Turn Your Kia Soul into the Smallest Camper Van EVER

Looking to get into the #VanLife craze, but… uh… don’t actually own a van? No problem! Keep scrolling to learn how I turned my little 2011 Kia Soul into a comfortable and efficient camper van on the cheap!

UPDATE! We just dropped a new post with 5 more upgrades for your Kia Soul Camper Van!

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#VanLife

It’s no secret that #VanLife is taking social media by storm. Long a favorite of dirtbag rock climbers and surfer bums, camper vans are quickly hitting the mainstream. Gone are the days of being able to get by with living in a crappy old van down by the river. Today it’s all about how swankily you can build out your new home on wheels, with full-service kitchens, bathrooms, and insanely creative storage solutions. Oh, and it’s GOTTA be cute. And to that end, there are companies popping up all over the country that’ll retrofit your van for massive sums of money.

Thing is, I don’t have massive sums of money. And I don’t have a van. I don’t even have an SUV. What I’ve got is a tiny Kia Soul. So the question is, can you actually turn a Kia Soul into a fully functional camper van? Keep reading to find out.

Click HERE to jump straight down to the section on building simple and effective blackout shades! Keep scrolling to learn about how I built the bed platform, what I did for storage, and what gear I chose when outfitting my Kia Soul Camper Van!

Building The Bed

If you just put the back seats down, the length from there to the trunk isn’t long enough for a human to lay flat. So you need to lengthen the bed area somehow. The best way to do this is to slide the front seats forward and use the center console between the front seats as a base for a wooden bed platform!

In order to build the bed platform, I grabbed a piece of plywood from Home Depot and had them cut it down into a single 51″ x 42″ piece, and then cut that in half so I’d have two equal pieces of wood, sized 25.5″ x 42″. This is going to become the bed platform, and it fits perfectly in the back of the Soul. If your model year is not 2011, these measurements may not be the same, so make sure you measure your own car before you cut your wood!

I also grabbed some foam pipe insulation and a 30″ piano hinge. Credit Votive Photography for giving me the idea for the platform build. Total cost: ~$40

• Plywood cut to two 25.5″ x 42″ pieces (measure your own vehicle for correct sizes!)
• Small diameter foam pipe insulation
• 30″ piano hinge and mounting hardware

Putting it Together

The build here is really simple. You lay the two boards flat, and attach the piano hinge in the middle using the screws that come with it. Then you cut the foam insulation to fit around the sides and just slide it on. You can screw that down as well or use an industrial-strength strong adhesive tape if you want, but currently, my foam is just holding onto the edges on its own. When you’re done, fold it in half and slide it in from the trunk and open it once it’s inside, and everything will fit flush within the back of your new Kia Soul Camper Van!

If all you need is a bed, then you can inflate your favorite full-sized air mattress like the Kelty Tru. Comfort Camp Bed Doublewide Sleeping Pad (seen below), and stop here! If you want to get fancier with it, keep reading.

What About Storage?

Originally I was going to completely copy the design used by Votive Photography and use the full-sized bed platform with the piping on the sides and the hinge in the middle as the standard set-up for the Soul. The idea being that I’d just fold it up when I needed to drive. But… that sounds like a lot of work every time I want to hop in the front seat and… ya know… use my car as a car. But then I realized something: it’s just me driving the car most of the time! Why have a set-up for two, when I can have a single bed and use the rest of the car for storage?

Yeah, this is definitely the ideal set-up for a solo traveler rocking the Kia Soul camper van! Not only do I have space to store two bouldering crash pads, but I can also fit multiple duffels full of clothes and gear. I can even pop my computer on top of one of the pads for movie night in the stix! It honestly doesn’t get any better than that!

And the storage fun doesn’t stop there. Below the trunk floor there’s a storage compartment above the spare tire that’s perfect for all that camping gear you need to lug along:

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Camping Gear

• Petzl Headlamp
• Solar Panel
• Collapsable Wash Tub
• Collapsable Wash Tub/Cutting Board Combo
• Biodegradable Soap
• Personal Stove
• Pots & Cooking Equipment
• Propane
• Rope
• Climbing Cord
• Ice Scraper
• Climbing Training Equipment
• Sunscreen
• Toilet Paper
• Trowel
• Bug Spray
• Matches

And that list doesn’t even include the Coleman two-burner stove I’ve got tucked under the bottom of my sleeping pad and the Yeti Flip 8 cooler, tent, and more that’s store below the bed platform! There’s WAY more space in here than you’d ever have imagined, and endless ways to utilize that space creatively. The mattress I’m using is the Therm-a-Rest ProLite, which you can grab off Moosejaw for a huge discount right now.

