Building While Travelling

Are you planning to live on the road in a van? We were in the same boat as you, and we learned a lot during the process. We made a decision to end our rental contract in Finland by the end of November 2022 and hit the road. But before that, we needed to ensure that our van was equipped with all the basics we needed to live, including enough battery power and heat. Running warm water would have been great, but it was something extra.

We spent December and Christmas in Jyväskylä, near Miro's family, where we were able to fix our frozen grey water tank issues and test how warm our van actually gets with a Chinese diesel heater when there are -25 degrees Celsius outside.

Originally, we planned to buy windows for our van from Germany, where they are much cheaper than in Finland. Unfortunately, we were in Germany between Christmas and New Year's, and all the places that sold camper accessories were closed. So, we changed our plan and decided to buy windows later, maybe from Spain. After arriving in Spain, we realized that being inside the van during the day was already warm, but we felt claustrophobic without windows. After a quick Google search, we found Campernet.es, a retailer in Terrassa, Barcelona.

Since we were already in the northern part of Barcelona in Vilassar de Mar, it was only a 50-km drive to Terrassa. We went to the shop on Thursday after work and had one of the best customer experiences we've ever had. Victor helped us choose the right windows and even showed us how to install them. The next morning, he ordered the windows for us, and we could pick them up later that day.

We designed our electric system to allow us to perform maintenance on the road without needing to rely on external sources of electricity. To achieve this, we installed a 2000W Renogy inverter and a 200Ah lithium battery, providing us with enough power to use electric tools such as a jigsaw and drill. I will go into more detail about our electric system in a future post.

Installing all three windows took us two days because it was our first time ever installing a window. We had to measure everything a hundred times and make sure everything was straight. We did the whole job in front of the beach of Platja De I'Almadrava at Villasar de Mar, and everyone who walked by our van was curious and wanted to know what we were doing. Some really friendly people even stopped to chat with us during our installation process.

After those two days of installation, we are really happy with the outcome of how the windows look, how much air and light they bring in, and how they take away the claustrophobic feeling that we were having inside the van. If you're planning to install windows in your van, we highly recommend Campernet.es in Terrassa!