We lived in a 1998 Iveco TurboDaily 4x4 van for the 20 months we spent driving the Pan-American Highway. This is the tour I filmed four months in, with Evelin: what we carried, what the van does without a plug, what broke, and how we pay for years of full-time van life.

I filmed it in Canada in 2022, so the van here is the 2022 van and the money is the 2022 plan. Where the rest of the trip changed an answer, I say so. ARB supplied the awning and Scrubba supplied the wash bag, and we are very happy with both.

In this post

Iveco camper van parked on gravel at dusk with an awning out and a strip of light along its edge, a folding table and camp gear beside the van and dark forest behind
The van at dusk with the awning out and its LED strip lit.

Why a 4x4 van

We first tried overlanding in a Mitsubishi L200 pickup. Most of our trips were in a Toyota Land Cruiser. In 2018 we left in the Land Cruiser with a rooftop tent, drove to West Africa and after that from Budapest to Singapore. A rooftop tent works well for a few nights. It does not work for long stays or for weather that keeps changing. We wanted a vehicle to live in.

The search took two years. Around 2020 this style of travel got popular, and four-wheel-drive, off-grid vehicles got snapped up. One ad was gone before I had a chance to call the seller. The TurboDaily 4x4 is a rare, old van, and I said in the video that its value was already going up. Ours was in good shape and came with most of what we needed. We made cosmetic and maintenance changes, and changed how it looks and how it is equipped, to suit us.

Our minimum criterion was a van no worse off road than the Toyota. By 2022 I thought the Iveco was better off road and comfortable to live in. By then we had taken our own vehicles to four continents, including the Sahara, the Gobi, part of the Himalayas and Southeast Asia.

Front corner of a white and grey camper van on dark gravel, showing a large off-road tyre and side steps
The front corner of the van, with its large tyres and side steps.

The Iveco is two-wheel drive by default, with four-wheel drive on a switch and two differential locks. In the video I said that the last 5 to 10 percent of a route could be off road, and that this is where the best places are. Over the whole Pan-American we drove about 98 percent in two-wheel drive. The other 2 percent reached the camps, riverbeds and tracks we still talk about. Our guide on whether you need a 4x4 has the full answer.

What the van does without a plug

The van has a long-range fuel tank. Our range in 2022 was around 1,500 to 1,600 kilometres (950 to 1,000 miles) between two fill-ups. I put the fuel use at 12 to 13 litres per 100 kilometres, which is about 18 to 20 miles per US gallon.

Food sets the limit on how long we stay remote. We carry enough for at least ten days, which is about as much as we are able to store. We might manage longer, but ten days is our usual stretch.

Water comes from an 18 litre Lifesaver jerrycan. It has a filter inside that removes bacteria and viruses, so we fill it from a river or a lake and use the water for drinking and cooking. The van also has a 70 litre water tank and a separate 20 litre boiler under the seating area. We fill the big tank with a hose through a filling hole just behind the sliding door, from any well or tap. The tank is old, so we did not drink from it. The engine heat warms the boiler. With no recent engine running there is no hot water. The boiler keeps the water hot for a while, never longer than half a day.

Blue jerrycan with a tap beside a cupboard door, water running into a metal mug held under the spout
The jerrycan filling a mug. This is our drinking and cooking water.

Power comes from two solar panels on the roof, 250 watts of solar in total. A Victron controller sends the solar charge to a 100 amp-hour lead-acid auxiliary battery in the engine bay. The engine charges the same battery. Everything behind the driver and passenger seats runs from that one battery. The van has no grid connection, so it carries its own power.

Van roof with two flat solar panels and a spare wheel on the roof rack
The roof carries two solar panels and the spare wheel.

We heat the van with propane. It is well insulated, so we stay comfortable in bad weather and more comfortable in the cold than in the heat. There is no air conditioning. We like warm weather and decided we did not need it.

Inside the van

The dining table is also the bed. Lower the table, lay the cushions across it and you have a sleeping surface. It is not thick, and it is comfortable. Storage bags hold the pillows and blankets. A mosquito net hangs over the bed and a second net covers the door area, which gives double protection against mosquitoes.

Woman kneeling on grey bed cushions laid flat under a window in a camper van, with a curtain at the left
The bed with the cushions laid flat.

The kitchen has a built-in two-burner stove and a sink with a pull-out faucet. The faucet doubles as a shower tap. We usually cook inside. When the weather is good and there are no mosquitoes, we cook outside.

Stainless steel sink and two-burner hob in a van kitchen unit, the pull-out faucet held up in one hand
The sink and two-burner stove, with the pull-out faucet held up.

Below the kitchen drawer sits a 40 litre built-in fridge with a small freezer. We keep meat in the freezer when we have it. A Victron Phoenix 12/800 pure sine wave inverter lets us charge laptops and cameras.

Small white fridge built into the kitchen unit with its door open, shelves holding jars, condiments and packets
The built-in fridge in the kitchen unit.

Fresh fruit, vegetables and bread live in plastic baskets in the overhead lockers. Clothes go in organisers, one side each. Toiletries hang in a bag from a hook. We buy biodegradable dish soap. The interior was natural wood when we bought the van. We covered most of it in white furniture foil for a more modern look, and left some wood showing.

The shower is an Evershower, a tub with a lid. Remove the lid and there is a shower head on a 12 volt pump. A curtain hangs from hooks and turns the van into a shower. It works anywhere, inside or outside. When there is no laundromat, we wash clothes in a Scrubba wash bag, which also works as a dry bag.