Let There Be Light

Interior lighting time. There’s something blissful about falling asleep and waking up with the sun when you’ve got no responsibilities and you’re not surrounded by the late-night fluorescent glow of Netflix or a laptop. It’s one of my very favorite things about camping. But that said, Daylight Savings Time just ended and I’m not quite on board with going to bed at 5 pm. So in order to deal with the early nights, I needed to rig up some lighting in the Kia Soul camper van!

The string lights I chose were the Luminoodle XLs. They’re affordable, bright, and the included utility ties make them really easy to install. They’re also USB-powered and waterproof, and have little magnets along the length, so you can really put them up anywhere. Or, if you don’t need to hang them inside your car, you can coil up the Luminoodle and throw it in its bag to create a lantern, you can string them up around trees, or attach them to the outside of a house/car/tent/literally whatever. I love these things.

Solving the Fishbowl Problem

Once you’ve got a great lighting set-up, however, you’re immediately going to be visible to anyone and everything that passes by. I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly at my most cozy and comfortable when I’m in a day-glow fishbowl. Call me crazy. So the NEXT step is to install some sort of (obviously cute) black-out screen over the windows that’s easy to install and remove as needed. The solution? Captain Adventurepants is about to become Captain Craftypants.

Creating Cozy-Looking Blackout Shades

Here are the supplies you’ll need (click the links to see what I used):

• A couple of big boxes worth of cardboard
• A roll of Reflectix insulation
• 3-4 yards of your favorite fabric
• 1 can of spray adhesive
• 1-2 cans of flat black spray paint
• Gorilla tape
• Sharpie
• Box-cutter
• Fabric shears
• Measuring tape

STEP ONE: Making the Shade Patterns

First, measure out your windows and use the sharpie to draw out the shapes on your cardboard. These will become the patterns you use to make the shades out of the reflectix material. Once they’re drawn out, cut them out with the box cutter. A best practice here is to make them a little too big, then just keep trimming them down with your scissors until they fit into the window. Repeat this process with all your windows until you’ve got a cardboard pattern for each of them. Then use those cardboard patterns to trace and cut your reflective isulation!

Pro Tip #1: You can just make one pattern for the side windows and flip it over for use on the other side!

Pro Tip #2: Always double check your measurements before you cut, and err on the side of making them too big at first. You can always make them smaller. It’s a lot harder to make them bigger.

STEP TWO: Spray Paint & Fabric

Here’s the fun part. Spray painting! But just keep in mind – you’re going to want to paint the sides facing OUT from the car, so the sides that will be pressed against the window. Just make sure you’re painting the correct side! Once they’re all sprayed up, you can start working on tracing and cutting out the fabric while they dry.

WARNING! Double and triple measure, and make sure you’re using your fabric efficiently! Once you cut, there’s no going back! Plus, all this due diligence will give your shades more time to dry.

STEP THREE: Finishing the Shades!

Once the shades are dry and your fabric is cut, flip the shades over so the silver sides are facing up, spray with adhesive, and carefully attach the fabric. What worked best for me was spraying a little bit of adhesive at a time, rolling up the fabric, then unrolling it onto the newly sticky surface until it’s all even and doesn’t have any bubbles or wrinkles. This process took me a hot second, I’ll be honest!

The last step is to use your gorilla tape and wrap the loose edges of fabric around the back of the shade. Before you do, give the shades one last test in the windows to make sure they fit snugly but aren’t too big. This is your last chance to make them the perfect size before you finish the edges. If they’re the right size, tape away!

NEW POST: 5 More Upgrades for Your Kia Soul Camper Van!

AND THAT’S IT! (For Now)

Squish those shades into the windows, flip on the lights, throw on a movie or pull out a good book and get ready to hunker down for one comfy night in your new Kia Soul Camper Van!

There’s more I want to do over time, but I’m absolutely in love with this little monster, and I know you will be too when you turn your Kia Soul or little crossover into a legit camper van! Feel free to ask questions or leave suggestions in the comments! I would love to hear from other people who’ve done something similar.

Now get out there and have an adventure!

NEW POST: 5 More Upgrades for Your Kia Soul Camper Van!

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