Showering in the Camper Van

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We knew when we built our van we wanted to do van life with a toilet and shower, but we didn’t want them to take up too much space. We chose to install a pop up toilet and shower in our camper van in order to save space and keep the van as open as possible. It requires a little bit of set up before we can shower, but we feel it’s worth the extra counter space we have when the shower isn’t being used. The first few times we used it took us awhile to set up, but now it only takes us a couple minutes.

How We Shower in Our Van

Step 1: Remove the toilet

The first thing we do is remove the toilet. We have a Nature’s Head composting toilet so our toilet is totally self contained. We remove the exhaust hose and the plug for the fan on the toilet and move the toilet over by our sliding door. We installed a SEAFLO inspection hatch with a detachable cover so we could seal up the hole where the exhaust, plug, and pee funnel come through into the shower area. We just push everthing through the hole and screw on the cap.

Step 2: Set up the shower caddy and shower curtain

Next we attach the shower caddy to the bracket and put our shower stuff on the shelf. We take the shelf off the bracket when we drive so it doesn’t bounce against the wall. Then we get out our zip up shower curtain and attach it to hooks on the ceiling with carabiners. Our shower curtain is 30 inches long x 27 inches wide x 72 inches high and folds down to about the size of an iPad. We keep it under the sink when we aren’t using it.

Step 3: Take a shower

Once the curtain is up we move the shower head up to the bracket on the wall. Our shower head has a 60 inch hose and an on/off switch on the head so we can conserve water while we shower. We make sure the shower head is in the off position, then we turn on the faucet. We use the on/off switch on the shower head to turn the water on to get wet and rinse off. Once we are finished showering we leave the curtain up for awhile to dry, then we use a towel to dry any leftover water on the inside and hang it over the passenger seat until the bottom is dry and we can put it away.

Our shower pan is 27 inches long by 24 inches wide which sounds pretty tight. However, since our upper body is only enclosed in a shower curtain on 3 sides, which is bigger than the shower pan, we still have plenty of room to move around without hitting our elbows on a wall. Jess also has enough room to shave in the shower.

Water Usage

Conserving water is very important when you live in a van and only have a limited supply of water. Without Jess washing her hair we each use about 1 to 1.5 gallons of water between washing and shaving. Jess has long hair so when she washes it she uses closer to 3 gallons since it takes a lot of water to wash the shampoo and conditioner out. She tries to wash her hair when we stay at campgrounds and only wash it in the van when she really needs to. We were actually very surprised by how little water we really needed to shower since we only turned the shower head on to get wet and to rinse off. It’s crazy to think how much water gets wasted when you are showering at home or at a campground.

Final Thoughts

Overall we are very happy with our choice to have a pop up shower and would do it the same exact way again. We made some adjustments to our setup after the first few times we used it like adding the wire shelf and shower head bracket on the wall. After using our shower consistently, we feel like we have figured out the most efficient way to shower in our camper van.

Want to know more about our water system? Check out our full water system build guide.

Want to know more about our camper van? Check out our van layout post.