Hey, everyone! This is Ian, your Wayfarer Vans camping coach. Right now, it’s freezing! So, what do we do? We decided to go camping. Come along with us and we’ll show you our little tips and tricks on how to stay warm while out winter camping, and you can take on this challenge yourself.

Alright, here we are in front of our camper van fireplace, having a nice warm cup of tea. Now, our camper van fireplace adds a bit of ambiance as well as heat. But he’s actually named ‘The Mister Buddy Heater.’

Now, The Mister Buddy Heater is actually an essential to camping in the cold, and there’s a ton of YouTube videos out there so we’re not going to get too much into the details of The Mister Buddy Heater. He is on our recommended products page.

But, what they don’t tell you is The Mister Buddy Heater roasts a pretty mean marshmallow so you can have those late-night s’more’s if you feel like it, if it’s too cold outside. But don’t get any marshmallows in Mister Buddy Heater because you don’t want to burn your van down. But, that’s The Mister Buddy Heater.

We recommend a hot cup of tea and maybe listening to some NPR. Tea is a great way to keep your core body temperature warm. Also, keeps you hydrated throughout the day.

Or a hot cup of coffee to get that morning stoke going – woo woo! Here’s another way to stay warm while out camping in the cold is spicy foods. We have some spicy chicken tacos to have tonight and the proper way to eat a spicy taco in the van is to bow to the taco.

Alright! Invite some friends over for a dance party and stay warm. Woo!

Let’s talk about the most important tip that we can give you for your winter camping adventure and that is your bed setup. Now, it’s just important to think about what you’re sleeping on versus what you’re sleeping in.

We have a very comfortable Expedition Duo Mat, camp mat, here. We bought it because you can inflate it and deflate it according to your kind of sleep preferences. Also, it has a very high ‘R’ value so it has a very high insulating property. So, it has an ‘R’ value of 9.9.

Also, underneath the camp pad is a space blanket. Now, a space blanket is your heat from your sleeping pad or sleeping bag will go through the camp pad and then get deflected back up from the space blanket, back up into the camp pad. That’s gonna keep that hot air kind of circulating and kind of recycling that hot air throughout the night. So, also a space blanket keeps aliens from stealing your dreams at night.

Lastly, sleeping bags. Now, just because you got a sweet deal on a camper van with us doesn’t mean you have to go and cheap out on your sleeping bags. If you don’t get a good night’s sleep out winter camping, it’s going to kick your butt. It makes for a long cold night. So, just invest that money in some nice sleeping bags, and thankfully you did so, contact us for recommendations, but that kind of wraps up the bed system.

Hey, everybody. Here’s the worst part. Getting out of your nice warm sleeping bag and it’s cold in the van. Luckily, we kept The Heater Buddy on the countertop and we turned him on. He’s heating up for us and I’m gonna lay here for a minute and wait for the van to warm up and then crawl out and probably turn the van on too.

So, which shows no shame on turning the van also to get it warming up. Alright, here we go. Getting out of bed. That’s not too bad, we got Heater Buddy going. Go turn the van on, let’s see how cold or what it says it is out there.

10 degrees! It’s pretty chilly!

A word of warning to everybody. When you own a camper van and it’s warm inside here, all your moocher friends are gonna wanna try to come inside.

It’s cold out! Geez!

Alright, well come on in.

Winter camping trick number 50 or whatever number we’re on – boot warmers! We got these guys, you can buy ‘em from REI or any kind of winter gear place or maybe just a regular sports gear place. But they plug into a…your 12-volt battery or your 12-volt outlet in your car and then you just slip them right there into your boot.

Alright, people! This is what it’s all about. We make winter camping sound hard but it’s really pretty easy. So, get out there, try it. We hope you enjoyed our tips and tricks, and maybe this has challenged you to try something new and fun in your camper van. But anyways, enjoy! We’re gonna hit up this beautiful day and we’ll see you later!