🎙️ Episode Title: Ep 187 w/ John Stuckey at Bear Hug Campers - Building the Perfect Campervan | Vanlife Design & Road Trip Freedom

In this week’s episode of The Winging It Travel Podcast, I chat with John Stuckey, the founder of Bear Hug Campers, a UK-based company known for crafting custom-built campervans that perfectly blend design, functionality, and adventure.

John shares how his passion for travel, craftsmanship, and freedom led him from building his first DIY campervan to launching a thriving business helping others bring their vanlife dreams to life. Based near the South Downs in England, Bear Hug Campers has become a go-to name for bespoke van conversions, off-grid living setups, and self-build support.

We unpack every stage of the campervan conversion journey — from early inspiration and learning the essential skills to understanding realistic build costs, materials, and layouts that actually work on the road. John also reveals the biggest rookie mistakes first-time builders make, the non-negotiables for safety and quality, and how to make smart choices that save money without cutting corners.

If you’ve ever dreamed of designing your own van, taking a road trip across Europe or North America, or simply embracing a more minimalist, nomadic lifestyle, this episode is packed with invaluable insight and encouragement. John’s experience offers both the creative inspiration and practical knowledge needed to start your own vanlife journey.

We also discuss the latest vanlife trends for 2025, including the rise of smaller, stealthy vans, clever space-saving designs, and why more people are turning to modular and off-grid builds. Plus, John explains how Bear Hug Campers supports the growing self-build community through his online van conversion courses, offering hands-on guidance, video tutorials, and a vibrant learning community for DIY builders.

This is a must-listen for vanlife enthusiasts, digital nomads, and travellers who want to combine creativity with practicality — and discover what it truly takes to build a home on wheels.

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⏰ Timestamps

00:00 Safety First: The Importance of Quality in Conversions

03:07 Budgeting for Your Dream Van: Cost Breakdown

06:01 Travel Tales: Exploring the UK and Beyond

08:55 The Allure of American Road Trips

12:03 Cultural Experiences: Japan and Its Unique Charm

14:49 The Journey to Van Conversions: Personal Experiences

18:06 Learning the Craft: Skills for Van Building

21:04 Bear Hug Campers: The Business of Custom Conversions

29:01 Building a Community Around Van Conversions

30:12 Budgeting for Van Conversions

34:35 Essential Features in Van Conversions

37:09 Cost-Saving Strategies Without Compromising Quality

41:07 Safety First: Where Not to Cut Corners

42:57 Common Rookie Mistakes in Van Conversions

48:35 Trends in Campervan Designs

51:06 Choosing the Right Van for Conversion

57:37 Must-Have Elements for a Successful Build

59:07 Designing the Perfect Van Layout

01:02:08 Understanding Customer Needs in Van Conversions

01:03:57 Training and Education for DIY Van Builders

01:06:05 Common Challenges in Van Conversions

01:08:37 Exploring the Van Life Community

01:10:00 Travel Destinations and Client Preferences

01:11:06 Unique and Challenging Requests in Van Builds

01:14:05 Future Projects and Innovations

01:16:05 Quickfire Travel Questions and Insights

🌍 Follow Bear Hug Campers

• Website: bearhugcampers.com
• Instagram: @bearhugcampers

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Check out the new Smart Travel Podcast

This week's show is supported by the new Smart Travel Podcast. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Check out Smart Travel at the Link below:

Smart Travel Podcast

Check out the new Smart Travel Podcast

This week's show is supported by the new Smart Travel Podcast. Travel smarter — and spend less — with help from NerdWallet. Check out Smart Travel at the Link below:

Smart Travel Podcast

where do you not cut corners?

I would say anything that's got a of safety element. If you've got kind of gas, electrics, heating, things like that, we would always and only put in the reputable brands that are designed for that purpose. You will be able to find stuff online that is like more than half as cheap, but I just think there's no point in doing that because would you want to kind of, you know, bring your family into a van where you're staying overnight and you know that every gas component, every electric component, every heating component is like,

Budget, budget, budget. There's too many variables, there too many risky elements.

Let's go with basic, mid and luxury. A self conversion for each one of those. How much roughly do you think budget wise you'd be looking to spend? Just a conversion. Just a conversion.

But let's say you're just buying everything from a shop supplier, whatever. I would say a budget one would be two to five thousand spend and that's to get like everything that you would want. Water system, gas system, electrics, somewhere to sleep, somewhere to sit, eat and everything like that. And then I would say mid maybe eight to ten and then top end maybe like fifteen. If you've got fifteen thousand to spend on a conversion you're going to get pretty much everything you want.

Welcome to the Winging It Travel Podcast, your weekly ticket to the world, dropping every Monday and hosted by me, James Hammond, proudly part of the Voy Escape Network. This is a travel podcast that throws out the itinerary and dove straight into the raw, real and unpredictable essence of global exploration, chasing moments over milestones, those spontaneous encounters, immersive sounds and unforgettable stories. Whether I'm hiking up volcanoes in Guatemala,

or camping under the stars in British Columbia.

met incredible people, seen breath taking places and collected unforgettable stories. I now get to share them with you, alongside some of the most diverse and well travelled guests from around the world. Expect engaging conversations that bring fresh perspectives and inspiring travel tales. There are also raw, reflective solo episodes where I share personal insights, practical tips and honest stories from the road. This is a podcast for travellers, dreamers, backpackers and anyone who's ever thought, what if I just went for it and travelled. If you're looking for stories to tell, tips to share,

and experiences to inspire, then you're in the right place. There's so much travel content coming your way, it might just spark that trip you've been dreaming about for years. You can find Winging It, a more fantastic travel podcast from around the world at voyescape.com. The link is in the show notes. Let's go and explore the world. Hello and welcome to this week's episode in which I'm joined by John Stuckey from Bearhug Campers who specialize in custom built campers RVs, camper vans.

And John is based on the outskirts of the South Downs in the UK. And today we're going to talk about why John got started with van conversions, road trips, how to rebuild a camper van, how to even think about beginning to build a custom camper van or home and wheels, should we say that. And all the questions you can imagine relate to this topic. John, welcome to the show. How are doing?

Yeah, very well. Thank you. Having a lovely Sunday afternoon here in slightly muggy weather in my attic room. So I've got all the windows open, but all good, all good.

It's been great weather, isn't it, in UK last month or two?

Yeah.

It's, it's great. It's almost too hot, I would say, but that's just me being a stereotypical British tepid weather person.

And no one has aircon, do they? That's the problem. Yeah, same here actually. Like their flats here don't have aircon, but they brought in a rule. We had a super dome. I don't even remember the euros that was rearranged. Was that 2021? I remember watching the euros in the summer here and was it 2021? Or 2020, one of the two. But it was super hot. And from then, cause it's like, it's called like a super dome, hot dome thing where this basic heat got trapped onto Vancouver.

It's not a thing.

They're like, no, we need new rules. So they put on a new rule where any new builds are going to have aircon. But the problem is that doesn't come in till 2027. Everyone else has got older buildings with no aircon unless you get like a fancy apartment. So people are struggling to like, what do we do? Do we try and move or do we install an aircon unit? But it has to be done though, right? It's getting hotter.

It is getting hotter, yeah, has been the back of our minds, but we'll see how goes for the next few years.

Yeah. Okay. And you said you, well, I said you're in South Downs in UK. Can you explain to my listeners, maybe North American listeners, where that is in UK?

South Downs in the UK is, one of the kind of national park areas. It is fairly close to the coast on the south coast, maybe about two hours south of London. And it's kind of sandy forests, lots of pine forests and little hills and stuff. Very pretty sort of part of the world.

It's like a small town, small village area.

So I'm kind of on the border of it. So where I live is actually in the County of Surrey and my workshop is a little bit more South and that's in Hampshire, which is technically in the South Downs. Yeah.

Okay, great. And we're to go to some backstory and before we get into the van conversion stuff. KeyTel listeners, is that where you grew up initially and was like, I don't know, camp vanning or road tripping, was that part of your childhood growing up?

So it's not where I grew up. I grew up in the east of England, equally countryside sort of part of the world. is in Essex, which doesn't have the best rep.

I'm from Norwich.

Yeah. Oh, nice. Not too far away. It's actually got some really nice, um, countryside around there. It's a lot of kind of agriculture. So loads of massive fields and nice places to walk in between. And we're from a small country sort of market town there, unbelievably quaint British type thing. And yeah, we did, did travel a amount. I would say 90 % kind of UK holidays. Um, we went a lot to, um,

the North of England, like kind of Lake District and things and quite a lot to Wales. So I kind of got quite a good memories of traveling around the UK and just kind of turning up at some random. They were called like Airbnb, it wasn't a thing then it's like self catering. was the word. So you never really knew what you're going to turn up to because you know, online reviews didn't exist and anything. had a few.

