The Campervan Podcast

The Campervan Podcast is an audio program featuring ideas for design and building, cooking, organization, gear and more for a better overall Vanlife experience.

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It’s easy to let dirt get out of control in the campervan.

I’ll help you make it easy to maintain a clean and tidy living space while out on the road.

Episode Transcript

How do I keep my camper van clean?

I find it a constant struggle to keep loose dirt under control in the van, especially my current mini camper. In some ways that’s an advantage.

The bigger the van, the easier it is to lose track of messes.

But it’s so easy to allow some dirt to accumulate on the floor, and then pretty soon it’s in the bedding and then it winds up in cooking gear or wherever

And so try to be constantly vigilant and at war against little piles of dirt here and there, wherever they may come from.

Typically, it’s shoes. It could also be something like mountain bike wheels or beach gear, or whatever your sport is… hiking shoes, hiking boots whatever. I mean, it’s so easy to track dirt in.

I have a, a little stunt kite I carry around and that thing will sometimes be half full of sand when I bring it in.

Camper Van Cleaning Super Powers

My superpower tools for keeping dirt under control are

• Whisk broom

• Small dust pan

• Handheld 12 volt vacuum cleaner

I keep a whisk broom and dust pan behind the seat pocket in my van. That means it’s always within reach. So, that’s nice.

And when I see, oh geez, I tracked something in, I can real quick grab the broom and either just whisk it outside or it has a dust pan with it.

And then of course the vacuum cleaner is just awesome. It’s so great. When I see some dirt or even if I don’t see it, I’ll run the 12 volt rechargeable vacuum cleaner over the floor real quick every once in a while.

You can even run it over your dashboard, door panels and pockets and center console… Through your drawer of cooking gear or whatever… any storage box anywhere, you can run that vacuum cleaner through there and reduce dust and dirt very quickly.

But if that’s not charged up, I’ll grab the whisk broom or if it’s just a small mess.

You can head over to Vansage.com and just use the search function to search for “vacuum” and you’ll see some of our recommended products for that.

And I’ll put the, a link in show notes to camper van storage ideas, an article we wrote with lots of cool cleaning tips as well.

The Number One cause of dirt in your Camper Van

What else? Shoes. This is the next kind of main point here with regard to loose dirt management: How to deal with shoes.

I actually try not to wear shoes in the van at all, and definitely not in the living area. And I’ll wear sandals or slippers up front during a long drive.

You know, shoes nasty. No matter how clean they look, they’re down on the ground all the time when you’re walking around and they’re picking up gawd knows what.

And so I’m really diligent about what I do with my shoes when I come in the van.

I try to take them off and then I put them in some kind of a sealed container. And by sealed I just mean, with a lid or in a plastic bag.

And I actually store all my shoes in a plastic bin. That way they’re not banging around on the floor and having dirt knocked off of…