A very uninteresting story about storage on the road.
Just because we’re living out of a car doesn’t mean that we are deprived of luxuries. It just requires us to reclassify our comforts. It’s confronting how much you accumulate when you live somewhere.
Living out of a car isn’t easy. Especially if one of the habitants of that car has OCD, and the other one leaves a similar trail to the Tasmanian devil (you can decide who’s who). But somehow, we managed to go 5 months without killing each other. We actually still enjoy it.
This blog is about how we make it work.
Most common quote:
“Babe, where’s the [insert item we lost]”
The things we carry
Water is a necessity, so we carry 65 litres of it at all time. We don’t have a tap with running water anymore, but we effectively wash our hands “Sadhana forest style”. This means filling a tin with a tiny hole in the bottom with water, so it trickles out slowly. This allows us to wash our hands with a very small dose of water. We named that piece of innovation after the eco-village in India where we learned it. (That is also the place where I stuck my hand in a large pile of human compost.)
Before 
After 
Waterpoint
We drive around Australia carrying the camping essentials, such as a stove, LPG, kitchen utensils, tent pegs and a few tarpaulins. Our car is also home to a milk crate that is designated as a toolbox. Carrying three different types of saws (a powered jigsaw, a handsaw, a hacksaw) an industrial stapler, a strange set of 10 identical Allan keys and a few other bits and bobs (that we will never, ever use). I’m still trying to get Pete to get rid of it.
The best thing to carry around is a fridge, to keep your water and beers cool when its warm. We bought a 55-litre fridge/freezer, which turned out to be a bit too small for my liking. Therefore we combine it with a “veggie bag”. A massive food-delivery-style cooler backpack that we cool and use for fruits and vegetables. We power the fridge through an AGM deep cell battery, that we charge while driving and by use of solar energy.
To organise it all, we purchased 4 plastic 38-litre boxes for clothing and “other stuff”. I had to say goodbye to one, as Pete disapproved of my storage management systems. Having two full “bits-boxes” with random items “you might one day need” was indeed a bit much.
I love our “wet-net”. A net that we strung to the ceiling of the car to store our wet swimwear and towels after having a dip in the creek. But my all-time favourite piece of equipment is my camp oven. A small, cast-iron pot that functions as an oven by placing hot coals on top of the lid. I use it for baking breads and stews on the fire. Pete’s favourite thing is his thrift-shop-fish-knife. He takes this to bed whenever we’re camped somewhere scary. His favourite part of the conversion is the fridge slide – a functionality of the drawers in which you can slide the fridge out for easy access.
The latest addition to the collection of stuff, is a bright red Soda Stream. Because I’m a princess, and it stops me from drinking wine all the time.
The stuff we built
The day we bought the car, I started being obsessed by looking at van conversions. I drew out three functional designs that could work well with our Toyota Prado. One of them even had a hydraulic system to turn the car from a bedroom into a living room. I briefly considered installing a roof window, dimmable spot lights and started fantasising about doubling the value of our car.
I pictured myself being the trendy interior designer who gives commands, and pictured Pete as the handyman who would execute my extravagant ideas. He didn’t feel much for this plan, so we went for a different approach entirely.
The result: we bought a set of second hand 4WD drawers that we placed in the middle of the car, and we built wings on the sides for extra storage. We wanted to level the back of the car, from the top of the drawers to the front seat. On a sunny afternoon by a creek we built and installed a foldable shelf behind the front seats. This provides a level surface to potentially place a mattress in the back of the car and storage below for sleeping bags, backpacks, etc. We didn’t actually end up getting a mattress, as we didn’t have the space. Instead, we went for a second hand roof tent. It’s awesome. It takes 5 minutes to set up, and is very spacious.
For our conversion we had to tear out all the backseats. This was a difficult decision to make, as removing them will have consequences for when we come to selling the car. It might depreciate in value, and we need an official roadworthy certificate that shows that our altered car still passes all safety checks. We decided to go ahead with it, and it’s been a good decision so far.
The way we store
It took us a few months before all our stuff had an assigned place that we were both happy with. Every little thing we own now has a designated spot. Except for my phone, which I manage to lose 3 times a day. This morning I even managed to place my phone on the wheel of the car, and forgot about it until after we drove off. Luckily it wasn’t damaged.
It’s strange how things “feel good” in a certain place. We keep our books under the passenger seat. That’s also where we keep the butane bottles for our emergency stove, (which we religiously keep in the doorway behind the passenger seat, under the hammock-bag). Even though we have a health-care box in which we store all bathroom-stuff and our durable bin-bags, I also use the never-ending space under the passenger seat to store my hairbrush, and the bandaids…
We have a drinks box. A food drawer. An electronics compartment. A kitchen utensils drawer (which fits our utensils immaculately). A bucket to wash up with, in which we also store our two kettles.
At the moment there’s a cold war going on between us for the little compartment between the drivers’ and passengers’ seat. I think it’s for the pens, but Pete uses it for his sunnies. We live a very exciting life. I’m sorry about this. Stay tuned for slightly more interesting blogs to come.
Pete & Jo on the go 