Yes, that's the way.

of dodgy ones, but yeah, definitely did some good exploring.

a throwback in it self catering. thinking back on the, yeah, that just means you go to the shop, you buy your own food, you cook your own food and you literally stay in someone's house or spare like, I don't know. guess it is. Yeah. Wow. Self catering. Yeah. Cause you then you get half bored, don't you? Which means you get breakfast.

Someone's like, it's the Airbnb, but yeah.

I've not heard of that one. Is that, I suppose that's what like a bit like a BNB or something.

Yes, I guess so. Yeah. Half board. Yeah. B &B. Yeah. Which is almost the same, but I you then get fed breakfast by the owners. But yeah, I guess it's like Airbnb with a spare room and you get breakfast. now.

We share our age now.

I always

find that a bit awkward. Like I quite like to the ones where you sort of turn up, there's a key box, don't need to speak to anyone. You go in and check out Sword online and stuff like that. It's the introvert in me probably quite enjoys that.

B &Bs are still going, aren't they? They're still-

Yeah, think, yeah, you get some of the classic seaside town, BNBs and stuff like that. Yeah.

But maybe not quite as big anymore because of Airbnb, maybe. Hmm. Yeah. An interesting one. Okay. And you mentioned Wales and North of England. mean, scandalously, I've not really been to Wales that much apart from Cardiff. And then I've never been to Lake District or Peak District, right? So they're areas of the UK where if people are thinking, where should I visit? This is like full of like small little villages, lakes, hills, country pubs, that sort of vibe, isn't it?

Yeah. So the Laid District is like, is four kind of English terms impressive, know, hills and rivers and lakes and stuff, I would say is pretty impressive. It's pretty north. So it's like not a million miles away from Scotland. So it's got kind of nods to that kind of style of countryside. Each, they're all national parks. So each national park like that, Peter Stritz, ⁓ Laid District, South Downs, all those, they all have their own type of.

style of countryside and how it looks. I really liked the Peterstriks as well. So I used to, I lived in Yorkshire for 10 years as well. So we went a lot to Yorkshire Dales and Peterstriks and stuff on walks and things. yeah, it's really, you can find some really secluded sort of big open spaces there, which I think in England is like something that's quite nice to find because sometimes it feels quite on top of each other in the cities and things.

That's the opposite of here in Canada, there's so much space. Yes. Yeah. I think if people are thinking probably like an old, I don't know, country TV show that's filmed in England, they're probably filming it in Peak District, they? Those are classic stone walls and walking trails and country pub, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, like, what's big over there. I don't know, like Downton Abbey that's filmed up in New, well, it's supposed to be kind of New York and stuff, that kind of everything's like nice stone buildings and little streets and stuff and all still a hundred percent looks like that now. So yeah, driving van through a big van through some of those is a little bit interesting, but yeah, very good just to like take it all in and soak up.

Yeah. Like great walking trails and stuff like that. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. A bit of dreaming of summer, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Actually thinking about it. Okay. And you said American road trip here for maybe a trip that fueled your wanderlust. So I think when we think of road trips, I don't know if you agree with this, growing up in the UK, when you put a, you you a grow up, you learn a bit of geography and maybe a bit of travel, you kind of always think, oh, road trip in USA, like going across, I don't know, Route 66 or something, right. That's always in the mind, isn't it? I think. Yeah.

Yeah,

I think it's like so many films on it and things and it seems like the ultimate for someone in the UK, like the ultimate kind of road trip, know, kind of road tripping. Cause a road trip in the UK is kind of going up the M1 and stopping at service stations to see your mates that live in the North or South or something. So I actually went on my own and I'd saved up for ages. That's one of the things that's just like, I just want to do this. I hired a, cause I'm really into bikes, so hired a

Harley over there and I went from LA up kind of through the edges of the sort of desert and stopping at various places and things and went up to Reno and basically turned around and came back again and stopped in a different set of places. So it's probably, I don't know, 10 or so days or something, but it was, was, yeah, really good. Love to do it again.

think what we found in that part where you get out of the city part of California or even Oregon or Washington state, when you go to the Eastern parts of those states, that is desolate. Like there is nothing around apart from your gas station or maybe the odd thing you might see on the road, but other than that.

Yeah. I don't know. I went in like end of June or July or something, but it did feel like nobody was about a lot of the time. Yeah, it was very hard. was expecting it to be kind of super busy, but I was going through, you know, some small towns that felt like an old Western movie or something with just like an old bank and a gun shop and, know, riding through on your bike, stopping for a burger and stuff. was, a lot of it was like very cool.

And I like, I like that. I like, and you know, I went to Reno and I spent kind of five minutes there and it was after that whole South to North trip, suddenly it was just, it was a bit much and I was like, but I had the freedom just to kind of, cause I didn't sort of book anywhere in advance. just kind of jumped on my bike and cracked on.

Say the nose to my towels.

Lots of yes, some interesting motels.

Yeah. Interesting. Good diplomatic word that is. Yeah. We road tripped from East to West in USA, but we had six or seven weeks. But when we got from South Dakota, which is where the classic Deadwood series is filmed at, and it still looks like that as far as the tourist attraction now, it's still got those night, you push the doors through and all that sort of stuff. From there to Oregon, and we stopped off in one place called Christmas Valley. It was...

the most desperate I've ever been. And we almost got like a little bit worried because we're not seeing anyone for two hours. And I had one of those petrol stations where you have to like pump it. I didn't know how to work it. I said, Hey, look, I've got to have some help here. I don't know how to, how to do this. Like when it's old classic gas stations. But I remember like filling up there and that was the last thing we saw for two hours before driving into wildfire smoke into this like really small place in the middle of nowhere. And it was just full of RVers. There's no one else there. Just RV campers probably

Like a little community, maybe, don't know, settling in the middle of a desert.

Yeah. I mean, suppose if there's not much around, you kind of have to have like a tortoiseshell on your back kind of thing to be able to actually enjoy it if there's nowhere to really stay. But yeah, there's some, a few things that you just don't realize are different, like really simple things. You have to pay for your petrol before filling up. And then, and then nothing seems to be kind of like here, everything's just like contactless or with your phone and...

there I was just signing so many kind of credit card checks and things and it all, it kind of felt quite old school actually, but I did quite like it.

Yeah, that's a weird one that the sign stuff they have over there. Yeah. And also you, you still write on the tip, you you write the tip extra and sign. Does that even work? I don't even know how works. ⁓

did make sure that I wasn't a proper Brit abroad. was definitely trying to be generous with tips for things on my own. And people were very nice, very friendly as well.

Oh yeah, 100%. You do find that in the, I guess, like the countryside of USA, which is huge. Yeah. Okay. And you mentioned a USA road trip. Was there any other travel like internationally after that or before that?

The other big trip that we did, me and my partner here was Japan. that was like, so we, like we, every now and again, we'd, you know, do a big trip that's obviously a bit more expensive, but then in between we'll do like kind of more easier to reach places, I suppose. But Japan was something, a place that my partner has been kind of really wanting to go to for, for ever. And I hadn't really thought about it too much. And then when we went like,

Instantly, I was like, this is a next level. It was just incredible. Kyoto was my absolute favorite place. was, yeah, I can't even explain how kind of different and amazing it is just to go there. And yeah, I'm desperate to go back again and do a bit more traveling, of going a little bit more north into the countryside as well.

It's like a futuristic place, isn't it? It's hard to describe it. Especially if you go somewhere like Osaka where you've got three levels of transport underneath you, road level and above you. It's like what is going on here? Lights everywhere. It's a different world, isn't it? think.

Yeah. Yeah. So like Tokyo and Osaka kind of like that. And then you go to somewhere like Kyoto and it's just, it's like ancient. Yeah. It's kind of like, can't move for temples and stuff. it's just, it was so much like that. And then we went to Osaka afterwards and it was like another culture shock, just from being in Kyoto.

Going back inside, innit?

So

I think we had that, I we finished in Osaka and I actually got a bit of a culture shock there. was like, I don't know what's going on. It seems to be in some sort of order, I don't know how this order works. Yeah. Japan is amazing country. It's the one country that we always say that we'll go back to and we've not been back since. I think it's on the cards, think a hundred percent. Yeah. Also for Japan, think road tripping would be quite interesting.

Yeah, it's pretty intense.

Yeah, definitely.

