We Needed a Van, But Only for the Weekend
My family has a long history with vans. From my cousin Lynn’s family touring the country in Volkswagen Westfalias during the 80s and 90s, to my wife and me buying our first VW Eurovan Weekender when our kids were just 2 and 1, vans have always helped us get outside and build memories together.
Our beloved 2001 Eurovan that would later betray us on the side of a highway.
A lot of our love for vans came from financial necessity. I would have loved to take my young kids on flights twice a year to exotic destinations, but that wasn’t in the budget. When I realized I could buy a 20-year-old VW van for $13,000 and take my family camping in Yosemite National Park for the price of a tank of gas, I was all in.
Baja testing trips are a nice perk.
After seven years and hundreds of thousands of miles, our Eurovan finally gave out and left us stranded on the side of the road. The engine, transmission, and A/C compressor all failed at once. The repair cost more than I’d paid for the van.
This was the motivation I needed to convince my wife to buy a 2018 Mercedes Sprinter and convert it into a camper ourselves. I made the case that it could be both our daily driver and the weekend camping adventure vehicle. We built out that first sprinter over the course of a couple of weeks and immediately drove it to Lake Tahoe.
Weekend Van #0001. Notice the vertical plywood bed supports. Our engineering has come a long way since then!
One of the main features of that build was a set of bunk beds; “upstairs” for the kids, “downstairs” for us. At nearly every campground, people would stop by to ask how we fit two full beds in a short-wheelbase Sprinter.
Then COVID hit. My cousin Myles and good friend Drew (both fellow van owners) thought we should build another Sprinter camper with bunk beds and see if we could sell it. Buying a van as a speculative project was risky, but we took the leap anyway. We built that first Weekend Van in my driveway, and within days, someone made an offer to buy it.
Vans #0002 and #0003 at our initial “Headquarters”.
Fast forward five years, and Weekend Vans has built hundreds of Mercedes Sprinter camper vans designed for families who want to camp, surf, fish, and adventure together. Our customers appreciate that our vans include only the features you really need for a week-long trip, like a fridge, house battery, solar panels, outdoor shower, and comfortable beds, while keeping the front open enough to function as a daily driver.
So much room for activities!
This October marks the five-year anniversary of Weekend Vans, born in a driveway in Carlsbad, California. It’s a privilege to work every day at a company that helps families get outside, unplug, and make memories together. I can’t wait to see what the next five years bring.
