What actually lives in our van: the kit that earns its space

A panel van has roughly six square metres of floor. Everything we own on the road has to justify a share of it, and after three summers of full-time travel the list has become short and boring. That is a compliment. Here is the honest version: the power, water, cooking and safety kit that stayed, the gadgets that went, and the gas and roadside rules that changed while we were driving.

Power: 12 volts and nothing clever

Our electrical system is a 200 Ah lithium battery, a 300 W panel on the roof and a 30 A DC-DC charger that tops the battery up from the alternator while we drive. That has kept a compressor fridge, two laptops, lights and a water pump running through a grey week in Galicia without a hookup. The lesson we paid for early was to keep the whole van on 12 V. The 1000 W inverter from year one now charges a laptop once a fortnight. The electric kettle it was bought for went to a charity shop in Porto, because ten minutes of kettle used more energy than a full day of everything else.

What earned its space: a battery monitor with a shunt, so we know real amp-hours rather than a guess from voltage, and a 10 m mains cable with a CEE adapter for the rare campsite night. What did not: a second power station, a 12 V hairdryer, and the folding 100 W suitcase panel we set up exactly twice.

Water and cooking: less tank, more refills

We carry 60 litres of fresh water under the bed and a 10 litre jerrycan we can walk to a tap with. Two people wash, cook and drink on roughly 12 to 15 litres a day, so the tank lasts four or five days and the jerrycan means we never drive around nearly empty hunting for a service point. A ceramic gravity filter deals with the taste of campsite water; we stopped buying bottled water in the second summer.

Cooking runs on a two-burner gas hob fed by one 11 kg cylinder, which lasts six to eight weeks of daily use. Gas is what kept the electrical system small, a trade-off most people underestimate. Cylinder fittings differ between countries, so the two adapter sets sold in camping shops (one to refill, one to connect local bottles) live in the gas locker permanently. A cast-iron pan, one big pot, a moka pot and a small board cover every meal. The oven box that sits over a burner was used once, for a birthday cake that did not rise.

Safety: the kit that is checked, and the kit that saves you

Two documents now matter more than any gadget. The first is the gas system inspection certificate. In Germany the G 607 check became legally mandatory for every leisure vehicle with a liquid gas installation on 19 June 2025. It has to be repeated every two years and costs between 40 and 80 euro at an ADAC test centre or an approved inspector; without a valid certificate you may not run the gas system at all. Switzerland has required a gas check every three years since December 2017, and Swiss campsites can ask for the sticker at check-in. A self-built van is not exempt, so we had ours tested before the season and keep the certificate with the registration papers.

Beyond what the law asks for, three cheap things earned permanent places: a combined smoke and CO alarm above the bed, a propane detector mounted low near the hob, and a 2 kg powder extinguisher clipped inside the sliding door where either of us can reach it from outside. A 12 V tyre inflator and a torque wrench for the wheel bolts have both paid for themselves on Portuguese gravel.

What we stopped carrying

• The portable toilet. We use campsites, service points and cafes, and the cassette we never emptied became a shelf.
• The second pair of camping chairs and the full-size folding table. One small table and two chairs cover everything.
• The awning. Heavy, slow to deploy, and not allowed to open in most of the free overnight spots we actually use.
• The drone, the tripod and the second camera body. Together they took up the space where the extinguisher now lives.

None of this is glamorous, which is rather the point. The van works because there is little in it, the little that is there is checked, and the gas paperwork is in the glovebox. Confirm the equipment rules for each country you cross on the official links below before you leave; they moved twice in the time we have been driving and they will move again.