If you, yeah, obviously you'd have to kind of hire something over there. I think it would be really interesting to sort of drive up and so you can kind of go in your own time. Cause when you fly internally to places, I feel like you miss a lot of things. So you'll go from one big city to another big city. And yes, you can do kind of train trips out to see things like, you know, different mountains or whatever. But I think if you're driving or camp running and going,

a little bit making the kind of journey between those two big places and stop off at some places maybe don't have too much of a itinerary or something. I think that's where you can have some really kind of good experiences.

But I think people don't road trip it that much because the trains are so good. Yes. Shinkansen is insane, isn't it? Yeah.

They're amazing. And we were on a kind of day trip out to somewhere and there was only like one train every couple of hours or something. And they held the train for us for about a minute. And we didn't realize that's what they were doing, but they're so polite and so kind of courteous. They held the train. So we ended up kind of running for it and got on. And then it like just absolutely double timed it and kind of made up that two minutes that it missed and just arrived exactly on the second.

Yeah. It puts us to shame. ⁓

Yeah, compared to UK trains, my word. That is a different level. Yeah. And again, built, you know, we're still talking about HS1, we? HS2, whatever it is. Yeah, it's taking like a hundred years. So yeah, let's get this like amazing network of shinkans and bullet trains built. It's incredible. Okay. And before we dip into Bearhug Campers and the questions about converting camper vans, was there a road trip where maybe you thought...

I would like to build my own camper van or maybe think about maybe having a custom one built that suits your needs for any other road trips coming up. Was there a trip like that?

The first kind of, I suppose, experience of it, I'd always, one of my first jobs was actually in an events company and we were in caravans quite a lot. So we'd go to Europe and UK and stuff doing these big shows and festivals, doing all the setup and the kind of the tech for it. So I had a caravan, it wasn't mine, it was just the company's. It gets you into that frame of mind. And that was from the age of 16 to...

maybe like 21, maybe. that kind of like, I just really enjoyed having that space that was yours and you're really protective over it. It's like your safe space. I mean, it's an absolutely horrible old thing, you know, but it was, it's yours. And it was something about having your space wherever you went with your own food and your own toilet and your own safe space to kind of sleep and things in all the carnage, wherever you are.

I didn't realize that that maybe it sparked something, but it kind of got that into me. think just traveling and like we've always moved a lot, lived in lots of different places, just in the UK, but like my family can never seem to stay in a house more than a few years and stuff. And so it's been like that from, you know, when I was, you know, really little and stuff. So I think that's all got a kind of normality in my head of, of kind of moving around, traveling, camp-founding type thing.

And we actually had a van when I was doing a bit more bike building. had a van that was just used for hauling bikes and stuff. And we decided to go to Belgium for just a holiday. And we stayed on a, just outside of, I can't actually remember it was just outside of now, but we stayed in this kind of motorhome campsite thing and we didn't have anything in there. I think I'd put some carpet on the floor and we just got a mattress from our spare room and chucked it in there.

And then some camping chairs and we borrowed a little camping stove. And when we rocked up there, all these like, like European, like super pro motor home people were there and like everything, you know, the washing lines and things like that. And they all were really amused by our entrance into this site. this, was a, it was a, van looked fine, but when we kind of opened it all up and there was just nothing in there, but we had the most fun because it was like, it was something quite...

liberating about having something that not you didn't care about, but that it was like, your expectations were so low that everything was good fun after that. and that really was like, okay, let's, let's do something with this band now, you know? So it was, it was, that was the, maybe the catalyst, let's say.

How did you start going about maybe learning like the skills? Cause I guess we'll come onto this a bit more, but if people were thinking right now, just at a basic level or yeah, like in that situation, I'd love to like add some cabinets or maybe add a little bit of like a water tank. You're going to have to like learn all sorts of things, like woodwork, plumbing, but how do you go about learning those skills?

It's, it's a crazy amount of, of different skills that you kind of need to pick up, ⁓ in one space. I mean, the best way to think about it is it's a studio apartment in a van that also has to be able to be kind of launched down the motorway at 70 miles an hour kind of thing. So, then turning corners and going over speed bumps. So it's like, it's harder than that. ⁓ but I'd always been kind of brought up doing loads and loads of practical stuff. So my dad was a.

retired carpenter among other things. So he's taught me loads of stuff like that. He's doing metal work on bikes and just, you know, moving a lot and fixing things at home and learning kind of electrics and plumbing and stuff. So kind of built up a general palette, I suppose, of, of skills, then transferring them into a camper van, everything is slightly different. So if you know household plumbing, it is different in a camper van, like using different things and stuff.

And I did kind of look for, for like, you know, like courses or like what, how you can find things, you know, learn all this stuff. But because it is such a massive subject, it's quite hard to find things like that, which is where we can mention this later. It was one of the reasons why we now run a course for that. So for people in that position have something to actually get them going. So what I did, I just got a van and just had a crack fully knowing that it was going to all, you know, be a bit of a disaster and it was fine. And then.

I kind of learned by doing that and then I stripped it out and I did it again in the same van. So I knew by that point that I was in the back of my mind. It's like, I can do this and I would love to do this as, as a job. So I was kind of doing that with that in mind. Like how good can I get this? How much can I learn? Redo it, redo it until I can, you know, get better, get better. Because I think by that time I was, I was a bit sick of having a kind of office job.

Sitting on a computer for 10 hours a day. And I was just desperate to move. I'll get in like, you know, such kind of jumpy legs. was like, I need to go and do something. So I was thinking like what kind of, um, encompasses all of the things I like to do in different skills and things. And that was about the most comprehensive kind of subject that I could put to that. Um, so yeah, kind of skipping ahead to why we started what we're doing, but.

That was kind of, I suppose, the way I got into it.

And yeah, let's go to why. So why, well, I guess that explains why, like, where did Bear Hug come into it? Was there a phase even before Bear Hug where you're kind of honing your skills, if you like, on certain campervans or your friends' campervans or just your campervan before you started Bear Hug?

Yeah, definitely. it that, it was that camper van, I suppose, that I was kind of redoing. was all, you know, behind closed doors. wasn't, I didn't like have a, you know, an Instagram account, kind of sharing it or anything. was just kind of cracking on. And all the other things I kind of am into as well, like woodwork, metalwork, graphic design, photography. And then I just really like kind of the, the runnings of a business and you know, all that kind of organization.

just constantly thinking like, can I, and I knew I wanted to kind of work for myself and run a small business. was just thinking, how can I put all of those things into something? And that was kind of what I came up with. Pretty looking back at it, I was pretty like, yeah, that sounds great. You know, let's crack on, let's go for it. But luckily it's worked out all right. But I went into it thinking that

I'd done loads of planning and stuff, but I now know probably like starting any small business. I now know that there was so much that I didn't know. Not, not in necessarily in just building CamFans, but in the whole running of a business and stuff. you just learn, don't you? just, you just do it, make mistakes, change, learn, do it again. So yeah, it's definitely different every single day. Um, and we've gone through various iterations of stuff and you know, all sorts of things. So.

It's, it's always, always kind of pivoting and morphing into something as I change, the business change, the world changes, everyone else changes and stuff. yeah, it's definitely interesting.

I think you can't be on the job learning. don't think a course or a book is going to get you that far. think it might give you a basic understanding, but the things that you've learned, guess, day to day of your business are unique to your business and you, suppose. So how are you going to learn that from someone else? don't know. It's a bit like podcasting away. Like people release podcast courses about how to get, I don't know, sponsorship or how to get this set amount of downloads, but everyone's journey is different and the subject is different and you're different.

There's no one course fits all. It's an interesting debate for that for podcast anyway. for Bear Hug, can you tell the people what you roughly, well not roughly, like as an elevator pitch, what would you do now? What do you offer and how can, how does that help people with campervans and maybe campervan conversions?

So I'd say we offer three main things, which is a complete full commission. So you bring a van, we turn it into a camper van and we work together in quite a collaborative way to do that. The other thing is a dedicated system install. would say mostly electric systems. That's one of the things we've kind of morphed into being specialists at. You might be building your own van and

Maybe just want someone else to do that part of it. Or you might already have a van and just want to put a brand new big swanky off-grid system in it or something. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing is helping self-builders. And this is more online. So we're not set up to have a massive workshop. know, we can have loads of people in and physically teach them. And what I found is we were getting

Literally hundreds and hundreds of questions just through emails and Instagram stuff, like every single month of self builders that likes what we did and they were doing it themselves. So they were never going to be a, you know, a full commission customer. They just had, they just had questions. And because I knew the position they were in from me being in that position a number of years ago, I would just make a point to try and answer every single question that came in. And there was so many, was like, there needs to be something where this is.

available. I spent a year developing a, an online course for bank conversions and self builders, to make it not so kind of stuffy, suppose, stale, it's more like a community in a course with me as part of that. So I'm on there answering questions. There is loads of content and videos and all the rest of it.

