Cheapest readily-converted campers/similar vehicle types worth buying?

anetos05

I read that it's cheaper to buy an already converted vehicle than doing one yourself, what's worth buying as a first camper?

fatbelly

That's a very open question

What's your budget?

What size?

Mildly_Miffed

One that isn't a nasty shed.

Vans are not built for long lives. They are built for short, hard lives.

When one is bought, and some MDF thrown in it with some half-baked wiring and plumbing and gas, that may well be an expensive vehicle, but it's not necessarily a good one.

Figure out what you want, what your budget is - and it may well be cheaper (although a lot more work) to build it yourself. It's entirely feasible that buying somebody else's home-built will involve you in at least as much work sooner or later anyway.

born_again

anetos05 said:

I read that it's cheaper to buy an already converted vehicle than doing one yourself, what's worth buying as a first camper?

I would read it as a prebuilt one is built down to a cost. Where as someone building their own will build to the spec they want & spend more to suit their needs.

HedgehogRulez

Cheaper to just buy a cheap car and use premier inns at whatever destinations you want to visit 

born_again

HedgehogRulez said:

Cheaper to just buy a cheap car and use premier inns at whatever destinations you want to visit 

Or local B&B

Herzlos

anetos05 said:

I read that it's cheaper to buy an already converted vehicle than doing one yourself, what's worth buying as a first camper?

It depends on how handy you are. 

With covid there was a huge flurry of people buying vans and turning them into campers, then having them sat on driveways either incomplete on unused. So you can get abandoned projects for far less than buying a van plus the parts. 

That'll range from a carefully completed or near completed van that the owner just never got round to finishing, to the van that's been stripped out and parts were bought but they never found time to actually do the work, to some absolute abominations of bodged DIY.

Another cheaper option is something like an imported Nissan Bongo. 

But realistically unless you're looking to do something closer to wild camping in the middle of nowhere, it'll be much cheaper and less hassle to just book a hotel/B&B.  

lordmountararat

When I had a camper van I discovered that some camp sites will not allow self built vehicles. Converted ambulances seemed to have particular issues. 

Mildly_Miffed

lordmountararat said:

When I had a camper van I discovered that some camp sites will not allow self built vehicles.

We've stayed at a lot of sites - both in the UK and across 20-ish other countries - and never *once* seen any such restriction.

forgotmyname

Properly converted and built properly will not be cheap. Bodged half finished projects are cheap.

Bought a car once where someone had wired the front electric passenger window to the drivers electric window
with enough spare wire behind the glovebox to do the job 3 times.

I was expecting a power issue with one of the window motors but after removing a small shopping bag sized bundle
of wire both electric windows worked perfectly???

WellKnownSid

forgotmyname said:

Properly converted and built properly will not be cheap. Bodged half finished projects are cheap.

Bought a car once where someone had wired the front electric passenger window to the drivers electric window
with enough spare wire behind the glovebox to do the job 3 times.

I was expecting a power issue with one of the window motors but after removing a small shopping bag sized bundle
of wire both electric windows worked perfectly???

Ha ha we’ve just removed about a mile of cabling from a Kuga - I can only guess it was all for the towbar - mostly it was household flex in various colours with series fuses dotted about everywhere with at least three separate feeds running to the battery.