It is 9 a.m. at the motorhome reception area in Tarifa, Andalusia. In the “sewage” corner, a thick brown and fragrant liquid flows from a box, letting out a few splashes. A vacationer purges the 30 liters of his chemical toilet, two others are waiting to take over. This scene is a #vanlife classic. But if this hashtag is full of posts on Instagram (around 13 million), chances are you’ll come across such an image online. Cozy furnishings, coffee in bed at sunrise, aperitif on the beach… as it is exhibited, life in a van is full of promise. But is the reality always so rosy? From stewardship to nightly dislodgements, including breakdowns, everyday life in a converted vehicle is in reality far from a fairy tale.
You dream of great freedom, but “it’s all about van logistics”, warns Tifenn Butel-Laurent, 28. With her husband, Kevin, they fitted out their first van in 2016, their “mobile cabin”, a Renault Trafic not very successful from the point of view of comfort. They left for nine months on the roads of Europe with their dog, before making it their way of life. Since then, a cat and a little girl have joined them. On their @Three_vanlifers account, we now follow “César”, their latest van, which houses beds, a shower, an equipped kitchen (with an oven!), WCs. No matter the type of vehicle, Tifenn does not budge, life in a van is punctuated with constraints. In his daily to-do list, there is “think about the amount of water, the gauge of the chemical toilet, where to empty it, the limited stock of food…”
Electricity: more juice!
To which is added the autonomy in electricity, underlined by Maxime Bertin, owner of the company Vanille, which rents a fleet of six finely fitted out vehicles. The after-sales service number rings often to tell him that there is no more juice. “People think that by pressing the button, it necessarily lights up. Some take their hair dryer, but it doesn’t work in a van! » The electrical circuit only supports low-power devices. Ditto for the water side, which runs out quickly, even with 100-litre tanks: “At home, we don’t ask ourselves the question of what we consume. We are lulled by the Instagram photos… and quickly caught up by the stewardship! »he said, smiling.
Water: system D
Speaking of water, Clémence Polge, 38, author of the @roammates account, shares her D system. She has been living on the road since 2017 and calls us from the Balearic Islands, where she spent the year with her cat, on board of ” Critter », his yellow Volkswagen T3. The van is equipped with a fixed 10-litre container and 8, 3, 2 and 1-litre flexible water bottles. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t practice communicating vessels: when she goes to a cafe’s bathroom, she takes the small containers out of her bag, fills them and replenishes the main reserve. To live in a van, you need water as much as gasoline: your dishes, your hygiene, your survival depend on it.
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