Woman holding up an olive green shower curtain printed with the Evershower name inside a van, a sink visible below
The shower curtain unfolded inside the van.

For internet we run a router with a SIM card slot and buy local SIM cards where we are. It works better in some countries than in others.

Outside and at the back

The back door carries a shovel, two TRED recovery boards, which go under the tyres in sand or mud, and the rubbish bag. We carry our garbage until we reach a proper dump station. A ladder runs up the door to the roof, and the Hi-Lift jack is reached from the back. It is an off-road jack that lifts the van when we are stuck and need to dig. The back also holds cooking equipment and grills that we prefer to keep out of the living space.

Man in a dark polo shirt beside the rear doors of a white camper van, which carry a shovel, an olive board and a grey bag, with a ladder on the right-hand door
The back door carries a recovery board, a shovel and a bag, with the ladder alongside.

The rear doors open onto storage. On the right side is the propane tank, in a compartment sealed from the inside of the van. It has holes in the bottom, so any gas can go out. A bottle jack sits beside it. After that come our camping chairs, a Primus stove and a toilet, which is a camping chair we converted. You put a biodegradable bag in the middle. The left side holds the tools, including a tool roll, and a 12 volt ARB air compressor. We use the compressor often. Depending on the surface, we change tyre pressure for traction and to protect the tyres.

Rear doors of a camper van open onto wooden storage cupboards and a bed platform, a man in a dark polo shirt pointing at the interior
The rear doors open on built-in storage, with the bed platform above.

Our outdoor table slides out, and we store it inside next to the kitchen unit. Above the side door is an ARB awning with a built-in LED strip. It helps on rainy days, and when it is hot and there is no tree for shade.

What broke

The Toyota was simpler. More goes wrong on an older van that is not a Toyota, and things went wrong. In the video I described the van as an old tiny house, used every day for potentially hundreds of kilometres. We were four months in, and we had already had several problems.

A brake hose let go in the Rockies, which sent us back to Calgary. That story is in our Iveco review. We carry a lot of spare parts, but not brake hoses, and friends helped us get it fixed. The van was never sold in North America, so spare parts were harder to find.

The rest of the trip added to the list:

  • Flat tyres, more than other overlanders had, because the rims were two-piece split rims. We replaced them in Colombia, which solved it for South America.
  • A timing chain that jumped, so we replaced it.
  • A clutch cable that snapped.
  • A rubber coolant hose that split, and we lost coolant in Baja.
  • A cracked leaf spring.
  • A cracked roof rack.
  • A brake disc repair, and several smaller jobs.

We were open about the problems because we did not want to show a polished Instagram version of the trip. That made people think we had more trouble than others. In my judgement everyone had problems, and the Iveco was average.

I do the basic work myself. I am a lawyer by training, and learning mechanics was hard. I still do little: oil and filter changes, fan belts, flat tyres. For anything major we need a mechanic. Each job we do ourselves saves money and makes us more independent.

How we pay for it

Evelin has online marketing clients. I work on this website and our YouTube channel, and I also had project contracts as a lawyer. We have savings too, and they exist because we worked for years to be able to stop for a period and then top up our finances through online work on the road.

The other half is what we do not buy. Our phones are several years old. We do not buy clothes every month. We kept our older Land Cruiser rather than buy a new car, and we have no large mortgage. We spend on experiences. You do not need to win the lottery or inherit money to afford a trip that lasts years.

Our target was about 2,000 US dollars a month for the two of us, not counting the sea crossings. In the video I said that figure includes everything from visas to vehicle repair, and repairs are sometimes a shock. The sea crossings were not part of it. I also said it would not always hold in Canada, the US or Western Europe, and that I expected it to average out in Central Asia, Central America and South America. That was a forecast. We have no measured total to publish, and your own total will differ with your taste, the length of your trip and the countries you choose.

The Pan-American guide gives a planning range of 1,500 to 4,000 US dollars a month and prices the sea crossings as a separate line, outside the monthly figure. It also records the one-off costs. Preparation before departure cost 11,134.53 US dollars, including the first shipping. The three sea crossings together cost about 5,457 euros and 4,749 US dollars. The first shipping is in both figures, so do not add them together.

Our 180-day insurance policy for Canada and the US cost 1,002 US dollars, which is already inside the preparation figure. It covered liability and medical costs only.

Sleeping in the van removes most accommodation costs. In the video I said we had not spent a night outside it since the trip began. That left out the wait in Halifax, before the van arrived by ship. Once the van was with us, we spent no night in a hotel until the next shipping, when we waited for it in Panama and Cartagena.

Van life questions

How much does it cost to live in a van full-time?

Our 2022 target was about 2,000 US dollars a month for two people, including visas and vehicle repair but not the sea crossings. The guide linked above has the planning range and the one-off costs.

Do you need a 4x4 van to live in one?

No. We drove about 98 percent of the Pan-American in two-wheel drive. Read the full answer here.

What is an Iveco TurboDaily 4x4?

It is a 4x4 camper van that Iveco never sold in North America. Ours was a 1998 model, two-wheel drive by default, with four-wheel drive on a switch and two differential locks. For shipping we declared 4.95 by 1.95 by 3.00 metres and 3.5 tonnes.

This post belongs to our Pan-American Highway diary series.