strange configuration of beams that lacks load bearing.

In the end, this collection is just a silly joke and in reality I'm really happy with the van and look forward to tinkering away and making it my own!