Meet Yugen owner Lucy: interior designer van conversions

Lucy has only been with Camplify for seven months but is already one of our top-performing van owners in her area with a constant stream of booking enquiries.

It’s no wonder Lucy’s luxury campervan, fondly called Olivia, is attracting so many couples and young families. The beautifully designed home-on-wheels with off-grid capability, includes a full kitchen, BBQ, toilet & shower, and fully-registered child seat anchor.

We caught up with Lucy to learn more about her passion for ‘van life’, her favourite hidden gems in Queensland, and how she’s building Yugen, her own campervan hiring business with Camplify...

Where does your passion for camping holidays come from?

I grew up camping with my parents and brother back in the UK. We always camped in tents, but Mum and Dad had quite the set-up back then.

When I moved to New Zealand, I bought a Toyota Hiace and loved the van life for ten years.

After a couple of tent camping misadventures, I decided to kit out a van again and start making plans to travel around Australia and visit all the fantastic places we have in Queensland (and beyond - when the borders open!)

Who do you usually travel with?

I usually travel with my little dog Elmo who absolutely loves going on adventures.

We are very much looking forward to travelling this year with a few friends who also have vans. When Mum comes over from the UK, we always go on road trips so that she can get to see as much of Australia as possible.

Tell us some of your favourite hidden gems in Queensland...

There are so many places to choose from! We love going to all the beach spots in QLD, and we are planning on heading up to Rainbow Beach on the Sunshine Coast and then further north to Seventeen Seventy and Agnes Water. Closer to home we love Cylinder Beach and Adder Rock at North Stradbroke Island.

We also like to explore the Hinterland and Lakeside spots and our favourite places would be Boreen Point Campground in Noosa and Bunya Mountains National Park **. **

The Scenic Rim in Queensland has some of the best campgrounds available, the ones that we recommend are Spring Gully Stays, where you can get a riverside spot and also **Bigriggen**where you can watch amazing sunsets and gaze at the stars.

Why did you decide to join Camplify?

I joined Camplify because I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to enjoy the van life as well as being able to enjoy it myself. Camplify allows me to let other people use the van whilst having the peace of mind that both the hirer and myself are covered by insurance.

All the modifications in the van have been registered and approved, and we added a registered child seat anchor to make the van available to small families. We care about the safety of everyone who hires the van and love that Camplify does too.

How do you plan to invest the money you earn via Camplify?

The money earned via Camplify is going towards paying off our first van and also our next van which is currently being fitted out.

It would be nice to start the third van soon, one with more seats as we are getting a lot of booking requests from people with slightly larger families.

We’re really looking forward to expanding our campervan hiring business further!

What do you enjoy most about sharing your van? The best thing about sharing the van is seeing the enjoyment that other people have, not only in the van but when they get to explore and adventure everything our beautiful country has to offer.

Sometimes, it's the kids that say “they want the van to be their new bedroom” and that “they are going to live in the van now”, other times it's seeing the couples head off on romantic or surf getaways.

Everyone comes back with a little story of their own, and we love to hear about it all. It's seeing the delight when hirers come back that is inspiring us to build more vans to share with everyone.

Tell us more about your van...

I am an interior designer by trade, and I love the challenge of fitting out small spaces. In the past, I have built shipping container cottages, so the vans were a new passion project. There are a lot more curves to a van interior, so it was a fantastic learning experience.

I did complete the design of the van and wanted to make sure I covered all the bases to suit a wide range of travellers. I wanted to include a full kitchen with a BBQ option, plus a toilet & shower, all with enough space for three people to sleep. The roof platform is an added touch that opens up so much more. The fit-out was completed part by myself and also Nick fromXcentrix Campervans.

The ladder to the platform was designed to carry long surf or stand up boards, and the roof platform gives people a better viewing point to watch the stars at night or do yoga or just relax and look at the world from a different viewpoint. Short surfboards can be stored under the bed in the straps.

The solar system is backed up with a 2kw inverter so if people want to travel off-grid they can, but if a hirer prefers to plug in, the van has this option, and the system recognises where it is drawing the power from, so it's a case of plugging in the van and relax.

Everyone who hires the van, comments on how everything has been thought of, some people like to use the full kitchen, BBQ and microwave, some the toaster, some just fill the fridge with beers and then eat out.

Whatever type of traveller people choose to be, they can do it all in our van Olivia.

The next van we are working on will also cater to everyone but will also be a 4wd so it will give people a chance to adventure further and see more.

You can book Lucy’s van here .