We spend much of the school holidays touring with our two pre-teen kids and dog in our VW California campervan around Europe, and over the more than 6 months we’ve spent in the van in the past 3 years, we’ve amassed a load of gadgets, gizmos, additions and curiosities that make our camping more fun. 

In this post I’ll share a few of our favourites in the hope that if you’re thinking about campervanning (or already doing it but would like to add something new to your kit) you may get some ideas.

This is the biggest thing on this list. It is a large awning that attaches to the side of the van. It trebles the living space easily. Combined with a knitted nylon groundsheet, it transforms living in the van. We went for this one (plus an electric pump) because it is really fast and simple to put up and down, it covers the front door as well as the side door so both can be silenced and closed, and it is not too big in the boot (it takes up about a third of it).

It’s not cheap but it’s exceptionally well made and we are very happy with it. You can detach it and drive away, but one thing to bear in mind is that you need to completely remove the supplied rollout awning with the van and buy a special slider that fits into a groove along the side of the van to attach the awning to. Once you have that it’s really simple to detach the van from the tent.

In the hottest of weather, though, it can get too hot inside it, even with the front open, as it has no windows or sides to encourage a breeze. So you get shade, but it’s too hot to take advantage of it. That’s why we also added…

From Decathlon, this is a domed tarp with an arched pole across the front that isn’t made specifically for the above, but works fine with it. It gives you a huge additional shaded area with wide open sides at the front of the Bus Tent. 

Set up facing north on even the hottest of days and you have a huge, shaded multifunctional living area that as long as the pitch can handle it is an amazing place to live - and the tarp is again really simple to put up and take down, occupying very little boot space.

Saw a Spanish family produce a HUGE screen and a home cinema projector at a campsite once, and we wondered if a smaller campervan take on the idea might be possible. This projector has a wonderful picture as long as it’s after dark, and we got an 80” screen complete with stand on Amazon that folds up no bigger than a set of tent poles for easy stashing in the boot. 

We watch films etc from a USB stick, but also it can usually mirror Netflix etc playing from an iPhone, via an HDMI adaptor and cable. It charges via USB and is good for a couple of hours once that’s done. Watching something with the kids has become an evening habit when camping.

Coffee is extremely important to us and while we don’t go as far as carrying specialist espresso equipment as some do, we do have both a large-volume cafetière (see later) and this, a “one large cup” Italian moka machine. This is a bottom-heavy take on the more traditional design, which suits using it on the tiny camping burner. 

As it is usual for someone (usually me) to be up at dawn, this is a way of avoiding waking everyone else up trying to prep coffee on the campervan’s stove and instead banging out a quick cup or two out of the van. It takes about a minute to boil the water through, which makes the process incredibly fast, too.

The VW California comes with two chairs that stash cleverly in the boot door - but there are four of us. For the extra two, we went for these Helinox chairs which are comfortable, and thanks to a clever tent pole-style frame, pack away very small. In fact, they pack away so small that we can tuck them into the same zip-up compartment where the two “official” chairs are stored, meaning they don’t take up any extra boot space at all. Genius!

Did I mention that coffee is important to us?  This relatively large cafetière can make one and a half big mugs each, is made of plastic so it’s unbreakable, and comes with a tea cozy- style cover, which makes it easy to pour and keep the coffee warm. 

Copes OK with moka-grind coffee, which is just as well, as apart from in the UK and France (of course) we find courser-ground cafetière coffee hard to buy.

I’ve written about pressure cooking  before, but it’s seriously changed for the better the way we cook in the van too. Basically in one pot I can cook paella, risotto, biryani, pasta dishes, and things like curries and chillies (you empty the finished main part of the dish into a second small saucepan and cook the rice in the pressure cooker second, which takes about 3 minutes). It tenderises tough beef and lamb in about 10 minutes, and cooks poultry in 3 minutes.

Basically you can have a meal in 15 minutes that tastes like it’s taken hours, no wasteful long gas cooking times, minimal smells etc in the living area. This one is a 2.5l WMF, and it makes exactly enough for two adults and two kids. Can’t imagine being without it now.

There’s no substitute for using your van, figuring out what is important to you and your family, watching other campers for ideas, and refining your gear as you go along, but these are some of the things we’re currently really enjoying using daily on our travels. When I’ve compiled another 7, I’ll probably make a follow-up post.