12 essential items to make your bus or van more comfortable
Life on the road can be hard. It’s tough to always be on the move and constantly dealing with new problems. That’s why it’s especially important to feel organized and efficient in your rig. The right items can make a huge difference in how comfortable you are in your conversion and in turn, how long you stay on the road. During our time in both bus life and van life, we discovered what worked for for us and built those things into our design plans. However there are a few smaller essential van and bus life items that make living every day life easier.
So let’s get started on our list of the top 12 essential van or bus life items!
#1 Packing Cubes
We pride ourselves on having organized closets and we owe it all to these packing cubes. Not only can you keep things categorized in each cube but it also stops clothes from falling out of cupboards while driving.
Both Drew & I have several of these packing cubes and consider them an essential item for van or bus life. We use different cubes for each type of clothing such as socks, underwear, tank tops, t-shirts etc. They also ensure that if your clothes ever fall out of your closet while you’re driving, each individual item doesn’t spill everywhere. The cubes keep your items contained and organized!
#2 Shark handheld vacuum
We truly cannot rave about this mini handheld vacuum cleaner enough! Both van and bus conversions are full of tiny, hard to reach areas. If you’re just using a broom to clean, you’re missing out on tons of dirt and grime. This small vacuum can reach areas your broom never will. It sucks up amazing amounts of dirt that you can see in the reusable cartridge.
This vacuum cleaner is an essential van life and bus life item for us especially now that we have two dogs. After purchasing it and seeing how much dirt it picked up on the first use, we realized how much we were missing before we bought it. You can’t go without this in your shuttle bus or van conversion!
#3 magnetic screen door
We added this screen to our bus doors and it has made a world of difference. We often camp in buggy areas and this helps keep bugs out while allowing for airflow. If you are living in a van, you can often find screen doors that fit the side door and rear doors of your exact van model. This screen door has surprisingly been a huge boost for ventilation in our bus!
#4 Instant Pot
The Instant Pot has changed the way we cook in our bus! We no longer have to boil water for cooking, rice, lentils, beans, potatoes etc which fills the space with humidity. Secondly, it usually cooks all of these items faster than you can on the stove and keeps the heat down from cooking inside the bus during the hottest summer months. Our solar powered electricity is free, the propane that fuels our stove is not. We use the smaller 3QT option which is the perfect size for our tiny kitchen. The Instant Pot is always our first choice!
#5 SMALL DEHUMIDIFIER
The enemy of any rig is moisture and condensation! We have used both the electric and non electric Eva-Dry dehumidifiers to help keep moisture under control in both our van and now our bus.
The mini electric dehumidifier during the summer or when you are in humid climates if you have enough power. It helps cut down moisture in the air from cooking and showering as well.
The non electric dehumidifier is great if you are short on power or want some extra dehumidifying in specific areas such as around your water tank or near the shower. This specific Eva-Dry model is renewable. That means when it is “full” and the beads turn green, you can plug it in and it will recharge itself until the beads are orange again. We recommend this to anyone and everyone!
#6 Museum putty
One of the trickiest things about being in a van or bus is undeniably figuring out how to not have your belongings fly all over every time you drive.
Vehicle conversions are not like normal houses. We are moving around all the time. Taking a corner too sharp and then slamming on the brakes will often throw everything from the shelves.
Museum putty helps prevent this. It is used in art galleries, earthquake areas, and museums to keep things in place. It is also surprisingly strong. We use it to hold anything that could slide around in place and it works like a charm!
#7 Bose Soundlink Revolve+
We are musicians so obviously we love music! We are also passionate about sound quality. Having this speaker in the bus has been a game changer. Not only is the sound quality stunning, but it has a 360 degree speaker. So you can place it in the middle of your bus or van and it will fill the space with sound.
We connect it to our projector for movie nights, and use it to listen to podcasts and music.
#8 MOKA COFFEE MAKER
If you’re a fan of our Slow Road Stories videos on Youtube you’ve already seen how much we love our Moka Pot! Trust me when I say we’ve been through every coffee method possible. We’ve tried it all.
These days we’ve been loving our 6 cup Bialetti Moka pot. It’s small, fits easily in the overhead cupboard and makes enough coffee for 2 people quickly.
#9 Stainless Steel Compost Bin
We recently discovered how much more convenient it is to separate your wet garbage from your dry garbage. This might not be a big deal in a regular house, but managing your garbage is essential in a bus or a van where you are camping for long periods of time. By separating our “wet garbage” or compostable food scraps, we are able to burry or burn them throughout our time at a campsite. They are then not mixed with our dry garage to rot and smell while sitting in our outdoor garage holder attracting animals.
This compost bin changed the way we think about our trash. This new way of thinking has allowed us to stay in our favorite campsites for long. That’s why it had to make the list of our essential van life and bus life essentials!
#10 APEC 3 Stage Water Filter
This water filter has changed how we stay hydrated in the bus. It is an absolute essential while traveling and filling up your water tank in unpredictable locations.
Previously we would carry two 6 gallon reusable water jugs and refill them at water stations. Now that we have this 3 stage filter we can drink from our main fresh water tank and have safe, filtered, and fresh tasting water.
We’ve also noticed that we drink more water because this filter has it’s own faucet, so it’s easy to fill our water bottles!
#11 Mi Compact Smart Projector
Can you say movie night? We didn’t know what we were missing when we bought this projector. Now we can watch Netflix, Hulu etc on a big screen without the big TV. This projector pairs perfectly with out custom magnetic mounting system downloadable plan and is the one we personally use and developed the plan with. By mounting the screen using magnets, you avoid ugly hooks in your ceiling. The magnets imbed directly into the ceiling to create an easy to use mount for your projector and screen. Moving the projector and screen to different places throughout the bus is a breeze.
This projector is one of our favorite items in the bus!
#12 COLLAPSIBLE Kitchen Items
When we were transitioning our home to van life, we bought any necessary kitchen items in collapsable versions if we could find them. This decision has changed the way that we organize our kitchen.
We’re able to fit more into our storage drawers and have a diverse kitchen appliances and utensils because we have the pace for them! Think about how much space each of these items would take up if they didn’t collapse?
Being able to collapse things like storage containers, colander, and mixing bowls saves a huge amount of space and keeps things organized. These are generally the bulkiest items in a house kitchen. By purchasing collapsible versions you are making them bus and van life friendly and saving tons of space!
We love to cook and as a result, we have a lot of kitchen items. It was the hardest part for us to size down when we moved first into our van and then our shuttle bus. Making items collapsible also allows us to store them in our more shallow overhead cabinets. This leaves our lower kitchen cabinets open for the larger items like the Instant Pot.
BONUS: Snowpeak Titanium Bowls and plates
When we first started into van life, we used porcelain dishes that you would find at big box stores such as Target or Walmart. Well after those falling from our cupboards and smashing to pieces one too many times, we invested in these Snow Peak titanium kitchen plates, blates (bowl plate) and bowls.
Not only will these never break, but they’re durable enough can use them as pot lids or over the campfire. We love versatile items in a small space! Pretty much everything that Snow Peak makes is quality. We also have their Pack & Carry Fire Pan and absolutely love it!
These are Our Essentials from our 8 years on the road
So there you have it! 10 things that we recommend for making life in your bus or van easier. Generally, life on the road is made better by the people we get to share it with and the places we get to experience. However these essential van and bus life items tend to make our life easier, keep us happier, and allow us to be more organized. This gives us more space to enjoy the people and places we love. We hope that these items will help you like they’ve helped us!
For more items and information about each of our essentials, watch our Youtube video:
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