The build

Van Life

The plan: buy a budget van and turn it into a mobile office and home. Search, purchase, build — documented from day one, failures included.

Render of the planned CT2WILD van: an olive-green high-roof van with the CT2WILD.COM wrap, a roof light bar switched on, stopped on a snowy mountain pass at dusk

Render of the planned build, not a photo. The van is not bought yet.

V1 — Mini camper / shakedown build

The Shakedown Camper

Status: vehicle search active. First step: a simple, low-cost camper to test how we actually travel and work on the road before committing to the larger builds.

V1 philosophy: bed, mattress, service battery, internet, diesel heater. Everything else comes after the first 10,000 km tell us what's actually needed. Every cost gets published once it's real.

See full van cost breakdown →
The vision

A staged build, one van at a time

CT2wild is a staged build project. Right now we are on V0: a Peugeot 206 and a sleeping bag, which is the car every trip on this site so far was driven and slept in. We start small with a mini camper, then move through a stealth L2 and a full L3 van-life setup. The long-term target is an L4H3+ van built as both a mobile home and a serious work/office base. The pictures here are renders of the wrap and the build we are aiming for, not photographs; when a real van exists, its photos replace them.

Snowy pass at dusk, light bar on: the panel-van version, no side window.
Snowy pass at dusk, light bar on: the panel-van version, no side window.
The same pass, with a window in the sliding door.
The same pass, with a window in the sliding door.
Winter daylight on a forest road, all-terrain tyres.
Winter daylight on a forest road, all-terrain tyres.
Golden hour on a lake shore: the rear doors carry the skyline and the name.
Golden hour on a lake shore: the rear doors carry the skyline and the name.
A forest track in mist.
A forest track in mist.
The wrap on its own: studio side view of the long L4 body, the target.
The wrap on its own: studio side view of the long L4 body, the target.
Topics covered

What's in this section

Choosing a van

Jumper vs Ducato vs Transit vs Sprinter — the comparison that decides what gets bought.

Budget build

Insulation, bed platform, electrics — planned, priced, then built. Every euro logged.

Internet on the road

SIM routers, data plans per country, Starlink prep.

Electrics

Service battery + DC-DC setup for working remotely.

Diesel heater

Why and how — working in the van at -5°C is not optional.

Breakdowns

Whatever breaks gets documented — the repair, the cost, the lesson. Nothing hidden.

Watch the build on YouTube →