DLM Distribution

You Don't Have to Be a Camper to Own a Campervan

Not everyone who owns a campervan considers themselves a camper. Some certainly do. They look forward to weekends in state parks, evenings around a campfire, mornings beside a lake, and having a small RV ready when the opportunity to get away arrives. For them, camping is an important part of the experience.

But camping can also be only one part of a much bigger picture. People work, visit family, travel to appointments and events, take road trips, attend festivals, explore small towns, follow sporting events, spend time outdoors, and occasionally find themselves somewhere beautiful where staying another night makes more sense than immediately driving home.

For these travelers, the appeal of a small campervan isn't necessarily about becoming more dedicated to camping. It is about having a vehicle that creates more possibilities within a life they are already living.

Travel Doesn't Always Begin With a Vacation

We tend to think of RV travel as something that starts when everyday life stops. Vacation begins, the RV comes out, and the trip gets underway. But travel doesn't always happen that neatly. A business trip may take you through an area you've always wanted to explore. A Friday appointment several hours from home might put you within easy reach of a state park you've never visited. A family event can become the beginning of a weekend road trip, while a concert, festival, bicycle ride, hiking trip, or sporting event may provide a reason to stay another day.

Sometimes work itself creates the opportunity. For people who visit customers, attend events, manage projects, work remotely, or spend significant time on the road, a campervan can provide a private and comfortable space that travels with them. Between appointments, it might become somewhere to open a laptop, return calls, eat lunch, charge devices, or simply sit comfortably for a while. When the workday ends, there might be a campground an hour away, a scenic road worth exploring, or another day available before heading home.

A business trip can even become part of a trip for two. If work requires one person to travel several hundred miles, a spouse may be able to come along. One handles the reason for the trip while the other explores the area, and an extra day before or afterward can become time together somewhere neither would have made a separate trip to visit.

The point isn't that every business trip should become a vacation. It is that work, family responsibilities, recreation, and travel don't always have to occupy completely separate parts of life.

A Vehicle That Doesn't Have to Wait for a Trip

With many RV classifications, there is a natural separation between the RV and everyday transportation. A motorhome or travel trailer may be stored until a trip is planned and then returned to storage afterward. That arrangement works very well for RVs intended primarily for camping, vacations, and extended travel.

A garageable campervan can create a different relationship. At approximately 6 feet 8 inches tall and just over 17 feet long, the Mini-T fits in a residential garage and standard parking spaces. For owners with available garage space, that means the campervan can simply come home with them instead of being taken to a separate RV storage facility after every trip.

More importantly to this discussion, it can remain useful once it gets there. A vehicle of that size can be driven to work, the grocery store, a family visit, a trailhead, restaurant, event, or weekend destination. The camping capability comes along whether or not camping has anything to do with that particular day.

That changes the question from, “How often would I go camping?” to something broader: “How might I use a campervan?”

Sometimes You Camp. Sometimes You Don't.

Owning a campervan doesn't mean every trip has to involve a campground. A longer journey might include several nights camping, a hotel in a city, a cabin somewhere special, and a few days staying with family. On another trip, nobody may sleep in the campervan at all. It can simply be transportation with food, supplies, electrical power, privacy, and a comfortable place to spend time already along for the ride.

That can be useful in circumstances that have little to do with recreation. Someone accompanying a spouse, family member, or friend to a long appointment may appreciate having somewhere private to read, work, eat lunch, watch television, or rest while waiting. A parent or grandparent at an all-day tournament may appreciate the same things. So might someone spending several hours between business appointments or waiting for an event to begin.

Then there are days when the opposite happens. An event ends, the weather is beautiful, tomorrow is free, and going directly home suddenly seems unnecessary. Find a campground nearby and what began as an ordinary day away from home can become another morning somewhere different.

That is where the distinction between a campervan and a vehicle used only for camping becomes interesting. The value isn't necessarily measured by how many nights are spent in a campground. Sometimes it is simply found in having another option.

Comfort That Travels With You

Many campervan features become useful in ways that have little to do with traditional camping. In a Mini-T Campervan, refrigeration can keep lunch and drinks cold during an ordinary day away from home. The couch that becomes a bed at night can be a comfortable place to read or relax in the afternoon. A microwave and sink can be useful at a campground, but they can be equally convenient during a long day on the road.

Solar-supported electrical capability, along with charging while driving or through shore power, provides another example. At a campsite, that power supports time away from conventional hookups. During the week, the same system might be charging a laptop or phone while someone gets a little work done between appointments.

A refrigerator is a camping feature until it keeps your lunch cold during a six-hour appointment. A couch is part of the sleeping arrangement until you're sitting on it watching a game while waiting for someone. Electrical power is an off-grid feature until you're using it to work on your laptop for an afternoon.

The equipment hasn't changed. The reason you appreciate having it has.

Camping Doesn't Have to Define the Trip

There is also no reason to build an entire journey around the fact that you are traveling in a campervan. Camp when camping makes sense. Stay in a hotel when you want to explore a city. Reserve the cabin overlooking the lake because staying there is part of the experience. Visit friends or family along the way. The campervan isn't being wasted on the nights you sleep somewhere else.

In fact, that freedom can make campervan travel more interesting. Instead of asking, “Where can we camp tonight?” the question can simply be, “What do we want to do next?” Sometimes the answer will be a campground. Sometimes it won't.

Fewer Reasons to Say, “Maybe Another Time”

Most people don't need help finding places they would like to see. The challenge is fitting those experiences into everything else going on in life. A bucket list shouldn't accidentally become a waiting list simply because every trip feels as though it needs to be a major undertaking.

A free three-day weekend can be enough to explore somewhere a few hours from home. A required trip can put you unexpectedly close to somewhere you've always wanted to see. Visiting family can include another day on the road. A concert can become a weekend. Sometimes the big cross-country journey is exactly what you want, while other times a few days are enough.

Over the years, all of those journeys begin to add up.

Maybe “Campervan” Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

A campervan is, of course, designed for camping. But the name describes only one thing it allows you to do. It can also be transportation, a comfortable place to spend an afternoon, a small mobile workspace, a place to have lunch, a way to extend a trip by another day, or simply a vehicle that lets you travel with more of the conveniences of home nearby.

Some trips may take you across the country. Others may take you to work, a family gathering, an appointment, a festival, or somewhere ninety miles from home that you've somehow never explored. Camping may be the reason for leaving, something that happens along the way, or not part of the day at all.

That may be the larger idea behind owning a small campervan. You don't necessarily have to reorganize your life around using it. It can fit among the work, responsibilities, interests, people, and places that are already there.

You don't have to be a camper to own a campervan.

You may simply enjoy having more possibilities when you leave home.