I'm on there answering questions pretty much every day. have monthly catch-ups on zoom. People are like in their van with, you know, showing around and like we're all chatting about. So we could, it is quite a, not lonely experience, but it's like, it can be, you might feel a bit secluded, I suppose, when you first start, like you've got all these questions you've got no one to ask. So just trying to make this community course where we have that as a thing. And because they're paying for it.

They don't feel like they're kind of annoying you or anything. it's like a thing. it's, it's not like a, you know, it's not a massive, not got hundreds of people on there, but the people that are on there are like super like dedicated and they, kind of love it and they will, you know, they even go for like meetups with each other now and stuff. The ones that live fairly locally to each other and stuff, and they're helping each other out as well. So sometimes I'm not even answering your questions. So that's quite nice just to see that build up. yeah, those are

the three pillars, I suppose, of Bear Hug as it stands.

One of them actually has got a job, another van conversion company in England as well. yeah, it must be all right.

There you go. You've done your job. Okay. And you mentioned some of these questions that they may ask. I've actually got a few of those questions in case people are thinking or listening right now. Like, Oh yeah. Wonder what it would take to start it or get it going. Right. So I've got some questions here. So you mentioned you obviously got your expertise and stuff. I'm going to go with budget because I think people probably think money first. Let's go with basic, mid and luxury. A self conversion for each one of those. How much roughly do you think budget wise you'd be?

looking to spend. Let's go with English pounds as well.

English pounds. Okay. Not including the van. So just the conversion. Okay. So it's different whoever you speak to, because everyone's got a different level of what they want the final outcome to be. Cause I know some people that can, they do a lot of like sort of recycling work with, you know, with materials and things. So they can literally build something for nothing. And it's, it's incredible what they do. But let's say you're just buying everything.

Just in fact,

from a shop supplier, whatever, I would say a budget one would be two to 5,000 spend. And that's to get like everything that you would want. So, you know, like water system, gas system, electrics, somewhere to sleep, somewhere to sit, eat and everything like that. And then I would say mid maybe eight to 10 and then top end maybe like 15. And that, mean, that is like, that's like

decent, if you've got 15,000 to spend on a conversion, you're going to get like pretty much everything you want, but there are certain things that just cost a lot of money. So if you're putting in extra two seats in the back to, you know, make it a full berth or something like that, you're going to be spending like a thousand pounds on those seats because that's just kind of how much they cost. So it all really does depend what your

kind of going for, if you're like happy not to have hot water and if it's just you and your dog and you want it to look beautiful, but really simple, then you can spend so much less. But then as soon as you start saying, right, we want hot water, we want heating or like we want air con or we want everything to be off grid and we want to be off grid for a week and not have to plug in suddenly it's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it all just massively adds up. So yes, you can, you could literally see two vans side by side that would look identical.

One would have costs in parts and materials. One would have cost five. One would have cost 10. And it's just kind of what you choose to put in behind it.

Okay, it's interesting. I guess we'll come to the vans in a minute, like what type and the price of those. But, and then a pro conversion, I guess this would be people come to you, right?

Yeah. So I would say, I would say 99 % of people that come to us, they want kind of everything in it that they want. So they want hot water, heating, maybe 50 % want a kind of shower inside and toilet and things. You know, they want a decent fixed bed, everything. They want it to be professional. So we don't have that ability to go on the budget, skip diving as they say, kind of thing. we're doing it a...

Everything we do has got like a base level of kind of systems in terms of like electrics and all the rest of it. And then everything on top of that is where it's a sliding scale. So I would say for smaller van conversions are a bit more simple. It might be 20,000 and all the way up to maybe 65,000. And that was one that we'd done and it's got like massive electric system. fully off grid, you know, like

An induction hob there and stuff. It had aircon that you could also run off grid. So like all that kind of stuff had a big shower in there, a toilet that pulled out in inside the shower room. So it was pretty full on, but that's just what they wanted. They were going to be in it a lot, lot, um, traveling around for long periods of time. So it was more like, you know, it's, you're not kind of, when you're talking of that kind of level of stuff, it's not like you're competing with.

different camper van companies and things. It's almost like somebody likes your style and likes your vibe and they like you. And it's either they get a kitchen extension or home at home, or they get a camper van. So it's, it's that kind of more of a different mindset. Whereas if you're more on the lower end of stuff, ⁓ it's often people that maybe just want something to go out for a weekend with the kids or something and just to kind of upgrade camping.

So it's a bit more luxurious and stuff. So we do cater for that kind of range of people. it's, it's just nice to see what everyone, everyone wants and everyone's different.

What are the top, this is a new question actually, what are the top five things that people normally do have across the spectrum of basic to luxury? I've got some guesses here, but I'd be intrigued to see what you think in terms of what people generally do choose to have.

Um, well there's a certain level of stuff that is almost like non-negotiable that just always goes in like insulation and, you know, just standard things like that. I would say, well, you always need somewhere to sleep or not always if you're having a day van, but 99 % of the time you need somewhere to sleep. Um, so that would either be a fixed bed or a converting beds that also doubles as a seating area. Um, some way of cooking, whether that's, um,

a gas hob connected to a big gas system with an unsland gas tank or a small little camping gas bottle under the sink in a locker or something like that. Sometimes even just a little portable one where they're happy just to have a pullout shelf outside or something like that. But pretty much you need somewhere to cook and then somewhere to lounge and sit down and some, you know, to eat off a table or something like that. Those are your kind of basic things that are always in.

in there and going along with something to eat is some sort of kitchen prep sort of area. Yes. And then storage, but how can I forget about storage? Storage, storage. People absolutely love talking about storage and getting storage in there. I like to travel light. I'm kind of, it never crosses my mind as much as it does, but it seems to be storage solutions and available storage spaces in a van is like, is, is almost more important than

showering and going to the toilet I would say.

Wow. Okay. ⁓ I wouldn't say that, but okay. That's interesting. Yeah. Basically. Cause our camper van is a small Toyota Sienna. So it's like a, from year 2000 and we have a lot of storage space and a little kitchen area and somewhere to sleep and a sofa converts into both of those, but nowhere to go for toilet, toilet or shower. And I'm telling you, I'd rather have less storage and have a toilet and a shower.

Not me personally, but...

I you miss what you don't have, don't you? So yeah, if you had a big camper and every cupboard was filled up with some different fancy system and there's no way to put anything and you had a shower there, then you might just get frustrated.

Yeah, that's true. Which goes on nicely to the next question is, where can people save money without sacrificing quality?

That is a great question. So because you can save money by getting cheaper things. like the equivalent thing, but cheaper. but usually stuff is a kind of a standard for a reason, like a particular system component is like a standard popular choice for a reason. And if it's twice as much as, you know, something you can get from Amazon or eBay or something, there might be a reason for that. where you can save money and still have an

incredible van at the end of it, I would say is just to be clever about what you really need. And also just honestly yourself, what you really need and what you really don't need. So we go through this whole thing, whether someone's doing their self-build that we're helping them with, or whether it's her full commission, it's kind of working out your must haves and your nice to haves. So must haves, like you literally only have maybe two or three of those.

And you build the van around that. So a must have, for example, would be for someone, it would be a toilet or someone else would be a fixed bed. Cause I just don't want to make it up every day. Someone else, might be, I want lots of kitchen space because we cooking is what we like to do when we're out. we, you know, so that that's like a must have. So a couple of those and then everything else is kind of then goes into the nice, nice to have column and.

When you've got a small space that you're designing, when you're trying to pile everything in there, you end up kind of moving everything around on the paper, just, and nothing's really fitting. And it's really frustrating. And all you need to do is just take one thing, take it out. And then suddenly everything fits perfectly. So kind of going on a bit more to layout design there, but it also correlates and is works around cost as well. So if you remove an entire system, let's say hot water.

That might be not on somebody's must have list. They'd not, you know, fussed about having hot water. You can remove potentially like a whole system there, which could be like a thousand pounds or something. So, one of the biggest ways of saving money, I think is removing a shower, wet room type thing, because they are massively labor intensive to build, quite expensive, really tricky, you know, waterproof everything, take up a lot of space and you definitely need hot water with that.

So that's like one thing, if that's not on your must have list and you are, the way you're using the van, might be more at campsites and things where you do have facilities and you can save a decent chunk there. yeah, I say it's things like that as opposed to just buying cheap.

