Van life looks simple until it is time to put everything away. A van gives you a few dozen square feet to hold your kitchen, your closet, and your gear. Every inch has to earn its keep.
The good news is that most storage problems have already been solved by people living on the road full time. Their fixes are cheap, simple, and easy to copy. Very few of them need power tools.
Here are fifteen storage ideas that van dwellers swear by. Steal the ones that fit your build.
Kitchen and Food Storage
The kitchen fills up faster than any other part of a van. It holds the most items, and those items are the ones that rattle. These five ideas keep food and cookware tidy and quiet.
1. Add a Second Shelf Inside Tall Cabinets
Most van cabinets are one big open box. Stack things inside and you get a pile that falls over the first time you turn a corner.
Angie at Camp Happy Acres found adjustable shelf organizers that fit her Winnebago Revel cabinets with almost no wiggle room. She did the same to her skinny pantry and went from three shelves to six. Kristi of Kristi Roams uses a dollar store shelf divider to keep dishes on top and cookware below.
2. Pick Gear That Stacks or Folds Flat
Two pots that nest take half the room of two pots that do not. This one rule should shape everything you buy for a van kitchen.
Kristi of Kristi Roams uses cookware with a handle that detaches so the pans stack flat. Her food containers are collapsible silicone, and even her measuring spoons fold down. She points out a nice side benefit, since silicone grips the shelf and stops sliding around while driving.
3. Give Spices a Wall of Their Own
Spice jars are small, round, and love to roll around a drawer. Getting them out of the cabinet and onto a surface saves real space.
Frankie and Alex at FnA Life screwed mason jar lids to the underside of a cabinet so the jars twist up into them. They share one detail that saves a lot of frustration. Use two screws per lid instead of one, or the jars slowly swivel themselves loose as you drive.
Brian and Crystal at Vanhalla Adventures used the same trick and fit 34 jars under a single cabinet.
4. Run a Bungee Across Open Shelves
An open shelf is useless in a moving van unless something holds the contents in. A couple of screw in hooks and one bungee cord fix that for a few dollars.
The couple behind Project Untethered put hooks on each side of their condiment shelf and stretched a bungee across the front. Nothing slides and nothing falls. They use the same setup to strap down chairs and a spare water jug in the closet.
5. Pour Food Into Containers Instead of Storing Boxes
Cardboard wastes an amazing amount of space. Cereal, crackers, and pasta all come in boxes far bigger than the food inside.
The couple at Vanlife Sagas keep oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper in small containers inside one caddy. The whole caddy pulls out when it is time to cook and slides back after. Their spices live in empty tea tins, held in a five dollar organizer.
Kristi of Kristi Roams goes one step further and buys from bulk bins so food goes straight into her containers.
Clothes and Bedding
Clothes and blankets are bulky but light. That makes them perfect candidates for squishing down. These four ideas free up a surprising amount of room.
6. Roll Clothes Instead of Folding Them
Rolling beats folding in a small space. Rolls pack tighter, and you can see every item at once instead of digging through a stack.
Alesha and Jarryd at Van Life Theory roll everything and store it in soft sided boxes. They suggest the flimsy kind that folds rather than rigid bins, since soft boxes squash into odd shaped gaps. Frankie at FnA Life rolls hers into packing cubes and keeps the zippers facing out so she can grab a favorite pair without unpacking.
7. Vacuum Seal the Off Season Clothes
Winter gear sits there taking up space for months while you never touch it. Vacuum bags squash all of it down to a fraction of the room.
Brenna of Brenna Living Joyfully found bags with a hand pump at Kmart for very little money. She sealed her winter clothes and spare blankets and slid the whole lot under the bed. Alesha at Van Life Theory does the same with thick blankets and just presses the air out by hand.
8. Turn Your Pillows Into Clothes Storage
A pillow is mostly air. Fill it with clothing instead and one object does two jobs.
Crystal at Vanhalla Adventures stuffs their throw pillows with extra clothes. She recommends thick fabric so the pillow still looks good when full, which is why they picked Turkish ones. The zippers that came on them broke quickly, so they had marine grade zippers sewn on instead.
9. Keep Bedding in One Big Zip Pillowcase
Loose blankets and towels end up shoved in five different places. Gathering them into one bag keeps them together and squashes them down.
