Our Best Buys + Things We Are Glad We Did

Our best buys/thing we are glad we did 

• Magnetic bug nets – This was without a doubt the best thing we bought. There are a bunch of variations on these, but we got our ones on eBay and they looked like this. They attach to the metal of the door frame your car and the boot frame so you can leave the back or door open at night or while you cook. This lets you sleep comfortably in the heat, and listen to the sounds of the waves or river or the bush
• Roof racks with a roof box– For us, a must. We had quite a lot of stuff, and if you’re travelling for 3+ months, you will too. We stored petrol, wetsuits, hiking books, and other sparingly used items up there and it freed up so much space in the van. You can get an aerodynamic one here.
• Cheap milk frother for coffee/hot chocolates – I can’t stress enough how luxurious small things feel when you’re on the road, and this was our little moment of luxury each morning. Rituals on the road are really important for giving you a sense of stability. We used a $10 one from Kmart that ran off the battery, and it was super easy. 
• Hydraulic lifts for the boot door – This sounds simple, but having a van boot that opens easily and stays open without effort saved us SO much aggravation. You can find what I’m talking about here
• Curtains. We didn’t initially want to make these, but we had seen some van Inspo that included curtains, and in hindsight it was a great call. We just used some old op shop fabric, iron-on fabric glue to create the loops, and we mounted some hooks to each side of the windows. Be careful drilling near the windows because you don’t want to break the glass. If in doubt give it more space than you think you need. 
• Bedside nets for most-used items – Simple net produce bags like THESE, mounted to the sides of the van next to the bed, made life a lot easier at night.