The Vanlife Companion

by Lonely Planet

Welcome to life on four wheels. Hit the open road with this practical and inspiring guide. In the first half, you’ll discover how to choose and customise your perfect van, and get it fitted for sleeping, cooking and storage. In part two, we’ll tell you how to stay safe, save money and park legally, then share the best road trips around the world, complete with awesome itineraries. Lonely Planet’s The Vanlife Companion is a great introduction to the global #vanlife phenomenon and is geared to helping you have amazing adventures of your own, whether you’re building a van from the inside out or renting one for the trip of a lifetime. We feature 20 classic campervan routes to fuel your wanderlust and hear from people about how they got started and life on the road. About Lonely Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company and the world’s number one travel guidebook brand, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveller since 1973. Over the past four decades, we’ve printed over 145 million guidebooks and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travellers. You’ll also find our content online, on mobile, video and in 14 languages, 12 international magazines, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks, and more.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 20, 2018

About the author

OUR STORY
A beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure. In 1972 that’s all Tony and Maureen Wheeler needed for the trip of a lifetime – across Europe and Asia overland to Australia. It took several months, and at the end – broke but inspired – they sat at their kitchen table writing and stapling together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Within a week they’d sold 1500 copies and Lonely Planet was born. One hundred million guidebooks later, Lonely Planet is the world’s leading travel guide publisher with content to almost every destination on the planet.

Reviews

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun coffee table esque book that has some quality advice/content.

First half is showing many different types of converted vans, interviewing the owners, going deep into the builds—super cool and gave me a good set of features that will be “musts” for my next guy.

Second half was trip ideas—I think there’s some goodies in there but definitely not worth spending so much time on it. Many were in impossible to get to places unless you live there too. Like yeah I’ll def ship my van to Ireland 😐

Anyways, I did appreciate the depth in responses from people’s builds, bc it really does help you understand what your perfect van is. So thank you book for taking me a step closer in my understanding for what I want in a conversion, and I’m excited for whenever the day I actually take this seriously (many days from now).

[Ines Dias · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many dreams… 😌😌

[Karla Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Vanlife Companion is an interesting book but not all that helpful. It's kind of like reading a long magazine rather than a book. I definitely wouldn't call it a "companion" because it's not a how-to book, at least not one with much detail. It features 10 different people who live in their vans, with a few photos and suggestions from each one. It includes a section on how to think through and consider your options if you think you might like to pursue this lifestyle.

About half of the book covers several different recommended routes around the world. I would have rather learned more about the lifestyle and had more concrete planning tips for van living instead of the route guides. It seems to me that if you were going to travel in your van you could go just about anywhere you wanted, so I'm not sure why it was important to take up so much of the book with recommended routes.

[Cielo Valdez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful in many aspects. Amazing routes as well!

I absolutely loved the different stories from vanlifers, each brought a different inside into vanlife and that was extremely good to see! Each person brought a different type of vehicle, experience and upbringing.

The routes this book has provided were very detailed and were each explained in great detail.

Overall, a very informative book for a person that has no idea about vanlife (like me lol), however I believe it is truly inspiring for anyone!

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok book, but the authors really need to state the type of highway you’ll be on. They don’t tell you how steep, narrow, and windy the road is. I know because I’ve driven them, but the book doesn’t give that information, and it’s vital since not everyone knows the road first hand. The point of the book should be for novice travelers.

[Renee Nutter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well told and interesting stories of vanlife with examples of epic road trips.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but not at all practical, despite being billed as “a guide to camper van adventures”. More of a coffee table book.

[Valarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grabbed this book as a nice way to reminisce about van life and I was impressed that it was quite a bit more informative than I was expecting. Fun times! 🚐

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the van stories much more than the road trips. This is not a how-to book and was generally a little light on detail, but they did find a good variety of lifestyles and budgets who successfully live out of their vans.

Some of the road trips were a stretch. I think I could drive around North America or Europe, but driving around Africa is graduate level travel and not undertaken lightly.