One of the most important facets of building a camper van that is hardly ever talked about is: storage capacity. If you're considering a new home on wheels, bringing the comforts of home with you within the storage space available in your camper van has has a tendency to devolve into an expensive, frustrating game of gear Jenga.
At Off Highway Van, we engineer our van interiors to not only have more functional space than our competitors, but also to have more usable storage space throughout the van, from gallies, to cabinets, and even storage bench seats and wardrobes.
The Challenge: Max Out The Storage Space
The challenge itself is simple: take a week's worth of gear and fit it into the van functionally (without cramming and overcrowding) and see if our competitor's van can hold everything we could fit in the Off Highway Van Davey Jackson, while still providing access to the amenities including showers, galleys, cabinets, and vice versa.
What's in the Gear Pile?
Our test gear pile includes: a Yeti 75 Tundra cooler, two mountain bikes, 3 small coolers, skis, boots, a week's worth of food and drinks, gear bags and accessories for both skiing and mountain biking, helmets, and all necessary items for bedding and cooking on the trail.
Storage Comparison: The Off Highway Van Davey Jackson
The Davey Jackson 144 is our modular, luxury camper van option from Off Highway Van. This van includes the ability to seat and sleep up to 4 and can be optioned with features like internal showers, flip seat box storage, Mod Pod seating, wardrobes, and more. It is one of our most versatile, modular layouts that can truly be customized to exactly what you need it to be.
This model comes standard with two sets of cabinetry: a 72" (3 x 24") cabinet section on the passenger side and an additional 36" cabinet section behind the driver. This van was also optioned with flip lid bench seat storage, standard galley, and an internal half-shower. Though this model is not our heavyweight of storage, like our Sundance Kid, it was the fairest comparison to our competitor's floorplan.
After a storage filling montage, we see all of the gear listed above stored easily without overcrowding into the Off Highway Van: no cramming, and no wasted space.
Storage Comparison: Our Competitor's Camper Van
When you first step into our competitor's van, you notice everything in the van including the beds, seats, and shower, feel much closer together. You will also notice a significant difference in both cabinet and drawer shape and size in each van. But, this may just be an optical illusion, so let's test the same gear pile into our competitor's van!
Our Thoughts While Packing The Competitor's Camper Van
Right out of the gate, the competitor's shower takes valuable storage space with the shower head and curtain taking up an entire overhead cabinet.
This is a major drawback and immediately eliminates a significant percentage of their storage spaces. But, let's see if that space is needed once we pack the van with our pile of gear.
Now this shouldn't shower storage be a problem considering the galley has an extra drawer, right? Unfortunately, the galley drawers in our competitors van are significantly shallower and lack the width necessary to store most full-sized kitchen items.
Our pots and pans and many other utensils had to be relocated to a much less functional space in order to be stored.
Camper Van Fridge Size Comparison
Another major drawback we noticed about the competitor's van was the chosen size of the fridge in their galley. Our Off Highway Van Davey Jackson galley comes standard with a 130L Isotherm fridge while the competitor van (with a very similarly sized galley) is optioned with a much smaller fridge.
Based on our math, and after packing the fridges, that leaves behind 12 beers, something that we would prefer to take with us for a week-long van trip.
Over-Driver Storage Solutions
You'll also notice, as we pan to the front of our competitor's van, there is no over-driver shelf. This is a major miss for storage solutions.
Our Off Highway Vans come with an over-driver shelf to allow for additional storage, mounting options for TVs and projectors, audio equipment storage, and more!
Under-Bed Storage Solutions
The under bed storage is truly where our competitor's van falls the furthest behind. With a center mounted post dividing the largest storage area in your van, this limits both the items that you can add to the storage area and the overall functionality of the space (I only hit my hand 10 times loading and unloading gear).
The competitor utility boxes are also significantly wider and leave less overall space under the bed to begin with. This led to crawling over gear, more time loading (and unloading), and less access to the gear once it was in the van.
Did we mention our competition also did not include a sliding gear tray like our Off Highway Van?
You'll notice that not only are the utility boxes smaller but that the Off Highway Van does not need a center post to support our aluminum bed frames which opens up your storage options significantly under your camper van's bed.
What Got Left Behind?
After packing our competitor camper van as tightly as we could (while still maintaining our ethos of functional access to amenities and not crammed) there was still some major gear left sitting out on the ground. So what was left behind?
2 full-suspension mountain bikes
Skis, poles, and boots
4 pillows
12 Off Highway Van Hops
How We Engineer For More Storage Space
At Off Highway Van we've been building camper vans differently since 2016. Our custom-engineered aerospace aluminum interiors allow us to maximize the interior space of your van in a way that a wood build could never dream of all while being more durable, less noisy, and more functional. This additional interior space leaves you with: more storage solutions, larger cabinetry, functional galley drawers, larger fridges, and overall a much more optimized layout for a functional camper van.
Ready To Build Your Off Highway Van?
If you've been considering downsizing to van life or are looking for the best remote basecamp available, look no further than Off Highway Van. If you need space for all your adventure gear without compromising, we have you covered. More storage, longer lasting, higher performance: that's Off Highway Van backed by an unmatched lifetime warranty*.
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