There are a billion methods to avoid the funk of vanlife:

• ($) Baby wipes or actual ($$$) bathing wipes from drug stores (look in the elder care section for the latter)
• Using a basic sink/kitchen setup for bird bathing ($)
• But my favorite method is this DIY shower. I could have ordered a solar shower from a big box store, but Lord knows I freaking love a project. Also, the solar shower can be limited to, well, the sun. Here’s something that gives a little more flexibility.

Time it took me to complete this project: 8-12 minutes

Here is a pressurized garden sprayer that I picked up for the cost of a personal pizza. I cut off the nozzle and attached a kitchen sprayer using a ¼” barb hose adapter. Legit insert Tab A into Slot B. That’s it! This is not a complicated thing.

I give the thing a few pumps and I have a strong, pressurized flow of water. I use this:

• inside for washing dishes
• outside for washing the van
• outside for washing muddy shoes/pets/strangers
• indoors and outdoors as a shower
• Bonus: Since I only carry potable water, it provides backup drinking water

For ideal bathing temp, I do half boiling water and half room/air temperature water.

How I use this outside: Grab a tarp. Using heavy-duty magnets, I attach the tarp to my open back doors. This is my privacy screen.

How I use this inside: Again using my tarp and magnets, I attach the tarp to my ceiling via the tarp’s eye-hooks and magnet hooks. You’ll also need a basin or bucket the size of an oil change catcher-thing (my super cheap option is a 2ft kiddie wading pool from Dollar Tree). Make sure the bottom of the tarp (or shower curtain) falls within the basin. After clamping both side edges of the tarp together, I have an enclosed shower inside my van. REMEMBER, this only works if the tarp is long enough to go from the ceiling into the bucket.

Total cost and supplies:

• Pressurized garden/weed sprayer
• Kitchen sprayer with attached hose
• ¼” barb hose adapter
• Sturdy scissors to cut the hose
• Tarp and Magnets $0 (if you’re reading this, you likely already have a dozen free of both from Harbor Freight).

I got the idea from AdventureVanMan on Youtube. Click his name to link directly to the video.

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