VAN TOUR SLEEPS 7 - NEW LAYOUT NOT SEEN BEFORE!

Welcome to our van tour. We're John and Kim from Budget Travel Family. We built this self-converted 7 berth camper van for ourselves and our 5 children. Want to see inside? Let's go. This actually is not a cupboard. Before we start I just thought I'd mention that we built everything ourselves in this van in just 4 months. Two things we got professionally done. The seats here we got professionally fitted and the electrics. Everything else we did ourselves in just 4 months which is just absolutely amazing. With being such a large family we had to search high and low for the specific van. We ended up going for a Boxer with an extra high roof and extra long wheelbase. It comes with 3 seats as standard which are in the front cab. We had to get 4 extra seats professionally fitted by a camper conversion specialist. We wanted seats that had their own seatbelts so basically it was 4 individual seats so our kids on the long journeys basically aren't squashed on each other's knees so they all have their own seatbelts and car seats and obviously going forward they're comfortable on the long journeys. As we go through the cab here we have the kitchen area. We have our special van conversion bible just nicely perched on there. That did help us through a lot and the tube itself. We have our sink with it's own running water and this has been a godsend. We don't have the under tank because we were so many people in our family we couldn't afford the weight of a 100 litre tank. So we have a 25 litre tank here and a 25 litre tank for our grey water as well. A lot of these vans you see have the 100 litre tanks underneath. Sadly 100 litres for us is nearly 100 kilos and with trying to be under the 3.5 ton we couldn't do that. We needed to keep the weight down. It is a pain because we have to empty it a lot and refill a lot but we do keep another one of these in the back which gives us 50 litres of water that we carry around. In the hotter places in Europe it was a bit of a nightmare refilling all the time. As we go further ahead we have the drawers which is full of rubbish. We have our drawers here, pots and pans, basically as much storage as we can possibly get through. It's not there to look pretty but it's there to do a job. Underneath here we have our fridge. So this is a 12 volt fridge. I think it was the 45 litre I think it was. It does have a little freezer in there. It's been absolutely outstanding even when we were in 28 degrees that kept all our food really cool. As we move on now we have two fans, two maxi air fans. One above there and one at the back here. These fans have been outstanding. We were going to do one fan and one air vent to save on costs but we really really have appreciated when we were in Portugal having them fans in moving the air around. We're so glad we didn't just go for one vent and then one fan to save that extra £300. As we go through here we have our en suite bathroom as they may say. This has just got the Shetford Port I think 165. It's a no frills toilet but for a family of seven it can last us two days and then we have to obviously empty it out. We use our Shetford chemicals in there. You wouldn't believe that it does not smell. The toilet does not smell and people can tell you that it smells fresh. You don't believe it until you use it. There is no smell. It literally smells of the chemicals. Until you've used one you'll never understand the smell. As we come here we've got more storage so we've tried to utilise every part of everywhere. We have our raincoats in here usually with a cable tie over them that just keeps them to the wall so if it's a bit wet or you know obviously the weather's not been great this year as you all know. The coats are in there so they're all stored in there and we have our little curtain that comes across so it's a bit of private. As you can see at the back now so we have here storage underneath the bed so this is where we have our cooking hob and then we also have more storage here. Originally this was a dog bed but our little Luna the Cavapoo did not want to use it at all and she slept on our bed for the full duration when we went round Europe. We have a full, this is a European King on here so for everyone that asks on these this is a boxer van. The crafters are not wide enough you have to get the extra leg room in there if you want to go sideways. I'm 5 foot 9, this is, we sleep this way so I'm 5 foot 9 and with my trainers on I can sleep comfortably side to side so my feet don't even touch the end and that's with shoes on. This is so obviously a European King. In the daytime that doubles up as our lounge so the kids, we'll have the doors closed, the kids will all sit round, there'll be cushions on there so basically it has all, it's basically your lounge in the day. You can sit on the front seats but it's a big space that we all use and utilise. We have two windows with openings so that you can get the air go through. Up top here we have two beds. These are two single beds, this one's been chopped down a tiny little bit, there's a little bit off, that's for our 12 year old daughter but it's the width of a full single bed up there. This is the width of a full single bed. Now we have our wall divide in the middle and a maxi air fan there so the ventilation just keeps