## How We Ended Up With a Camper
I don’t think we bought a camper because we wanted “van life.”
That sounds too clean. Too Instagram. Too much like someone made coffee in a tiny enamel mug, opened the back doors toward a lake, and suddenly discovered freedom with perfect hair.
We bought a camper because life started asking a very practical question:
How do we stay together when the person I love starts building dome houses in places where normal life does not politely provide accommodation, routine, infrastructure, or a neat little plug socket next to the bed?
Joro started building domes. I wanted us to be together. We had dogs, cats, work, mud, weather, tools, dreams, and the kind of relationship where “I’ll just stay in the city while you go live on a construction site” was technically possible, but emotionally ridiculous.
So the camper was not a cute object first. It was a solution.
A strange, old, diesel, slightly stubborn solution.
Our camper is a Rimor Katamarano on a Ford Transit 2.5 diesel from 1989. Manual. Around 70 horsepower, which means it does move, but it does not believe in rushing. Four berths, theoretically. In practice: two humans, animals, tools, blankets, dog hair, groceries, emotional baggage, and at least three things we swear we just put somewhere.
It is not glamorous. It is not fast. It is not new. It is not one of those modern vans where everything slides out with a soft-close mechanism and the lighting looks like a boutique hotel for emotionally available minimalists.
It is more like a tiny house that has seen things.
Which, honestly, made sense.
## We weren’t shopping for a toy
When people think “camper,” they often think travel. Beaches. Weekends. Summer. Freedom.
We were thinking:
– Can we live in this while something is being built?
– Can we stay warm?
– Can we sleep properly?
– Can the dogs exist without everyone losing their mind?
– Can I move inside it safely?
– Can Joro use it as a base while building?
– Can we work from it?
– Can we park it somewhere that is not a campsite with tiny fences and opinions?
– Can it survive Bulgarian roads, mountain weather, random mud, and our general tendency to turn simple plans into lifestyle experiments?
We were not looking for the perfect camper. We were looking for the least stupid compromise.
That sounds unromantic, but I actually think it is the most honest way to choose a mobile home.
Because a camper is not one thing. It is a vehicle, a bedroom, a kitchen, a wardrobe, a dog crate, a storage unit, a relationship test, a weather experiment, and a psychological mirror with wheels.
If your house is messy, the camper will tell you.
If your systems are bad, the camper will expose them.
If your dog needs space, the camper will negotiate that with your knees.
If you think you can “just put this somewhere,” the camper will laugh in plywood.
## What we actually looked at
The first thing was not the aesthetics.
I know. Tragic. I also wanted cozy wood, soft colors, little curtains, and the feeling of “we live gently with the land.” But old campers do not care about your Pinterest board. They care about damp.
So we looked at boring things. Important things. The things that do not photograph well.
### Damp
This was the big one.
Old campers leak. Some leak politely. Some leak with the confidence of a waterfall. You can fix many things in a camper, but water damage is a beast. It hides inside walls, under floors, around windows, near the roof, behind furniture, inside your future regret.
So we looked for signs of damp:
soft spots, strange smells, swollen panels, stains, suspicious repairs, corners that felt wrong, places where the wall did not sound right.
A camper can be ugly and still useful.
A camper can be old and still honest.
But a camper that is rotting quietly is a very expensive compost project.
And I already have permaculture dreams. I do not need my vehicle participating.
### The engine
We were not looking for power. Clearly.
A Ford Transit 2.5 diesel from 1989 is not a mountain goat with a turbo ego. It is simple, slow, mechanical, and understandable. That mattered.
For our life, simple has value.
Simple means more mechanics can work on it.
Simple means fewer mysterious electronic problems.
Simple means when something goes wrong, it might be annoying, but it is not necessarily a digital curse hidden behind three control modules and a German error code.
I like technology. I literally work in accessibility and digital systems. But for a camper that may need to live near mud, construction, mountains, dogs, tools, and improvised plans, simplicity starts looking like luxury.
Not luxury as in leather seats.
Luxury as in: someone in a village garage might actually understand what is happening.
### Layout
Layout mattered more than I expected.
In a house, you can compensate with space. In a camper, every bad decision is always touching your elbow.
