Our adventure-mobile

Few pics of our van in various camping spots from our first trip.  It was a kind of getting-to-know-you trip, we'd only had the van a couple of weeks.  

Looks good!

Nice to have the 4wd so you don't always have to stay close to the tarmac, isn't it?

Where is this exactly?

Scotland mostly. Such a beautiful place. Only downsides are the midges and that it's getting very popular...

Actually nothing there needed 4wd, only times I used it was on a campsite in Skye (waterlogged grass) and when I got stuck on a campsite in Peebles! It does, however, stop me worrying about where I park. My old van got stuck very easily, especially on grass, so I was always worried about where we stopped

1. Think that was an RSPB reserve near the Cairngorms
2. Community campsite (a field with a bin!) on the banks of Loch Ewe
3. Shap in the Lake District, road there is a farm track and got the van covered in cow muck getting there!
4. Kielder Forest, not far from Hadrian's Wall.
5. Dornoch.
6. Not sure about that one, somewhere between Skye and Torrindon.
7. Cairngorm ski centre. Donation based carpark, free venison

As always with camping in the wilds, we left places cleaner than how we found them.

Ok sounds good. Well, you will be amazed with the van actually can do off-road.

If you take your van out to Europe on longer trips, there are quite a lot dirt roads in mountains that are fantastic to drive, and bit of climbing is no big deal for the Hiace.
But if you going to go in muddy places, you may wish to have had mud tyres. However, there are some simple tools you can bring to get unstuck.

I was impressed with how the van handled steep climbs.  Not quick, but nice and smooth.  We have a plan to quit the 9-5 and see the world, so I think we've chosen reasonably well.  It's not a landrover or landcruiser (I love troopies!  but so expensive here), but I think the HiAce will be okay.  Probably needs a small lift (but not as high as yours!)  We're running M&S tyres at the moment, but will need better for some of our plans

I was watching a video the other day of the Western Alps.  I'll see if I can find it.  Looked awesome.  Think they are known as the military roads.

Here we go:

Well, tell me, what do you wanna do?

My girlfriend and I took a Landcruiser troopy (BJ45) for one year through Asia! Amsterdam to Nepal and back

The Hiace with a small lift will allow you do most of the roads and tracks anyway, just not the extreme stuff.

Edit: Seeing the Western Alps clip, yeah these kind of roads is what I meant, they are fine for the Hiace, should be easy most of the time.
These old militray roads are also on our list

Sweet! Until a few years ago it never occurred to me that you could drive to such far flung places. When we travelled, we got on a plane... We bought the VW camper mostly because we'd been camping in the rain and the tent had flooded! Then we chanced upon an overland travel show and loved the whole idea.

Read a few books, followed a few blogs (one of our favourites is a Dutch couple in a BJ45)...now just trying to get to a point where we can afford to travel long term without having to work too much. No specific plans, we're not very good at planning (like the time we headed for the Black Forest and ended up on Helgoland).

Your new van looks in great condition. It has the same colour scheme as mine did before it's respray last year (little bit of rust so better to get it done before it became a lot of rust).

Haha, which site is of the Dutch couple in a BJ45? And where did they go?

Because it is very likeley the site of Coen en Karin-Marijke (who are still travelling with the yellow beast) or our site
(I mean, it could be another one that I don't know, but there are not so many)

Thanks toldsimply, it's in reasonable condition - a few bumps and scrapes, but nothing major. It clearly lived in a city for a while! We made it worse by parking in a windy (and I mean really hard to stay stood up windy) gravel car park. Got kinda pebbledashed But this is why I don't buy immaculate cars!

Hiace4wd, Yes, Coen and Karin-Marijke. Love the way they travel. where is your site?

This looks amazing. And what a holiday! Have you got any inside pics of your vehicle anywhere? Just joined this forum and in the market for a 4x4 Hiace camper, so very keen to perv over nice examples like yours

Looks great, very stylish.

TwentyOneThirtyFive wrote:

Hiace4wd, Yes, Coen and Karin-Marijke.  Love the way they travel. where is your site?

Yeah they are great. We meet with them every year (in Netherlands), like a small travellers gathering. Although I must say I'm currently also just working, not travelling hehe.
If you're plans for an overland trip are getting serieus, let me know, I might invite you

Our site is http://www.lovetheworld.nl

timtimtim wrote:

This looks amazing. And what a holiday! Have you got any inside pics of your vehicle anywhere? Just joined this forum and in the market for a 4x4 Hiace camper, so very keen to perv over nice examples like yours

Thanks. I'll take a look but I don't think we have much in the way of inside pics. We had the same issue, there is much more variety in the HiAce camper world than what we'd seen in the VW world! We went to a dealer that lots in stock so we could compare and contrast layouts (spent most of the day there there and ended up buying one from them).

Have a look the HiAce Hobo website, he gives a video tour of his (which is slightly different to mine).

Good luck with your search

Hiace4wd wrote:

TwentyOneThirtyFive wrote:

Hiace4wd, Yes, Coen and Karin-Marijke.  Love the way they travel. where is your site?

Yeah they are great. We meet with them every year (in Netherlands), like a small travellers gathering. Although I must say I'm currently also just working, not travelling hehe.
If you're plans for an overland trip are getting serieus, let me know, I might invite you

Our site is http://www.lovetheworld.nl

Thanks I've seen photos from those events on their blog, some impressive vehicles. Spoke with Coen a couple of times, was quite surprised when he added our bettybus blog to his overlanders today site.

Thanks for the link, will take a look.

Ah you already made contact, nice!

TwentyOneThirtyFive wrote:

We went to a dealer that lots in stock so we could compare and contrast layouts (spent most of the day there there and ended up buying one from them).

Have a look the HiAce Hobo website, he gives a video tour of his (which is slightly different to mine).

Oh believe me, I've spent a lot of time on the HiAce Hobo website. Envious hours...

Which dealer did you visit? We've found one near Bristol but would gladly spend a day at another.

All the best with your future adventures...

The one near Bristol.

Thanks

toldsimply wrote:

Your new van looks in great condition. It has the same colour scheme as mine did before it's respray last year (little bit of rust so better to get it done before it became a lot of rust).

 

How much was your respray, and who did it? My Hiace is looking like it could do with one for exactly the same reason.

Hey Russclaat,

My respray cost £2500, including a bit of welding just behind the sliding door (someones previous accident bodge repair job). It wasn't a bar metal respray but they took the paint back to metal where it was needed. I also had the wheels powder coated in white which they did me a deal on of £200 and they look great. The place I used is in High Wycombe called Auto medics http://automedics.org.uk/ They're a nice bunch of people and did my van proud.

toldsimply wrote:

Hey Russclaat,

My respray cost £2500, including a bit of welding just behind the sliding door (someones previous accident bodge repair job). It wasn't a bar metal respray but they took the paint back to metal where it was needed. I also had the wheels powder coated in white which they did me a deal on of £200 and they look great. The place I used is in High Wycombe called Auto medics http://automedics.org.uk/ They're a nice bunch of people and did my van proud.

Hey, thanks for the info. Will come in useful. Would love to see some pics of the powder coated wheels (and van)!

I'll chase some pics up and see if I can upload them.