4Runner Camper Conversion
When choosing our vehicle to drive the Pan-American Highway, from Argentina to Alaska crossing two continents, we had a certain criteria: 4x4 on a budget. After coming from Van Life in a Sprinter van aswell as driving a Tuktuk for two months, we knew we wanted something that was simple and could take us places the others couldn't. So we decided on a 4th Gen Toyota 4Runner with a Camper Conversion and a full Sleeping Platform in the back.
Meet Yoti
4Runner Sleeping Platform
At the heart of the design is the single goal: achieving a full-width and full-length bed platform that sits just above the wheel arches to maximise usable space. Underneath the platform is a storage goldmine, with two large drawers out the back, two pull-out tables and a full-width shelf in the front.
The height you choose for your 4Runner sleeping platform will affect your drawer height and should be chosen with your water jerrycans in mind - more on this below.
To Keep The Back Seats? Or not
One of the biggest decisions that will shape your build is whether to remove the back seats or not. We cover the option of keeping the seats below, however we’ll walk through our design in the most detail. As we’re living in it full time and overlanding from Argentina to Alaska, we needed to maximise storage for all of our clothes, fishing gear, spare parts and more therefore the seats are removed.
Kitchen, Cooking & Water
Next lets walk through the kitchen setup and how we store our water. In the visualisation of the two pull-out drawers, you might’ve already noticed one is larger than the other, this is because the larger one is home to our kitchen.
Everything we need to cook, clean and eat belongs here including roughly a week's worth of dried food. The drawer is divided with storage containers to keep things organised and easy to access. Our kitchen gear includes:
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Doite Camping stove
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IKEA nested pots and pans
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Plates, cutlery, kitchen utensils
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Camping Gas Canisters & Bottles
We also have the 20L Alpicool Fridge which is chest opening and sits on a small wooden platform behind the drivers seat. These are great options for car camping as the Eco mode means they pull less power and the chest opening let's less cool air out.
Water System
One of the most essential parts of any off-grid setup is water, yet many car camping conversion designs seem to treat this as an afterthought and fit their water retrospectively. In our build, the height of our sleeping platform is the exact height of our water jerry cans. This allows us to carry:
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2x 25L Jerrycans of water
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6L bladder which we keep under the passengers feet for filtered drinking water
For water filtration we use:
Electrics
Perhaps one of the most absurd features of our car camping setup is the electrical system. Our choice of components allow us to comfortably power Starlink Mini as well as charge phones and laptops. While many overlanders opt for a simple Jackery or EcoFlow power unit, we have a fully off-grid power system with the following:
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Solar Panel & Victron MPPT & Bluetooth Connector - to charge via the sun
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150ah Gel Battery - to hold enough charge for weeks
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Victron Pheonix Inverter - to charge 240V appliances such as laptops
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Victron SmartShunt - to measure the state of our system
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DC-to-DC Charger - to allow us to charge while driving
4Runner Exterior
When car camping, every inch of space and storage matters, so we’re super glad we have our roof rack. The basket style rack also means that we can use more generic hardware store attachments compared to the slimline expensive racks such as FrontRunner where you need custom accessories. We have the following mounted on our roof:
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Starlink Mini - game changer for internet on the road! Get one month free here!
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Recovery Shovel - for digging us out of the sand, mud or snow
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Awning - for shade in the Chilean desert!
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3x 20L Petrol Jerrycans - for extra fuel on the long 4x4 tracks
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2x Storage Boxes - for bits and bobs that don’t need to be in the truck
Find Out More!
Our Blog Post 4Runner Car Camping Setup: Full-Size Sleeping Platform has loads more information on some of the more specific details about actually living in our 4Runner Camper Conversion fulltime, such as our climate control: how we stay warm and keep cool!