When choosing our vehicle to drive the Pan-American Highway, from Argentina to Alaska crossing two continents, we had a certain criteria: 4×4 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.
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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 ofĀ keeping the seats below,Ā however weāll walk through our design in the most detail. As weāre 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 mightāve already noticed one is larger than the other, this is because the larger one is home to our kitchen.Ā
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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:
- Doite Camping stove
- Omnia Oven
- Collapsible washing up bowl
- IKEA nested pots and pans
- Plates, cutlery, kitchen utensils
- Jetboil
- Camping Gas Canisters & Bottles
We also have theĀ 20L Alpicool FridgeĀ 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:
- 2x 25L Jerrycans of water
- 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 powerĀ Starlink MiniĀ as well as charge phones and laptops. While many overlanders opt for a simpleĀ JackeryĀ orĀ EcoFlowĀ power unit, we have a fully off-grid power system with the following:
- Solar Panel & Victron MPPT & Bluetooth ConnectorĀ – to charge via the sun
- 150ah Gel Battery – to hold enough charge for weeks
- Victron Pheonix InverterĀ – to charge 240V appliances such as laptops
- Victron SmartShuntĀ – to measure the state of our system
- DC-to-DC ChargerĀ – to allow us to charge while driving
- 4-Way Overlanders Fuse BoxĀ
- Cigarette Lighter Ports & USB Ports
4Runner Exterior
When car camping, every inch of space and storage matters, so weāre 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 asĀ FrontRunnerĀ where you need custom accessories. We have the following mounted on our roof:
- 150w Solar Panel
- Starlink MiniĀ – game changer for internet on the road!Ā Get one month free here!
- Recovery ShovelĀ – for digging us out of the sand, mud or snow
- AwningĀ – for shade in the Chilean desert!
- 3x 20L Petrol Jerrycans – for extra fuel on the long 4×4 tracks
- 2x Storage Boxes – for bits and bobs that donāt need to be in the truck
Find Out More!
Our Blog PostĀ 4Runner Car Camping Setup: Full-Size Sleeping PlatformĀ 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!