– Where do you stand when someone else is cooking?
– Where do the dogs lie down?
– Can you pass without stepping on a tail?
– Where do wet shoes go?

– Where do the cats theoretically fit, even if they personally believe all spaces belong to them?
– Can you get to the bed without climbing over half your life?
– Can one person rest while the other is awake?
– Can you open a cupboard without starting a domestic incident?
For me, layout is also accessibility.
Blindness changes what “comfortable” means. I don’t need everything to be visually pretty. I need it to make sense in my hands, in my body, in repeated movement. I need predictable corners, consistent storage, clear paths, not too many surprise objects at shin height, and ideally no “temporary” piles that become permanent emotional architecture.
A camper can be great for blindness because it is small. You learn it fast. Everything is close. The environment becomes familiar.
A camper can also be terrible for blindness because it is small. Everything is close. Everything is in the way. Someone moves one bag and suddenly the entire navigation system has received a software update without consent.
So layout was not just comfort. It was safety, sanity, and whether I could actually live in it instead of merely being transported inside it like luggage with opinions.
### Sleeping
The romantic version of camper life says: you sleep anywhere.
The real version says: if you sleep badly, everyone becomes a swamp creature.
We needed real sleeping space. Not just “technically this table becomes a bed if you remove the cushions, fold the universe, and accept suffering.”
We needed a place where the body could stop.
Especially because this was never just about weekend travel. We were thinking about autumn and winter use, about work periods, about staying near building sites, about being together while life was actively being constructed around us.
Sleep is infrastructure.
People underestimate that.
They ask about solar panels before they ask: can I lie down without hating everyone?
### Heat and weather
Summer camper life is one thing. Autumn-winter camper life is another species.
Moisture, cold, condensation, muddy shoes, wet dog smell, clothes that never dry properly, the deep philosophical question of where to put a damp towel when your house is the size of a hallway.
So heating mattered. Insulation mattered. Ventilation mattered. The ability to close the door and feel like the outside was outside mattered.
A camper is not just freedom. A camper is a box you trust to hold a boundary between you and weather.
That boundary does not need to be perfect. But it needs to exist.
### Water, toilet, kitchen, electricity
I had a very non-glamorous realization during the search:
A camper is mostly systems.
Fresh water.
Waste water.
Gas.
Battery.
Charging.
Fridge.
Pump.
Lights.
Heating.
Toilet.
Leaks.
Hoses.
Fuses.
Mystery switches.
It looks like a tiny home, but it behaves like a living organism with plumbing anxiety.
We had to think about whether the systems were simple enough, repairable enough, and useful enough for our actual life.
Not campsite life.
Not “two nights by the sea” life.
Our life.
A life with animals, work, mud, construction, travel, and the need to sometimes make coffee before becoming a human being.
### Storage
Storage is where camper dreams go to become spreadsheets.
You think you need a bed and a stove. Then you remember:
– clothes
– boots
– dog food
– cat things
– leashes
– tools
– chargers
– bedding
– towels
– food
– water
– medication
– cleaning stuff
– work gear
– outdoor gear
– random cables
– things Joro needs for building
– things I need for accessibility/work/life
– things we took “just in case”
– things that were supposed to be temporary
– things that have now moved in and are paying no rent
In a camper, storage is not a nice extra. It is the difference between “cozy tiny home” and “we live inside a drawer that exploded.”
We did not solve this perfectly.
Nobody solves this perfectly.
People who say they have solved camper storage are either lying or terrifyingly disciplined.
We are not that.
But we knew storage had to be taken seriously.
### The animals
This is where normal camper advice becomes useless very quickly.
Most people are not choosing a camper while thinking: okay, but where will the labs be? Where will the cat go? Can we keep the door situation safe? Can the dogs settle? Will there be shade? What happens with mud? What happens with hair? What happens when one animal decides the only spiritually correct place to sleep is exactly where every human needs to step?
Animals change the math.
They make the camper warmer and funnier and more alive.
They also make it dirtier, louder, more chaotic, and more honest.
You cannot pretend to be a minimalist with dogs and cats. You can only become slightly better at sweeping.