What a great first half of John there talking all things, vans, RVs and road trips. I just want to say you can support a podcast in three ways. First up, it's free and easy. And that is to rate and review the podcast on the podcast app that you use. If it's Spotify, click that five stars. If it's Apple podcasts, click the five stars and leave a written review. That's great too. And any other podcast app, please hit that five stars is super easy and super helpful.

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would say anything that's got a of safety element. So if you've got kind of gas, electrics, heating, things like that, we would always and only put in the reputable brands that are designed for that purpose. You know, like Victron Energy for electrics, Truma for kind of heating, water heating, things like that. And there's a few different gas ones like Thetford and stuff.

If you can, if you, will be able to find stuff online that is like more than half, half as cheap. But I just think there's, there's no, there's no point in doing that because would you want to kind of, you know, bring your family into a van where you're staying overnight and you know that every gas component, every electric component, every heating component is like budget, budget.

Yeah.

It's too many variables. are too many risky elements. And then you, you you launch down a, a single track road on the countryside and it's all rattling around and stuff. It's just, it doesn't bode well for longevity and safety and things. So all of those things, I would just say, if you want to have hot water, get a Reptil Brands hot water heater, install it properly or get it installed properly, get it checked. Except you can, you know, choose cheaper materials, some cheaper word or.

whatever to put that

Yeah. And then that goes nicely into the rookie mistakes that maybe people make first time around, which might be your own experience as well. Right. But that kind of goes onto that last question because the temptation would be there, wouldn't it? I guess if you're on a bit of a budget, maybe first time around to cut some of those corners, right. But I guess what are the common rookie mistakes that you see that people just shouldn't do.

say the biggest one is probably, it's a bit more of an abstract one. It's just making it too complicated because it is really hard building a van, especially for the first time. And I think there is a bit of a tendency to see so much incredible stuff online and especially things that have just got huge budgets. So, I mean, we were talking about kind of 65 grand builds earlier, but

I mean, you can just go as far as you want, know, there's 200,000 pound builds and in America as well, like I know that there are some incredible things going on in camper builds and conversions and stuff. And people are piling a lot of cash into them, which is amazing. But what happens is people are researching and I did this as well, you know, like in your, you're saving all these incredible things. know, I love that bit from there and I love this bit from there and this bed kind of does this and.

This shower like folds out and this pulls out here and you kind of design your van based on an accumulation of all these incredible things. So your van plan before you've even started is like one of the most, you know, complicated design conundrums like you could even think about. And when you're trying to do that in a small space where tolerances are super tight, what will happen is you'll, you'll kind of do one thing and you've got some pullout thing here and then that will like.

foul with something else and that won't work. what I see, which is really sad is that people maybe get about, I would say about a third of the way into a build like that. And they've spent, you know, nine months on it and it just gets too much. then they either sell it like that, which is super sad, or they come to someone that can help like us or, know, and they're in a bit of a state about it because it's. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And time, and you put a lot of love into it.

Yeah, because it's spent some money as well.

So I'd say making something too complicated is probably something that maybe people don't think about. And I would say it's like one of the big things that we see quite a lot. And personally, I would prefer to have a that's finished and works and is quite simple. Yes. Than something that isn't finished and doesn't work and is, you know, does all the things. And it's just personal preference, but I prefer that, that style of van as well.

where it's a bit more bright and airy, simple, it feels spacious and just goes with the, you're in a small space. So anything you can do to make it feel open, I think is a good thing. And the other thing is probably doing stuff in the wrong order.

Yeah, that's a great comment. didn't even think about this. ⁓

Yeah, that just comes with, so, I mean, I made all those mistakes as well. That just comes with doing it or having somebody tell you which, which orders to do stuff in. we, as part of our course, like we talk about that quite a lot and, um, used to have a free download. I've kind of taken it down, but I'd be happy to kind of put it up again, which is just basically a big infographic where it's like, you know, the ideal order to do everything in. Obviously you can, you know, don't have to stick to it a hundred percent, but.

It's just certain things like you might not think about, like what goes behind the walls before you put those on so you don't have to keep taking walls on and off and just things like that. When do you cut this out in the van? And at what stage do you put this and can I put the solar on after I've done all of the ceiling or can I put a gas tank underneath after I've done the floor and all these things? It's kind of hard to know that unless you've either done it or somebody tells you.

Yeah, we do try and help people out with that as well. get quite a few questions about that kind of thing.

Yeah, I wouldn't have a clue what to start with actually thinking about it. Huh. Cause we didn't convert our van, right? We bought, interestingly our van, we bought just after the first wave of COVID, I think, but where people were still a edgy. So what happened was, I think we got told, so we bought it off an Australian girl who was then going back home because of COVID and she said, I just need to sell it and get rid of it. But she said, I didn't convert this, but I bought this off a Kiwi couple from New Zealand who were going to ride to Alaska in it.

But they had to go home because of COVID, right? So it's kind of this COVID thing. So we obviously took it, it really cheap and then drove it across Canada and USA. But I was thinking, oh yeah, this guy must have known what he was doing because it is like got cabinets on one side. He's fully built out the back of it where it's got like a rolling door of like a little cupboard thing that comes out for the cooker and then also for the water dispenser and stuff like that. So he must have known what he was doing because it was too intricate. And I was like, where the hell do you even start all this?

But yeah, the order must be...

That's amazing. I think for ones like yours, smaller bands, it's even harder, I think. You've got to be a lot more clever with it.

Yeah.

Yeah. And what's interesting actually is the bed because we have a sliding bed so underneath it pulls out to make it a double bed, but he must've built it just for their height, right? So my friend who's bit taller than me, he won't fit in it because the, oh, actually it can fit on the non-driver side, but the driver's side goes back. And obviously if you're a big guy, you're going to need as much leg room as possible in that van. So it kind of is a bit, I guess, restricted on that side. Custom made. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting how.

The length of that is quite interesting as well. Yeah, it's very well done. And that goes on to actually design and stuff and trends. Have you seen any trendy trends or popular trends in campervan designs? Yeah.

trends.

I would say clever contraptions are always something that people like to kind of save online and, and, you know, they get shared a lot just because they're quite satisfying to see when something does something. I see, I see a lot of bed, ⁓ at the moment, like beds pulling out and doing things. Yeah. Something that starts off as a sofa turns into a bed, but in like a super slick way. it's like undo, undo a catch and it all kind of opens up.

Okay,

Folds

down from, yeah, like yours, yeah, folds down hidden in a wall or something. I don't know if people are doing those or if they're just the ones that are going around online. I am seeing in terms of speaking to people, actual customers and things, I'm seeing a bit of more of a going back to smaller vans as well now. So I would say COVID, sort of just post COVID and stuff, everyone was, buying the kind of big vans like Sprinters and Crafters and things like that.

And wanting something that was like a proper home on wheels to go around and the prices for those vans just skyrocketed. Before that, it was more of the smaller vans that were like the number one seller. And now I'm seeing more requests this year actually for smaller vans again. And we're actually developing ⁓ a smaller van, is the VW Transporter. We're developing a Bearhug build of that. So it's not like a...

fully off the shelf, but it's, we can make it a bit more affordable. So it's still got the same style as all of our big vans. Obviously there's less things you can do in a smaller van. So we can kind of try and make it a little bit more repeatable. Purely as a response to the, the upping in requests for those smaller vans that I'm seeing. So I think things just kind of go in sort of peaks and troughs like that. Probably in another five years, it will go up to giant vans again.

The one thing I like about a small van is that it's nondescript. Like ours is actually a car really, nondescript and you don't pay the extra oversized fees on ferries and stuff like that. So I found that it's actually quite good that way for us to have a smaller one.

can get into car parks with the height risk.

car parks, can stay in Walmart and not be like an obvious camper van with stuff in it. So yeah, that does make a difference. think. And which goes on nicely to the next question of, ⁓ are there certain models of vans or cars that you would recommend people to consider for van conversion?

Yeah. So if we're going for the bigger van, so like a panel van, either medium wheelbase or long wheelbase, I would say there are kind of two main super popular body sizes, shapes that people go for. So in one camp you've got Persia Boxer, Fiat Ducato, Citroen Relay, or in the States I think it's Ram Pro Master. That's like a particular shape and size. And generally people go for the kind of, it's the L3, which is the...

Permas the end

Some people call it long, some people call it medium. It's like a really good size to do everything in and you can do a width ways fixed bed. So you can have full size double bed width ways in the back of that van. it means you can really utilize all the space there. That's a popular one. Arguably not as pretty a van from the outside, which is why Mercedes Sprinter and VW Crafter, I Sprinter's are big in the States as well, which is why they are.

