The “build” is the creation of your campervan from whatever condition it is currently in. Regardless of the eventual type of build, you may find benefit in using a standardized order of events.

Builds range from bare essentials to technical wonderlands to luxurious. There are no fixed lists of “Must Have's” or “Most Avoids”, because the whole point of building a van is that it has what you want. How fancy you get is up to you, from the most basic usage of a “metal tent” with nothing but a sleeping bag and a camping pad in the back, up to the $200k+ pre-made luxo-barges.

Here's some very rough estimations of build types, from the simple to the complex:

Fast and simple, this is as minimal as it gets. You're in a metal box that keeps the elements off of you, and everything else is done in a similar way to backpacking.

Similarly, there's no “Right” way to plan. Various methods are used for planning:

• pen and paper
• sketchup or other design/CAD programs
• Cardboard Aided Design²⁾, 1:1 modeling the van space in the real world
• the “sit/stand in the van and think” model recommended by secessus

• A clean, functional build for $1200, which could have been considerably less without custom welding and powdercoat.

• a woodworker's build