Pick up a nice van, pull out the extra seats, and make yourself a mini-home for the road. Sounds easy enough, but it is actually far more complicated than a lot of people expect. Many auto accessory stores now offer camper van floor plans and conversion kits to simplify the process -- you can contact shops in your area for more information. However, there are a few mistakes you must work to avoid right from the start:

Mistake: Not knowing the available height in all areas

The height of the van will come into play in a lot of different situations when you are implementing certain fixtures. For example, you will need to know the proper height in the following situations: 

• you are picking out the type of bed or bunks to install 
• you are deciding if you can install a certain appliance 
• you want to install a window at a certain point in the van 

Before you pick out any type of camper van floor plan, make sure you have properly measured the height in several points of the vehicle. This will help you a great deal when determining which floor plans will make sense and which ones will be too difficult or illogical to try. 

Mistake: Not planning for space to move

It sounds so simple when you read it, but it is so much harder to avoid than you might think. Once you have every fixture and implement in place, you are going to need room to get from one thing to the next. If you do not leave more than a step's worth of open floor space, you'll feel completely enclosed and like you have no room to breathe. Leaving just an inch or two here or there when picking a floor plan for your van will make all the difference in how much room you have to get around. 

Mistake: Not planning for storage

Yes, you are creating a minimalist-sort-of space, and yes, you are probably going to do all you can to take as little as possible with you. This will not mean that you will not need any space for storage. There are going to be things you pick up along the way, things you realize you need to have with you, and things you will have to hang onto until you get to a disposal point. Pick a floor plan that gives you at least a little more storage than what you think you will need.