By Rachel Puryear

While traveling and camping, one thing that greatly enhances your level of comfort and enjoyment of the experience is having good food storage and preparation facilities in your vehicle. A kitchen can help you prepare more nutritious and varied meals, and keep your food fresh and prevent spoilage.

However, while vans and cars are popular for camping because they’re easy to travel in and drive, they typically don’t come with the gas and plumbing hookups that home kitchens do – plumbing and gas hookups are part of several essential kitchen features in homes.

The good news is, though, that there are van-friendly options to meet all your kitchen and cooking needs, without needing gas and plumbing. You will need electrical power sources – see the second to last section for that.

Here are some ideas to get you started on your van kitchen:

See also: Showering/Bathing Options for Van Life, and No-Plumbing-Required Toileting Options for Camping/Glamping, for simple and easy ways to fulfill your van bathroom needs.

Keeping Food Cold

You’ll need to keep perishable food cold. There are compact, portable fridge/freezer combos made for cars and camping, that are electric and don’t require propane.

Euhomy makes an efficient, highly-rated fridge/freezer combo that comes in several sizes, and several options for powering it – check it out here.

Storing Non-Perishables

Out in the wilderness, critters think your food is pretty tasty, too – and you don’t want them getting into your stores.

Collapsible containers can help save room when you’re not using them, but also expand when you do need more storage capacity. Here’s an assortment of colorful, airtight, silicone storage containers.

For some pantry space that doesn’t require drilling or special handy skills, there’s easy stick-on wire hanging baskets, or these stackable storage bins.

Water Storage and Sink With Pump

You need water for your kitchen without having to pipe it in.

The simplest water and faucet solution – if you have really limited room, and don’t cook extensively – is a compact 5-gallon water jug appropriate for long term water storage, along with a portable faucet attached to the top, like this one here.

For something closer to what you have at home, better if you cook regularly, is a portable no-plumbing-required basin sink with a 5-gallon (19 liter) tank gives you flowing water, and a sink that can serve both kitchen and bathroom purposes if you like. There’s a soap dispenser and a towel rack built in. There’s no waste tank included, but you can use another container for that.

Note: There are multiple places you can refill your fresh water supply – grocery stores, campsites, truck stops are good places. If you’ll be in a remote area for a while, be sure to bring extra jugs of water, accordingly.

Cooking Hot Food

Just because you’re camping in a van doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy a fresh, hot, full-course home-cooked meal.

If you’ll be bringing pots and pans, here’s a double hot plate for cooking that’s compact, and all electric – no gas needed. If you’d like to save even more room, here’s a cute plug-in hot pot that doesn’t require additional cookware.

Note: If you’ll be cooking indoors in a small space, be careful about not letting hot machines touch fabrics or anything that could be hazardous.

Easy Counter Space, Tables, and Chairs

You’ll need a space to work, and prep all that delicious food before you cook it.

This portable little countertop/cutting board with adjustable and removable legs gives you counter space that’s easy to take with you. This is great if you’ll be taking your cooking outside, and using a table. On that note, here’s a great, foldable but sturdy, mess and heat friendly, table for that purpose.

If you’d rather cook indoors, or the weather takes things inside, here’s a more compact, adjustable folding table that you can place a cutting board on top of. You can also use it as a little eating table when the food is ready.

Finally, you may need more chairs to sit in, inside or outside. If you’re a large or plus-sized outdoor lover, you may be tired of chairs that are too small and pinch you, or make you worry that they won’t hold you. To sit comfortably and securely outdoors, check out this extra-large, portable outdoor folding chair that’s lightweight to carry, but that’ll hold up to 500 lbs/227 kg. But if you need more capacity than that, they also make one that holds up to 1,000 lbs/454 kg. Give your luscious bottom the space and support it deserves!

Electric Power

Several items mentioned in here run on electric power. If you’ll be in a campsite with hookups, that will power your electronic items.

However, if you’ll be boondocking instead (camping without power hookups), you’ll need to bring a power source with you.

A Jackery Portable Power Station can be a great solution to your power needs. How much power you’ll need depends upon how much electricity you’re using – but note that items that cool or heat, like you’ll find in any kitchen, do consume a lot of electrical power.

A Jackery can also help you power other electrical items – lights, charging phones and devices, C-PAP machines, laptops, and more.

Fine China and Camping Don’t Mix Well

Realizing you need plates and other tableware that won’t break easily while you’re out on the road? Here’s a set that’s sturdy, and it’s made from wheat straw instead of plastic.

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• Summer is here, and for van/RV lifers, that means enjoying the outdoors. Did you know that people of all shapes and sizes enjoy the outdoors, even if too many outdoor companies don’t cater to plus sizes? That’s frustrating for myself as a plus-sized outdoor lover, and to many others as well. But there are a few companies that do serve the plus-sized, outdoor-loving clientele:
  • The Cootry Store on Amazon, with lots of swim and fitness wear for women/women-presenting. Lots of items have pockets, and sizes go up to 5X.
  • The Real Essentials Store on Amazon, in the big and tall section, for men/men-presenting. They also have clothing in sizes up to 5X.
  • Big people need big camping gear. Check out: this easy setup roomy tent with plenty of room, this easy setup spacious and tall tent, this thick, easy setup queen-sized air mattress with a 600 lbs capacity that you can really sink into, and this line of extra-large and double sleeping bags for big and tall (up to 6’4/1.93m) people.

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Thank you, dear readers, for reading, following, and sharing. Here’s to a great travel kitchen, and great meals enjoyed on the road. If you enjoyed this content and want to see more of it, please hit “like” and subscribe, if you have not done so already.

Check out my other blog, too – World Class Hugs, at https://worldclasshugs.com. It’s about celebrating empathic/HSP people, balanced versus toxic relationships, spirituality that comes from love and curiosity rather than rigid repression, and visiting gorgeous natural places.

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Road Trips Uncategorized Van RV life