*This post may contain affiliate links, which means we’ll receive a commission if you purchase through our links, at no extra cost to you. Please read our disclosure policy for more information.
Trust us when we say it IS possible to stay clean and have a place to use the bathroom and/or shower at your leisure when you live in a van (if that’s important to you – which it is for us). So let’s jump right into how to manage this when you live in a van!
Showers
We highly recommend getting a planet fitness membership because this is one of the cheapest gym memberships you can get and they are EVERYWHERE. We try to stay consistent with workouts, but the hot showers with unlimited water are a nice bonus (plus, they’re usually pretty clean so that’s nice too!) While we love this option, it’s not always practical. Sometimes we are just too far from a Planet Fitness, don’t feel like going out of our way, or just want to shower in our own home. The most common designs we see in van builds are fixed showers, pop up showers, or outdoor showers. We personally have a fixed shower and an outdoor rinse off in our van and we can happily say we have used it many times!
Some things to consider with these options are the space they take up, the water they use (remember this is a precious resource in a van), and the ability to have hot water. Having a water heater is great but unless you have an amazing system like this one, you will not have the lengthy hot water shower you might be used to.
Here’s some shower inspo:
Toilets
Choosing a toilet for your van can sometimes be a little overwhelming because of how many different kinds are on the market. Before we give you the ultimate list, it feels like we should give our opinion – which is: getting a composting toilet is totally worth it because there is a dedicated area for number 1 and number 2. Some toilets are for number 1 only which is nice but when you have to poop and no bathroom is near or you don’t want to go dig a hole being able to go in your house is so nice. Another bonus with composting toilets is they don’t smell, seriously when we go home and use a normal toilet it smells so much worse! AND you can go on one batch of compost (we use this peat moss but you can also use this coco coir) for sometimes over a month and when it’s time to change it you dump it into a bag (remember this is now a bag of dirt) and throw it away. (If you really do this right, you can use it as compost but we’re not perfect so we don’t chance it.) This has been our main bathroom source for over a year and we sincerely love it. So with all that being said there are other options if you don’t care about having the option to go number 2, but we personally couldn’t live without it.
Toilet Recommendations
Composting Toilets
Nature’s Head Composting Toilet (what we have and the best out there in our opinion)
Urine Only
Seaflo Urine (your could number 2 if you line toilet with a bag and then throw it away immediately, this is would only be emergency number 2)
Thetford (same thing with meant for just urine and could maybe rig it for number 2 into a bag but not designed for it) this one is a bit more compact
Non Composting but meant for number 1 and 2
