Toyota Avanza the SUV-camper

Our camper 2.0. To some of you, this might seem like a tiny thing for 3 people, but I would disagree. We used to camp in a much smaller car, which you can read about here if you're curious. This one is spacious and almost luxurious compared to our little smurf. It even has a place for our dog.
Before we get into the subject, I want to make a little side note. Designing these kinds of modifications require careful planning and accurate measurements. Of course, you could try and wing it or draw your project on paper, but I would strongly advise you to use a program that lets you work with measurements of prefered units. It will make it much more visual and allow for easy adjustments along the way. My husband uses SketchUp.

The idea stayed the same: we need a place to sleep, eat and cook that's functional and efficient, but also takes as little time as possible to assemble.

Believe it or not, but Avanza has 7 seats, which is one of the reasons it appealed to us. Memo removed 5 of them, only leaving two seats in the front and one in the middle for Sofi.

The "kitchen" is fairly simple. It has two compartments: one for plates, pots and utensils and the other one for the stove.

A wooden board slides out and makes a table for cooking. A shower curtain rod holds it up and can actually take quite a bit of weight. It's also adjustable and can be used even when the ground is not perfectly flat.
 
Underneath among other things we store an insulated bag with food, a small gas tank and the majority of our water.

The table becomes Sofia's bed at night with the help of a little board.

As you can see, our kitchen tools can be accessed from the inside as well.

The back of this seat is up when we are driving or eating. It goes down to make a bed.

If you're wondering, what the velcro is for - it holds cushions in place.

Everything is foldable and transformable.

It works with hinges to save time and make sure everything fits perfectly every time. If you remember, in our previous car boards were not connected between each other and it took us a few tries and a team effort to attach them right with one another.

Full "bed" looks like this.

To make sure we are not losing any space, a bunch of things gets stored under the boards.

Little things like rope, tools, first-aid kit, etc.

The car is also insulated, which allowed us to camp in near-zero temperatures (1-2 degrees C).

We used a combination of styrofoam and polyester.

Of course, our preferred material would be recycled cellulose, but we couldn't find it in our area, so we settled on this option.

I would encourage you to learn a bit about thermal conductivity and different insulating materials before you choose what to go for. There are many options with different density, thickness and properties. Some are very rigid and hard to fit in certain areas. Others are flammable or water-absorbent. All of that needs to be taken into consideration if you are insulating your car by yourself.

The cushions are also made specifically for the car. We bought a roll of 1-inch thick material from Amazon. Initially, it was supposed to lay on top of a mattress or something like that. We cut it to fit different sections of the car. Went to a fabric store in search of a perfect cover and settled on this tough material intended for army uniforms. It fades away with washing but doesn't lose any strength. It also doesn't break very easily - our dog tends to dig before she settles and she hasn't been able to damage her cushion even so slightly.

The longest we've camped in this car is about 8 days. Our luggage just about fits in the car both during the day and at night, when it gets moved forward.

We have a month-long vacation planned this summer, and for that, we are going to use our cargo box to fit more things. But, honestly, I packed more than I ended up using, and half of our luggage consisted of warm space-consuming things. I'm convinced that in summer we won't need a significant storage upgrade.

Child's toilet is a must. Just trust me on this one. You can skip many things, but not this one if you have a kid under 5.

Now let's talk about the time you'll need to convert it to any needed "mode". It's pretty straight-forward when it comes to cooking.

It takes about 3-5 minutes depending on what you need. If you are cooking a meal, getting all the ingredients together from the cooler bag can take a few minutes, but if you're making tea for a cosy evening, you can do it in no time.

Cooking is comfortable. The only thing I would change if we get more storage is the size of our pots and pans, but that's such a minor adjustment.

Eating is also quite simple. Space is a bit tight, but not uncomfortably so.

Perhaps, in a few years, when our child stops being so compact, we'll be a bit uncomfortable, but for now, we wouldn't wish for more.

Besides, there is always an option of eating outside.

No, I will never shut up about this. Eating outside is just a whole other game. If you haven't tried it, you haven't fully lived. Of course, this is strictly my opinion. If this is not your thing, and you enjoy fancy restaurants and big dining halls, by all means, do it.

For me, though, outside is always better.

Now, let's talk sleeping. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of how it looks when my husband and I lay in our bed. But you can kind of figure out the spacing based on this picture.

I sleep a bit diagonally because of Sofi's folded seat, but it's still plenty of space for me and my husband to be comfortable.

The little one loves her steady spacious bed.

She enjoys hanging out there, which means there are no hard feelings involved when it comes to bedtime.

We were very lucky with the child that we made - she is a very good sleeper. Falls asleep anywhere without a struggle. All we need to do is say "time to sleep" and she is like "okey dokey, see ya tomorrow". I can't help you if your child is naturally a more sensitive sleeper or is needier when it comes to sleeping routines. However, I do have a post about sleep-training I followed, which improved Sofia's sleeping habits a lot.
Feel free to check it out.

The last thing I want to mention is our dog. She finally got in on all the fun. Has her own bed and everything.

Basically, she occupies the space that would be empty anyway. That's driving.

Sleeping is a bit different. She goes in the front, so the only adjustment is storing our luggage on the driver's seat instead of the passenger seat.

We won't even have this issue if we use our cargo box.

Basically, that's it. We love our new car.

It has been to some beautiful places, allowed us to do a lot more travelling than we would in our previous car and got us very excited about life on the road.
If you are considering car camping, I have nothing but encouragement.
I hope this was useful to some of you. Go explore the world, get out there, get adventurous.
And always have a lovely day.