This isn’t a sure thing, but I’ve been thinking about buying a van to replace my little mx5 that I use to commute to work. It’s a pretty drastic change, and considering that 90% of my use of my car is to commute down the motorway, it seems like an odd choice, to forgo top down cruising for driving around in a box on wheels. But here’s my thoughts of why a van might be cool

Taking stuff with me

The boot in my mx5 is tiny, and it has trouble holding all my stuff. Currently all I have in the boot of my car is some art gear (I haven’t beeen to art in over a year), and some togs for swimming in. If I had a van (with a couple of cupboards in the back), I could keep my wetsuit (for sunny days), my rock climbing gear, my art gear and maybe a surfboard in the back, ready for whatever adventure summer provides for me. It also means I’d be able to go snowboarding without borrowing Rissas car.

Cups of tea

If I get a van, I’ll probably buy another little gas cooker, kettle and install a big water jug in it somewhere. Some of my favourite times when we used to have a van, was parking up on the south coast, making a cuppa tea, listening to the stereo and lounging about in the sun sitting on some cushions.

Doof doof

There’s no roof in an mx5 for a subwoofer, and I’ve got a nice 12” one kicking around at home. If I get a van, I can install a decent head unit (one with bluetooth a2dp so I can stream spotify from my phone), some rocking 6.5” components in the door, and a sub in the boot.

A bed

I’ve been looking at tiny campers on the internet, and I’ve seen some pretty cool campers made out of vans as small as a suzuki swift. I’d probably get a van a little bit bigger than that, but I still love the idea of a campervan with a bed and a tiny kitchen in it. It’d make it so much easier to decide to go up to Kaitoke for the weekend, everything would already be in the van, no need to dig out all the camping gear from the spare room. Plus Rissa and I could also pack everything up and cruise off to the south island whenever we got 5 days off in a row.

Solar power?

This is a bit of a stretch, but if I really got into my van, I could install a big giant battery from aasolar, a solar panel on the roof and a solar charger, then go off grid for the day. Imagine parking up on the south coast of Wellington, fire up the 3g hotspot, plug my macbook into an inverter and work for the day, making cups of tea and going for a midday swim.

So yeah, I haven’t decided whether to go the way of the van yet. There are a bunch of downsides, like it’s more expensive than the mx5, way less fun to drive around the Petone roundabout, probably use more gas, way less fun to drive on a sunny day, but it’s definitely something at the back of my mind.

Sorry for the non-technical post. Your normal technical transmission to resume shortly.