Yeah.

always going to be up there on the popularity list. And yeah, they're just, they're not going anywhere. Those, those are like super, super popular. There may be like four or five inches thinner than the other ones, which means mostly people put a lengthways bed in those, unless you kind of do flares and things and you have to get custom beds kind of fitting in there and stuff. But generally you see those ones that are longer. So you'll see the longer wheelbase versions of those.

Hmm.

fans and they are big fans. They're big fans, yeah, I mean, they're all good fans. They're all great. Those two camps of fans, I would say are the popular ones. And then for a small fan, hands down, it's the VW Transporter winning by a country mile. It's just one of those ones that's just been around for so long.

Is that the classic one that you've seen all the nostalgic videos of? Is it the old like sixties one where it's got like a colourful exterior and it's like blue colour and it.

Yeah. So that's where it started. That's where it started. then the model now that is the popular one is like the T6. And that's the one you just got, you you stick a little pop top roof in there and you've got a little kitchen unit down one side, swivel seats and either a rock and roll bed where it's folds down or like a little pull out bed or something. And they're just, they're kind of such a good size to be able to still park on your drive and still have.

You know, still have a family of four in there, you know, with an awning and all the rest of it. They're always going to be super popular, but because of that, there've been like, you know, literally hundreds of converters that do them in the, in the UK that I know of. But I would say to get one that's converted in the same way as the kind of conversion style that we're talking about with the bigger ones, that's a bit more like a home away from home look.

I would say that's still in the minority, which is why we're trying to kind of do our version of the transporter in that way. yeah, so those are the ones that we see 90 % of the time, those fans, I would say.

Yeah, all my social media feed of vans is that VW one. Like they have like little meetups in America where they've got the classic ones, not the newer ones, I think. they up and,

The little classics are still awesome. Not so good as the actual functioning camber but to look at they're amazing.

Yeah,

yeah, we kind of think this like, Oh, is it better to have like a nice trendy old one or would you want a better function newer one? Yeah, depends what you want to look. Let's see. It's the only campervan where I would Maybe consider the look of it. I don't think looks on the outside for me personally are that important I think it's got to be a good campervan to live in or stay in. Yeah, but the VW When I see those ones and like from the 60s and 70s and like I do want one of those old ones. Yeah

It's

just like a classic car or something, isn't it? Super impractical, but just looks amazing.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Yeah. Great for social media, suppose. Yeah. And tools. Any basic tools that people should have at least to start a conversion?

Yeah. So, I mean, as you can imagine, there are with all the different job types in a, in a van build, there's a million tools you could have. I would say you can get quite far with just a sort of household, get quite far with just a sort of household toolbox type stuff, know, ⁓ decent drills, screwdriver and set of things like that. Wood cutting is where you're going to start probably buying your first proper power tool and you can do.

It's one of those things you could do everything, almost everything with one tool, but there is another tool, another power tool to do a specific thing. So the first one I would get would be a jigsaw because you can cut curves, you can cut straight lines by using a guide and things like that. Yes, it takes longer and it's harder and it's not quite as neat, but you can do it. So you kind of start there and then your next one might be a rail saw or circular saw or something. And then, you know, you kind of, you can go off.

But I would say decent woodworking tools don't need too much metal cutting. You have to do a couple of jobs, like cut windows out and things, but once they're done, they're done. And that's it. We've actually got a tool guide that you can download, just a PDF with a load of like tools and price ranges and things on our website, which is quite handy just because that's one of the questions we

put a link in the show so people would want to know.

Yeah. Yeah. It's quite handy just to kind of see and lay down and we've ordered them in like must haves and nice to haves and things. I actually did. I've done two talks at various shows just on tools and I've kind of bringing massive boxes of tools and going through it. And they were some of the most popular talks that we've done. So I think it's something that people do think quite a lot about. And I think people think they need everything, you know, but you don't to start with and you just

get things as you get come to a job that does need something.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Tools is a, I think it's a huge subject. can go, you can deep dive into. Yeah. That's another episode. I don't know if I've really, or we've answered this question, but a must haves for a build. Must haves. I mean, I guess people think, it's got to be a decent car. Yeah. But I guess specifics may be into a build. There can't be things you can leave out. There's got to be must haves in there.

Go in.

I would say must haves is what we kind of refer to as the shell. So, everything beneath that. it's, it's the basis that forms the structure of, of the conversion. So you've got the van, the metal shell, and then you've got everything inside that, which is like, you know, the kitchen, the bed and everything, but in between those two things, you've got what we call the shell. And that's like the structure behind the walls. And then it's the.

paneled walls and then the insulation as well in between the two. Cause if you get that right, you can then do anything you want on the inside. Cause you've always got strong points to get to. Everything's insulated properly. So that's the kind of non-negotiable where every van starts the same with us. So you build it up in those kinds of layers, ending with the, the plywood ceiling and floor and stuff. It's all fully insulated around that.

It's all got decent battening around that so that it's all super strong. Then you can do any build you like inside of that, because you know, you've got strong points to attach to, you know, you've got an insulated sound deadened fan and yeah, I suppose that's, that's a kind of big, ⁓ must have for a build. Other than that, it's like, you generally always need somewhere to sleep, sit and lights, you know, cook, eat.

basic things, Neanderthal things.

Yeah.

what everyone's using it for.

The show is interesting one. Yeah. I didn't realize there's the bit in between, suppose. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. That's a good one. Okay. Do you have a favorite floor plan or layout?

Yes. And I thought it was just my favorite, but we have since done two vans and the next van we've got in is this one as well. And I think maybe people saw one of the ones we did and then kind of thought it wasn't a super popular one that I saw online. ⁓ but we just did it for us. The reason why we did it is because there's two of us with a dog, big dog, golden retriever, and he needs a lot of space and he needs a lot of floor space. And I don't particularly like.

being in a van where you've got loads of kind of floor to ceiling stuff, like a corridor down the middle. So you've got two people and a dog trying to move around in there in the evening. It's, it can easily, you know, get really hard. Someone's climbing on the kitchen to try and let someone else pass. So this layout is as open and spacious as it can be while still having pretty much everything in there. So it's a, it's in the Promaster, sit and relay type van. So fixed bed at the back, side to side with ways.

big garage space underneath. all of your gear, all of your traveling stuff, like all of that stuff goes under there. Yeah. Big electric system in a side cupboard underneath there over one of the wheel arches. And then in the main living space, it has a, so we built a bulkhead back up. So remove the van bulkhead and build our bulkhead there, which is insulated with a window. So you can kind of see through into the back there as well.

And then that creates a section of wall in an L shape. So then you build an L shape kitchen across the bulkhead and then back down behind the driver's seats. So it's a nice L shape kitchen. And then next to that in between there and the bed is a single bench seat. Opposite that single bench seat is another bench seat, which is like a single and a half sticks out over the side door a little bit. So you've got a nice place for two people to sit and have a little table in between that.

But then it also just gives a really open floor space. It's like an L-shaped open floor space going to the side door. So if you've got your awning out and you've got your door open, it's quite a sociable open space. And because you've got quite a lot of low-level stuff in that L-shaped kitchen, you don't feel kind of over whatever, can't think of the words. You don't feel kind of over kind of encompassed by it all. It's like, it's quite nice to be a nice space to be in. Bright and airy. Those are the words I love.

Yeah. That's what I think is key. Isn't it? Yeah. Cause I think what we learned in our van, soon as you start going on long trips and you start getting all the little things. Yeah. Yeah. It does take its toll. Yeah. Okay. And we've got here and let's go with, yeah, let's do, let's do like bear hug questions. So someone can come to you with an idea, suppose, or maybe with just a bit of advice. Like how can you help people who are thinking and maybe of doing a conversion or a part partial conversion.

and how can you guys help them?

So I'd say we see two sets of customers, if you want to boil it down into really simple terms, the people that want to full commission and then they kind of either go with us or not.

what they're working. So it's like a discovery call, is that what it's like? Yeah.

Yeah. So they'll, you know, they'll get in touch with us and we'll have, you know, chat on the phone or something and kind of find out where they're at and what they want. And if it's something we can help with and if it all goes well, then we'll do a full build and that takes, you know, like a few months and it's a big job and you get this beautiful van at the end of it. And it's a from zero to everything turnkey finish. So that's kind of one camp for people. And then the other camp is the ones that we generally help.

with systems, like for the most part, electric systems, or it might be a water system or something. And those are the people that usually are doing it. They're quite early on in a self-build. So they've got, you know, fairly empty van, or they might've done the installation in the walls or something like that. Then it might come to us. We might do kind of like an off-grid electric system, some underslung tanks or something like that. And it might be with us for two weeks or so. And those are the people also that.

may join the training school community to kind of have that side of things. So I'd say the, the full build commissions is like our bread and butter for the actual business. That's the thing that just always happens. And then the other stuff that's, you know, we might have two weeks in between full build or whatever, and we can kind of work things around that in that way.