For me, the animals were not accessories to the camper life. They were part of why we needed the camper to be practical. A place where the pack could land. A familiar base. A small moving territory.
Whitey, dog hair, cats, mud, bowls, blankets — this is not the aesthetic side of the story, but it is the real one.
And honestly, I trust the real one more.
## Why not just a van?
We did think about different versions of mobile life.
A van sounds cool. More agile. Easier to park. More modern if converted well. Less “old European camper grandpa going slowly uphill.”
But we needed living space.
Not just transport. Not just a bed. Not just a weekend machine.
A camper gave us separation between areas, more storage, a more complete kitchen setup, sleeping options, and a stronger feeling of “base” rather than “vehicle with mattress.”
For one person, a van can be freedom.
For two people, animals, work, building life, and long stays, a camper starts making much more sense.
Especially when one person is building domes and the other is trying to keep a life, a job, animals, and some kind of emotional continuity alive at the same time.
The camper became a way to avoid choosing between togetherness and practicality.
## Why this old thing made sense
Old vehicles are complicated in their own way. They break. They need attention. They have moods. You listen to them like weather.
But I think part of why this camper made sense is that it matched the life we were building better than a polished new thing would have.
It can be repaired, adapted, lived in, scratched, improved, misunderstood, forgiven.
There is something honest about that.
We are not exactly living a showroom life either.
We are somewhere between accessibility work, guide dog life, cats, old vehicles, climbing, caving, bikes, land, permaculture ideas, dome houses, financial chaos management, and the recurring belief that maybe this time the system will stay organized.
A perfect camper might have made us feel like we were failing it.
This one feels more like it joined the team already knowing we are all a bit feral.
## The blind part
People often ask how I do things while blind, usually with a mix of curiosity and mild panic.
The camper answer is: the same way I do many things. I learn the space. I build routines. I touch everything. I make mental maps. I trip over the things people leave in stupid places. I complain. I adapt. I continue.
Blindness does not make camper life impossible.
But it does make bad systems louder.
If storage is inconsistent, I suffer.
If people leave tools on the floor, I suffer.
If the entrance becomes chaos, I suffer.
If “just put it there” becomes the household philosophy, everyone suffers, but I suffer first.
At the same time, the camper is small enough to become intimate. I can know it with my hands. The edge of the table, the step, the cupboard, the bed, the place where the dog usually lies, the stupid corner that always catches something.
It becomes a tactile map.
And there is something beautiful about that. A moving home that you do not need to see in order to understand.
## What I wish people understood before choosing a camper
A camper is not freedom by default.
It is freedom if it supports your real life.
If it does not, it becomes a very expensive box full of compromises.
So I would not start with the question “Which camper is best?”
I would start with:
What are we actually trying to make possible?
For us, the answer was:
– being together while Joro builds domes.
– having a base near places that are not exactly rich in rental apartments and smooth logistics.
– being able to move between city, mountain, land, work, animals, and construction.
– creating a small, imperfect home that can follow the project instead of forcing the relationship to split around it.
Then the criteria become clearer.

We needed simple mechanics.
Enough living space.
A layout that works with animals.
A place to sleep properly.
Repairability.
## What the camper changed
It changed the shape of our options.
That sounds dramatic, but it is true.
Before the camper, every project away from home had more friction. Where do we sleep? What about the dogs? How long can we stay? Do we need to go back? Can I come? Can we work? Can we be together without turning everything into logistics soup?
After the camper, the answer became more often:
We can try.
Because sometimes freedom is not a huge open road cinematic moment.
Sometimes freedom is having your own bed near a construction site.
A kettle.
A familiar blanket.
A dog breathing nearby.
A door you can close.
A place to make soup.
A tiny home that lets love be logistically possible.
Would I choose it again?
Yes. That decision made sense for the life we were actually living, not the life that looks best in photos.
It gave us a way to stay closer, to move, build and bring the animals. To be a little less dependent on normal infrastructure and to keep some softness inside a life that is often muddy, complicated, and held together with diesel, hope, lists, and stubbornness.
And maybe that is the real camper story.
Just a small old moving home that became part of the route.
Nonsight, but with wheels.