When you live in a tiny home, you need to find clever storage solutions. Van life forces you to become a minimalist - you’ll need to find a space for everything and be very selective about which clothes and possessions you have with you. You also need to secure and stow away everything before you drive to avoid things flying around when you turn each corner!
We don’t have a designated ‘garage’ space in our van, so we’ve had to come up with lots of solutions to store our possessions safely. Although we admit our van is often a mess, we can store everything away and keep it looking tidy when we need to move on to the next spot!
If you’re looking for ways to store your stuff efficiently, check out our best campervan storage hacks that help us keep our van neat and organised on the road.
Our top storage solutions
Fruit hammock
We put all of our fresh fruit into this handy hammock in the kitchen. It hangs freely away from the wall and so it doesn’t get bruised when we drive. The hammock saves valuable space on the countertops or in the fridge and means that we can go to the supermarket less often. Not only does it look cute, but it means we can see exactly what fruit we have left too.
Hooks for hanging things
Hooks are your best friend in a van. We have them on the back door to hang coats, in the shower room to hang towels, and in the kitchen to hang utensils. We also have a hanging rail on the side of our kitchen unit where we store tea towels, our dustpan and some string bags for onions, potatoes and bread.
Spice rack
One of our favourite kitchen storage features is our DIY spice rack. We filled tiny jars and glued the lids to a shelf above our kitchen sink. They are completely out of the way and save us loads of space in the cupboards. When we are cooking, we simply unscrew the spice jar that we need, add to the dish and then replace it on the rack.
Overhead cupboards
We built custom cupboards above our bench seating to give us tonnes of extra storage space. We each have a designated side of the van and mainly store our clothes in here. We also have space for games, towels and our blackout curtains.
Under bench storage
The space under our bench seats is mostly taken up with important bits like our heater, water tank, batteries and electric system. We do have a bit of storage space under there too! We used to struggle to store all the food we needed in the van, so we built some custom tin storage under one bench. It’s a shelf that’s just the right height to store all our beans, chickpeas and tomatoes - which we eat a lot of!
The rest of the space under the bench seat stores our outdoor table and chairs, hiking boots, coats, and BBQ.
Roof storage
After a year of storing our kayak under our bench seats, we decided it was taking up too much space. To give us more room inside the van, we added two 100L Lomo Blaze Expedition Holdalls to the roof, which we have filled with our inflatable kayak, wetsuits, snorkels and beach gear.
We built a custom Unistrut roof rack to attach the bags to the roof and we lock them on with carabiner clips. We opted for these bags on the roof instead of a roof box as they are easy to get down and use as backpacks to transport our kayak to the water. The bags have completely watertight seams (although the zip isn't 100% waterproof) - but they keep most of the stuff we store up there pretty dry.
When planning a van conversion it’s important to map out the roof of your van too - it’s a valuable storage space! It surprised us how much we can fit up there - two solar panels, two roof vents and a Wi-Fi antenna, along with the bags. We would love to have a roof deck too though…
Kitchen storage under the sink
One of our biggest van build regrets was installing our grey water tank INSIDE the van. We totally underestimated how quickly our 25L tank would fill up and potentially overflow! Finding somewhere to dispose of your grey water responsibly is not always easy and our tank leaked inside the van multiple times. If it’s happened to you, you’ll know it’s not a nice smell! After mopping up puddles of grey water which also damaged our plywood cabinets, we installed an underslung grey water tank UNDER the van.
A major benefit of this decision is that we now have a huge storage cupboard under our sink with space for our Nutribullet, rice cooker, Omnia, saucepans, kitchen roll, toilet roll and kettle.
Bins and cleaning products
There’s a large pull out drawer in our van that fits two IKEA bins - one for general waste and one for recycling. We also have a little storage area for bins bags, cleaning spray and sponges that sit neatly next to the bins. Our small bins do fill up quickly so we try to empty them whenever we have the opportunity!
Stacking pans
For van life kitchen storage, a set of stackable pans can save you so much space. The Tefal Ingenio pan set includes two frying pans and two saucepans that stack neatly together. There is also a detachable handle which you can move onto whichever pan you are using. Pans with handles are awkward to store in a small space, so we find these a perfect space saving solution!
Bulkhead storage
Most vans come with a small amount of storage space above the cab area that can be very useful! As we don’t have a fixed bed, we use our bulkhead storage area for storing all of our bedding. It’s a tight squeeze and we fold it in exactly the same way every morning so that it fits in perfectly!
What could we store better in our van?
There some things we didn’t think about when we built our camper van and now wish that we had a more suitable storage space for. If you are planning a van conversion, make sure you think about where to store these items.
Shoes
Coats
Laptops & chargers
Black-out blinds
Bug nets
Toilet paper
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