And the training school, is that like a course over time or is it like you pay for a course and then you get given the materials to do in your own time? How does that work?

Yeah. So we've tried a few different things with it. ⁓ and we're actually going to do something different with it very soon, which I can not mention. So currently it is you pay a chunk of money where it's like, it's not loads of money. It's four, nine, five currently, and you get everything in one go for the whole life lifetime kind of thing. So you get to join the group and chat with everyone, chat with me.

join the monthly Q and A calls with me and you get instant access to, I think it's about 80 or so videos where it just goes through sort of start to finish the theory, basics, tools, you know, how to do this, how to do that. So you kind of get everything just thrown at you in one go. Cause everyone comes on at a different stage and some people might just started and then need a bit of help. But what we're actually planning to do now is not change it too much. We're still having the community, still having

that side of thing for everyone, but we're going to split up because it's in modules at the moment, like electrics, gas, you know, the rest of it. So we're going to split that up into, so you can just buy a module. So let's say you've done most of your van, but you just want to know how to do all the electrics and plan your electric system. You want to do it yourself. You know, it's like a good challenge. You want to learn it, but you just want to do that part of it. And you're not interested in getting help with the woodwork, for example. So you can just.

You will be able to, once we've sorted it all out, just buy that course and then you just get access to that course, but then you still get access to the group and the community and being able to ask questions and things. think it's going to open up, I think a little bit because there are quite a few people that, that do just have a specific need for a certain thing. So, and it makes it more affordable for people as well.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea because I can imagine a lot of people get like 80 % of the way there and then just need 20 % help. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. And I actually, had a question here, like what part of the bill did people often miss out or not take seriously? And I guess this comes into your modules. Is there one module where you think people just don't take too seriously?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Well, I suppose it's, it's maybe not, take too seriously, but the one that I was in the most people say, ⁓ you know, I'll be all right. I'll have a crack at that because it's, it's the one that has less of the fear of danger and death, which is the, know, the electrics and gas kind of things. It's so the one I would say people give a crap themselves the most is the woodwork. So doing the kitchen cabinets and storage things and stuff like that.

I would say that is arguably one of the hardest ones. It's, it's easy enough to get something done, but to go from something like, you know, super DIY look to something that looks super clean and professional is like a huge jump in kind of skill and experience and stuff.

Absolutely. Yes.

It is quite a hard one to teach because a lot of it is just getting in the reps and the hours of actually doing it and making mistakes and stuff. But we can kind of show the techniques that we do stuff and just simple things like how to know how to actually measure an awkward thing out and how to like trace on the curve of your van onto a piece of wood and cut that out properly and like everything to fit just fine. How to hang doors with a nice gap and stuff like that. So I would say, everyone, everyone has a crack at that.

which is awesome, but I would say to then get it to the next level and where it kind of looks nice in terms of like tolerances and everything fitting together, that's definitely a harder thing to do.

I think that's underrated a hundred percent. Yeah. When I look at our van, like, how'd you know like that cabinet has made of woods is going to fit exactly like the curvature of the Toyota Sienna. Right. Yeah.

And

I mean, I'm learning stuff every day still. So I've learned a lot through stuff I've done before doing vans as well. And I work with a, like an old school boat builder now as well. he's a yacht builder. Yeah. Does a lot of that kind of work. So the techniques that he has brought to the table, he does a couple of days a week in the workshop for me and the techniques he's brought to the table are just stuff that I wouldn't even thought of because that's the thing that they've been doing in their community, in their world for, you know,

Yeah.

hundreds of years and it is really transferable because a boat, campervan is very similar kind of thing. Lots of curves, lots of things that has to fit in odd spaces. yeah, I've definitely learned a lot of cool stuff working with him.

And in terms of clients, guess most would be wanting to travel in their campervans and RVs. Where I'm going with this is I guess there may be some people who just want to build a to live in, right? Do you get that many of those clients?

We would say mostly it's to travel, pushing up to kind of longer term chunks of travel. So people might be planning a kind of six weeks in Europe or whatever. would say mostly it's like, you want something you can go on multiple holidays a year and not have to like spend loads of money in hotels and fly everyone over somewhere or whatever. And having that flexibility. I would say that's, that's the majority of people.

Got it.

There are some people, you know, and there's a community within a community of the van world of people that live in their vans. And that's like a whole other thing. I would say more so they're self builders and they kind of build it up and they, you know, they've got this, it's like the whole thing of the van life world. Building your own van, going and kind of starting living in it and then kind of tweaking it and doing all this and meeting people and stuff. And that's, that's super cool. And it's like this whole other thing.

⁓ but I would say most people are probably in the kind of traveling, holidaying, longer term trips and travels type, type vibe, I would say.

Yeah, I guess my next question would be like the clients that you get that are traveling, where do they mostly go? I guess being based in the UK, they're probably going to go to Europe, aren't they?

Yeah. So a lot of people do really appreciate kind of exploring the UK and further afield. Everybody loves going to Scotland. know, there's big North coast 500 and stuff like that. that's, that's super, super popular. And yeah, Europe, would say kind of mainland Europe. ⁓ had a few customers where I've had to kind of really make sure we got their installation on point and insulate water tanks and stuff. Cause they're going specifically kind of around Scandinavia and stuff. ⁓ and a few people that.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, like for example, going skiing a lot, but it's an expensive thing to do to get chalets and stuff. So they wanted something that they could go for like two months of the year in a camper van to Austria or wherever it was in a really cold environment. So there are quite specific use cases, but yeah, I say it's mostly UK Europe.

Okay, and a couple more fun questions before I get you to give some details of where people can find you. The craziest requests you've had.

craziest request that we've done or the craziest request that we turned down. I'll give you the craziest request that we have done successfully. So it doesn't sound too crazy, but it was very, very hard to do and make it right. So it was a kind of a rare thing anyway. So putting a pop top in a sprinter, so a long wheelbase sprinter with a pop top, you don't see that too much. Yes, it's kind of done, but not.

Have a question.

not loads. So they wanted a pop top in the sprinter and they wanted built in staircase going up to that. That also doubled as a kitchen pantry and formed part of the kitchen. So we're kind of moving away slightly from like crazy Uber Uber custom stuff now, because it takes so long to do. You end up either kind of as a business, just like.

losing money because it's taking too long or you know, kind of blowing through your deadlines with people and that has a knock on effects. So as a business thing, we'd probably wouldn't do this again, but it is very cool that we did it, I suppose. So we had a sprinter with a fixed bed, pop top, little kitchen and the kind of pantry unit like around, it's kind of hard to explain, but that kind of went up in steps. So each thin pantry unit was a bit taller than the other one with a kind of worktop slab on top.

and went around a corner and when you pulled the pop top up and it had a hatch in the ceiling and then you walked up the pantry like a staircase into the roof space. It kind of, it doesn't actually sound that crazy now talking about it, but to get that all working right in the space so that as you went out the pantry, your head just started going through the hole and you didn't bang it on the ceiling and it still worked as pull out pantry drawers and it fitted.

Wow.

Pretty impressive though.

in with the kitchen and you you can have the fridge and the sink and hob in there and stuff. It was super hard to get that all to work just right. And I think that's the kind of, when you see what I would say is kind of good design, I think looks quite simple, but then to get it to that stage is quite hard. And I think you, nail it when it looks like it's really easy. And hopefully we did that in this one, but you can have a little Google and

Have a little look online and see for yourself if you think we did it.

It's like a phrase in journaling. I'm not sure the exact phrases. I think it's like easy reading is hard writing. Yes. Something like that.

harder to write for a tabloid than a broadsheet, is that right?

There's that one as well. Yeah. But I think the books that you read that are easy to read is actually quite hard to write, it? Yeah. Okay. And for people who are maybe interested to get in contact for a discovery call or to join your course, et cetera, where can people find you for quotations or emails and social media as well?

Yeah, definitely.

So you can come through to us either on Instagram, which is at Bearhugcampers, we're all one word, B-E-A-R-H-U-G, campers or bearhugcampers.co.uk. And there's a web form on there that comes straight through to us. Yeah. Any way you get through to us, you're in those routes, we'll reply and answer questions or have a call with us if you want something more done. And if you want to join our course, it's just on our website and you can kind of just go for it in your own time.