the air coming through. If you just pan back here onto the kitchen. If you look in our kitchen setup here, this actually is not a cupboard. So we have cupboard, cupboard, because our son is nearly six foot we thought how can we give him space for him to stretch his legs. So up here is a full width of a bed but in here is actually a cupboard where there is no back to it. So that in there is an extra cupboard with mattress in there. That then gives him, it's a six foot two from the end of the bed to the obviously the extra hole. So he can stretch his legs completely out and is six foot two of space. So obviously for the larger people that is a bigger space. As we go on to further along here. So this is the single bed that we have on the front of the cab where the four seats are. We have made this by using a off cut that we got free from Ikea. Ikea give free wood out of it in the car park, they have big trolleys full of free wood. We found this, it was the perfect size. So basically we ordered a very cheap Amazon, I think it was a £65 single mattress which is made of foam and that is a full single mattress. We have then used this piece of wood that we found and got the office chairs which is the Aldils from Ikea and they're basically your, you'll have seen the tables, they're very cheap, I think they're about £20 for the table. These legs are only £2.50 each and they actually come about this big. All I did was cut them down, they come with the bracket that I just drilled on. This actually took about, probably about 20 minutes to make and cut it down to the same size of the chairs and all we have to do is unscrew the legs and screw them on which is every day at night time to put out this full single bed. So once these have all come off, it's just a very simple design, your bed then goes away and it turns your four seats that are at the front of the van into a single bed which our second elder's daughter really loves because she has a lot of space. We then just stow it all away straight behind the seats, there's enough space for all of the woodwork and the mattress just to be pushed straight behind. It is a bit of a tight squeeze but it's so much easier than having a full fixed bed there and then these all go behind as well. So there's four seats there, ready to go for any driving and then up here is another bed that we have built which is basically for the littler children, the really smaller children, they fit up here. So this has our bathroom light, this is the main lights, we have the different lights we have through with the USBs. So we've got our maxi air fan controls and just some more storage. This basically we have everywhere we have USBs, so we have the 12 volts but we also have an inverter so we can plug in, we have a 3000 watt inverter so when you switch that on we can plug the Starlink in or the air fryer. We do have the USBs so there are a lot of USBs with lights on that we can use as we go through the van. The electrical setup around the back I'll show you now. So as we go into the storage area of the vehicle we obviously have built the beds just above the axles of the wheel arches. People say where do you put all your clothes? So we usually have, there's bags here with clothes, each individual person's got their own bag with clothes and we do have some areas where we put clothes but obviously we've maximised every bit of space we could. We have the IKEA storage which just has basically a few bits in there. This has enough space in here, this goes the full length all the way to the front. We have in this a two person kayak. We also have a massive paddle board in the back there, that's our full dining set. Then we have Starlink which has been an absolute game changer. If you have it you know it's absolutely ideal if you're in the middle of nowhere. You've literally put this dish out as long as you have a clear view of the sky then you are getting internet connection. As for the battery set up, obviously there's stuff in the way at the moment but we have two solar panels on the roof which is giving us 380 watts of solar. They are connected to a 300 amp fog star battery, actually no I feel a lie, it's a 380 amp fog star battery and then we have the Renogy 3000 watt inverter. We have literally just come back from six days in Scotland and we didn't have to plug into electricity once, it was just a complete off grid set up and that wasn't in the best of weathers. So, like I said, as long as you're getting a bit of solar. We have a DC to DC charger so as long as the engine is running it's charging that battery up. We have had seven people charging everything using devices, we even took the microwave on that trip so the microwave was plugged in that was used and it was a hairdryer used. As long as you have obviously a bit of sun or you can just run the engine the battery will charge and it will be used so it's a really good set up. Like I said, we didn't do this, we got it professionally done because my mind was blown on the electrics. You get people saying it's easy once you know how, not for me. We've not long finished our van build. Already we've explored France, Spain, Portugal and Scotland. If you want to know more info about our van, let us know in the comments, we'd love to know your thoughts. If you've got to the end of this video, thanks for watching.