The family at Vanlife Goodies uses one oversized pillowcase with a zipper. Blankets, towels, waterproofs, and spare pillows all go inside. Zip it shut and the bundle doubles as something to lean on during the day.
Walls, Doors, and Seats
Every van has blank vertical surfaces doing nothing at all. Doors, wall panels, and the backs of seats are storage waiting to happen. These four ideas put that space to work.
10. Put Hooks Anywhere You Have a Spare Inch
Hooks cost almost nothing and hold almost anything. Most van dwellers say they wish they had added more of them sooner.
Jolynn at SqWatch Dog AdVANtures put removable hooks on the front of her bathroom door for coats, hats, and towels. She added more behind the bed for backpacks and wet gear. Alex at FnA Life hangs hammocks, bags, and a drone from hooks scattered around the van.
11. Hang a Shoe Organizer on a Door
A hanging organizer is one of the best storage buys in van life, and it is rarely used for shoes. All those little pockets are perfect for small items that go missing.
The host of From She to Me hangs one over her bathroom door for cleaning supplies in a rig under 20 feet long. She also runs a tension rod above it to hold spare paper towels and toilet paper.
Jolynn at SqWatch Dog AdVANtures cut her mesh organizer in half to fit her door, then sewed velcro on so it would not swing while driving.
12. Stretch a Cargo Net Across Blank Wall Space
A cargo net turns a flat wall into a deep pocket. It weighs nothing and costs very little.
Sweller Van Dweller found one at a dollar store for under five dollars and hung it using holes already in the van wall. Clothes go inside in zip bags saved from old sheet sets. When the net sagged under the weight, coat hooks along the wall propped it back up.
Geo at Booked It Travel adds one warning worth heeding. A cargo net is great on a wall, but do not put a full one directly above where you sleep.
13. Put the Seats to Work
The front seats and the space around them are usually the most wasted area in a van. Seat back organizers are cheap and hold a lot.
Mark and Linda at Van Trip in Oz keep a pocketed bag on the back of the passenger seat for wipes, bug spray, and shopping bags. Boots go behind that seat and shoes go underneath it. They even use the shelf above the front seats for a step ladder and a rolled privacy screen.
Jolynn at SqWatch Dog AdVANtures stores wrenches and zip ties in the cubby at the base of her passenger seat.
Dead Space and Outside Storage
The last two ideas are about space you probably do not think of as space at all. One is hiding inside your walls. The other is outside the van completely.
14. Use the Dead Space Inside Walls and Around Wheel Arches
Van walls are full of gaps that never get used. The area around a rear wheel arch is the classic example.
The host of Staycation Lifestyle points out that many cabinets are one hollow shell with a single shelf. Adding a couple of shelves inside doubles what fits without changing the outside at all. He also builds into the awkward space around the wheel arch, which most builds simply box over.
Brian at Vanhalla Adventures went further and recessed shelves into the wall cavity itself. His shower shelf has small brackets across the front so bottles cannot tip out on the road.
15. Move the Dirty Gear to an Outside Box
Water hoses, fuel, and trash all smell. Keeping them inside a small van is rough, especially in hot weather.
Geo and Ally at Booked It Travel moved their hose, power cord, tool kit, wetsuit, and axe to a box mounted outside the van. Forest at FnA Life did the same for anything that gives off fumes, including coolant, spray paint, and garbage. Both say it freed up real room inside for daily items.
What All of These Have in Common
A few themes come up again and again from people who have lived in a van for years. The first is that everything needs a set home. Alesha at Van Life Theory says once each item has its own spot, the van stays tidy and nothing shifts while driving.
The second is that soft beats hard. Woven baskets, fabric liners, and cloth bins stop the rattling that drives people crazy on long drives. Jolynn added fabric liners to her pantry purely to quiet things down.
The third is to live in your van before you build it out. Brenna spent two weeks with a temporary setup before deciding where her drawers should go.
Kristi puts it best when she says good organization is really about reducing friction. The easier it is to put something away, the more likely it stays that way.
Start with two or three of these ideas rather than all fifteen. Cheap fixes like hooks, bungees, and packing cubes make the biggest difference for the least money.