Okay, great. And before we get to the quickfire travel questions, any exciting projects on the horizon?

think the one that I'm most excited about is, I mentioned it briefly earlier, but it's trying to get a VW transporter T6 build in our signature style. So it looks like one of our nice big airy custom campers, but it's in a small van and it's something that we can do a bit quicker and maybe repeat a bit more, still having loads of customization in it, but trying to get that as almost like a product. It's like, this is the base.

These are your upgrades you can do. These are your options you can change. And it's done in X amount of time for X amount of money. And I think that will help make the kind of that custom style of van, hopefully a bit more accessible to people as well. Okay. Rather than thinking you have to spend, you know, like 70 grand on a massive sprinter or something like that. You can spend, you know, a third of that and get something that looks amazing still. And.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that just don't like necessarily the kind of plastic, fantastic styling of a lot of stuff, which is nothing wrong with that at all. know, that's, that's a big kind of style and stuff. And there's, it absolutely has its place. It's just personal preference, just personal preference for what you like your finished product to look like.

Okay, and just actually final question, is there like a waiting time when you do your projects?

Yeah, I'd say it's, it's not official, but it usually ends up being a kind of rolling six months or so. sometimes people book up, you know, like a year in advance, but generally somebody will be booking for like the one after the one we're doing. If you see what I mean. So like two or three ahead and like that, which ends up being about six, six to nine months or something, but smaller jobs. We see if we can fit it in kind of a bit quicker than that.

Oh awesome, okay that's great to know. So we're going to finish the episode with some quick fire travel questions. This is a little feature at the end. It's travel question time. First thing that to mind, I'm actually going to nick some of the questions that you've answered already on my notes so it's going be an easy start. I'm actually going to ask where is the most scenic spot you parked a van?

I would say the classic on the coast, looking out over the sea. that would be in our case on the South coast. So when you open your back doors, we can see a sea. And it doesn't mean that if you turn the other way, there isn't a car park, but you don't need to see that. You can just look one way out the back of your van. And I just think nothing beats having that kind of beach sea look, preferably deserted out the back of the van and the sea air and stuff. Yeah.

Perfect. Okay, I'll give you three here, three items that you'd never hit the road without.

I'm going to be really boring with this one. It's not going to be super interesting, but it's going to be bin bags. Everyone forgets about where to put your rubbish when you're away. Bin bags, wet wipes, and it will be something for our dog. So either a long lead and a stake to put it in the ground or just a long lead because we've got kind of clips on the van and stuff. So yeah, long lead for the dog, bin bags and wet wipes. Super practical.

Okay. And top three dream destinations to go on road trip that you haven't been to before.

been to before. So Canada actually, I think would be incredible. And I just love the look of the forest and countryside and stuff. I think, yeah, just get a massive RV and just go for it. Did you say three places? wow. Okay. Three places. So I haven't actually done the North coast 500 in Scotland, that route. So that or some rendition of that route I would really like to do.

Just Texas.

Yeah, yeah.

⁓ and another one I just watched. did I, which one was it? I watched one of the Eerie McGregor, ⁓ long way around.

We just finished that. We just the newest one.

Yeah, so we watched, we kind of watched that and then we just watched them all because I kind of just like binged it. But they went round through Mongolia and it, and I just had no idea what was like. And yeah, that's, that's totally my vibe. I just, that looks incredible. Maybe not so much for road tripping because kind of a lack of roads, but something like that. If I could find that vibe somewhere to kind of go around, like some of the big.

desolate beaches I went to in Iceland, you know, it's just got that really, really, I don't know, cool atmosphere.

Okay. Yeah. And top three favorite countries that you've traveled to.

Iceland, Sweden and Japan.

Okay, and this is not road trip specific just in general. Top three destinations on your hit list that are next if you can go tomorrow.

Go tomorrow it'd be Norway, Iceland again, because I love it. And I think Belgium was on our list to go to next. I have been as a kid and we just always like to have a nice, easy to get to kind of not too far away one that we can just go to. So yeah, something like Norway would be like a big trip, you know, like a solid holiday exploring and stuff. But yeah, for a little quick fire one, definitely somewhere like Belgium.

Okay, here's a controversial question. Is there a popular van that people buy that you would never buy to have as a campervan or conversion?

That

is a good question. I wouldn't say there is a popular one that I would never buy, but I did do an electric transit and some smaller jobs on it. And although I love the idea of, you know, kind of eco stuff with vehicles, I just don't think it was quite there yet with vans, unfortunately, and I wouldn't buy one yet. So their range is like not good enough. And the main thing for camper vans is

because of the weight of the batteries, they are like unbelievably heavy, which gives you, even though you've got a big space, it gives you like zero amount of kind of weight room to play with. So, you know, you'd get 20 % into your van build and already the van would be overweight. So I think until either the technology gets better in battery storage or something, I don't think they're going to be super popular for.

band conversions or we skip electric entirely and do the next thing, whatever that is, hydrogen fuel or something. Then, then I think we're talking, but I think, I think I wouldn't get one of those yet. Unfortunately, I wish I could, but I don't think I would.

So that's an electric vehicle or electric van.

Yeah. So it was a big transit. like a transit, transit panel van. It's called the E-Transit. It looks amazing, but yeah, it's just, as I was kind of working on it, I was thinking, you know, is this the way forward? Would I get this? it unfortunately came out to a no at this time.

Okay, interesting. That's good to know. Okay, if you could drive somewhere to any spot in the world with a cup of coffee and watch the world go by for an afternoon, where are you going to drive to? Yeah, just to sit there and watch the world go by for an afternoon.

any spot in the world.

think it would be, I really enjoyed sitting in, there was this little barbecue place on the side of one of the main roads that kind of went through the Edgine and Rivada desert. And I sat there for a good few hours in the middle of the day, just having some barbecue foods, resting from the bike in the heat under shade. And I saw all sorts of interesting people and cars and vehicles and stuff and people stopping. And that was.

That was really fun. And there are other people out there, you know, with their little deck chairs and stuff, just watching the world go by in this tiny, tiny little village, if it's called a village or whatever. ⁓ Yeah, I do quite like people watching and stuff. And in those quite remote outback type places, do see some cool stuff and some interesting people.

⁓ What's your favourite camping meal?

Favorite camping meal. this is, this is, this is going to be embarrassing. So, you know, you can get the packs of rice that have got like beans and whatever mixed in. That's like for a microwave. Yeah. If you, if you get one of those, put it in a pot and then also put a tin of baked beans in and then, and then maybe if you've got like a courgette or just a random veg somewhere, chop that up. And it's like a three minute risotto.

weird thing and it's, it's bizarrely nice. And I think, I think my taste buds change when I'm out in a van or on a campsite or something. I would never have that at home ever, but for some reason it's so easy and quick to eat. And when you're eating it, it's just really warming and, quite nice of an evening. I'm probably going to regret that I've shared that with the world.

Yeah, never heard that on the podcast. Yeah. Okay. And the last question is going to be if you can give like one or two sentences as to why someone should maybe road trip a country or a place or somewhere new, maybe they're nervous about it or they had never done it before. Maybe like, what could you say to convince them that it's like, I think one of the best ways to travel.

Well, say if you're a bit nervous about it or if you're maybe doing it on your own or something, there are some groups that you can kind of link up with. I know some in the UK, I'm sure there are plenty in the rest of the world and they often do sort of loosely organized trips where they can kind of go together. So having a little bit of a crew when you're traveling, I think is really nice just for a bit of morale. If you're going on your own or maybe you're a bit nervous about it, I would say maybe for the first time.

be as legitimate as possible in terms of where you're staying. Yes. It just takes so much stress off. So if you're kind of going and you're on your own, it might be your first big trip. It's a new van that you just built or whatever. I would say maybe that's not the time to go trying to find some wild spots or lay buying or whatever like that. So maybe just plan the places you're going and actually pay for a pitch somewhere just to take that bit of stress off. ⁓ that would probably be my two cents on that.

I think some people go diving into the most remote place, which you'll learn a lot in a short space of time, but it's a bold move.

Yeah, build it up, build it up from there.

Yeah. Okay, John, thanks for coming on the podcast. It's been a great chat. think people are going to get some good nuggets and advice there for any camper van conversion builds, or if they need some help from you or your company. So I think they're going to learn a lot from this and hopefully they'll get in contact and speak to you and get some cool ideas or even work with you. Appreciate your time and appreciate your knowledge and insight.

It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much. Speak soon.

Cheers. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast episode today. If you've been inspired by today's chat and want to book some travel,

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and enjoy your travels.