14 Campervan Kitchen Design Ideas for Van Life

The kitchen is arguably the most important part of your van build. You’ll be spending lots of time preparing food on the road. Here are some inspiring kitchen ideas for your van life adventures.

Having a van kitchen you enjoy is a huge consideration for your van build. We kept it simple in our Chevy Astro van, using a one-burner stove and an outdoor table for our cooking. In our upcoming Sprinter van conversion, we’ll get a little bit more elaborate for indoor cooking.

You can either build your own DIY campervan kitchen or buy a van kitchen unit from a manufacturer that’s an easy plug-and-play install. Getting a custom conversion? Use these van kitchen ideas as inspiration.

Here are 17 van kitchen ideas to take your van cooking to the next level. First, we’ll show you a bunch of camper van kitchen ideas, then point you to prebuilt kitchen units you can purchase.

Van Kitchen Layout Ideas

Here are some super cool and inspiring camper van kitchen layouts for you to take a look at it. These are a combination of both professional and DIY van builds.

Off Highway Vans

Small kitchen unit in a campervan behind driver's seat
Photo: Off Highway Vans

If you’re into a super minimalistic van kitchen design, this type of tiny kitchenette might be just what you’re looking for.

We love how this campervan kitchen from Off Highway Vans maximizes space with a fold-out table, perfect for meal prep. The large sink has a cover (typical of RV sinks), which expands counter space when you don’t need running water.

The kitchen also includes a front-loading fridge right beneath the sink.

Wandering Woods DIY Campervan Kitchen

Woman standing in front of her campervan kitchen
Photo: WanderingWoods.org

Betsy and Justin Woods of WanderingWoods.org have a gorgeous van kitchen in their 2005 Sprinter, which used to be a FedEx delivery vehicle.

This campervan kitchen is a van lifer’s dream, with a beautiful large countertop for food prep, tons of storage, a deep sink and an oven! Yes, that’s right, the Woods’ can bake pizzas, cookies and bread right inside their campervan. How cozy would that be on a rainy day.

This is a great example of a good van life kitchen if you have a longer van with extra interior space.

Camp Chef Outdoor Camp Oven
Size: 31
Weight: 37.1 pounds
Features: Stainless steel construction - 7,500 BTU's per burner, Oven 3,000 BTU's
Pros:
  • Can be adapted to indoor use
  • Includes two burners and an oven
  • Fits 9×13 baking dish
  • Small enough to be built into a van conversion
  • Affordable
Cons:
  • Temperature control issues
  • Unreliable thermostat
  • Requires ventilation
  • Ignition problems
  • Rattles when you’re driving

Chef Adam Glick’s DIY Campervan

This simple campervan kitchen has an awesome pull down faucet
Instagram.com/chefadamglick

Adam Glick is a professional chef, so having a spacious and well-thought-out van kitchen was very important to his diy build.

Adam’s Ford Transit campervan has a recessed 2- burner propane stove, a deep kitchen with an extendable faucet, and plenty of storage space.

We love the craftsmanship in this build, but don’t worry, you don’t have to do something quite this fancy.

You can check out Adam’s entire line of folding camping knives here.

@RogerCrespo’s DIY Van

This campervan kitchen idea uses the width of your van rather than the length. I’ve seen this type of campervan kitchen on all sorts of vans, down to a small VW bus.

This van kitchen has all the essentials you’ll need for a hearty meal while living the van life, including a sink, faucet, two-burner stove and even a collapsible dish tub!

What we don’t particularly like about this campervan kitchen design is that you have to go outside your van to get into the front driver’s seat. This doesn’t bode well if you need to drive away quickly in an emergency!

This campervan kitchen idea uses the width of your van rather than the length. I’ve seen this type of campervan kitchen on all sorts of vans, down to a small VW bus.

This van kitchen has all the essentials you’ll need for a hearty meal while living the van life, including a sink, faucet, two-burner stove and even a collapsible dish tub!

Kate & Ben’s $50 DIY Campervan Kitchen

Kate and Ben of Two Wandering Soles now have TWO DIY van conversions under their belts. Their first van life rig was a simple conversion with a $50 van kitchen.

I love this as it goes to show you don’t need to spend a ton of money to get out there on the road cooking in your van.

Their simple van kitchen layout featured a 2-burner Coleman stove, a small cutting board, a working sink and a water container.

If you want to learn more about building an affordable camper van kitchen, check out their blog post: DIY Campervan Kitchen for Less than $50

Kate and Ben also have a number of awesome van build courses. Make sure you check them out to get help with electrical, flooring, insulation, and more!

Van Conversion Academy

Kate and Ben of Two Wandering Soles have built TWO vans and put together an extensive course on building your own van. Here's some of what you'll get:

  • How to create a floor plan that fits your needs
  • Fan and window installation
  • Sound dampening, insulation and sub-floor
  • Electrical and solar
  • And so much more!

We also like that you can buy individual components from Kate and Ben if you just need help with one part of your van build process.

Far Out Ride’s Ford Transit DIY van kitchen

Woman sitting in a bed way behind her van kitchenette
Photo: Far Out Ride

Antoine and Isabelle of Far Out Ride transformed a Ford Transit cargo van into a super cute tiny home on wheels.

We love their kitchen design – tons of counter space, a three-burner propane range with oven and sink with running water. There’s also tons of counterspace on the opposite side of the van, great for more complicated cooking projects on the road.

A huge cabinet on front of the van kitchenette stores water jugs and is finished with beautiful cedar planking.

Antoine and Isabelle estimate the total time it took for them to create their kitchen system was between 40 and 60 hours.

You can download Far Out Ride’s water system diagram below and also check out their entire Van Build series for tips on building out a Ford Transit. https://faroutride.com/van-build/ 

Printable Water Diagram for Van Builds

If you need help putting together the components of your van's water system, check out this printable water system diagram. The van builders over at Far Out Ride of a wealth of knowledge about DIY campervans. Their guide is helpful and affordable.

Slide Out Drawer Kitchen System by Contravans

Van kitchen with two large sliding drawers
Photo: Contravans

If you have a smaller van with limited space, we love this slide-out kitchen idea by Contravans.

In their NV200 conversions, Contravans installs two large drawers that stay under the bed until needed. When you want to cook, just pull out the drawer and set up your portable cookstove. (We like this single-burner Jetboil stove, which has great simmer control)

This system doesn’t have running water or a sink, but who cares if you’re out enjoying the great outdoors? This is a great-space saving kitchen idea for campervans.

Side slide-out campervan kitchen

Side slide-out campervan kitchen
Instagram.com/vanlifecamper/

I love the counter space in this slide-out van kitchen. It’s a simple DIY design that fits a one-burner stove and a cutting board, perfect for preparing a small meal.

This is another example of a space-saving kitchen if you have a smaller campervan.

The only downside of this campervan kitchen is you’ll need a van awning if you want to cook in bad weather.

VanCraft’s Luxury Van Kitchen

This is a super fancy van kitchen for a long wheelbase Sprinter van
Instagram.com/van_craft/

 If you want some luxury campervan kitchen build-out ideas, check out this fancy kitchen by Van Craft. This is a phenomenal-looking, stream-lined kitchen in the longest wheelbase Sprinter van, at 170″. 

You’ll have plenty of room in this cute van kitchen for cooking, baking, storage and refrigeration.

Why would you need a house if you have a campervan like this?

Incredibly Simple Chevy Astro Van Cooking System

woman cooking at an outdoor kitchen in a campsite

While I won’t call what we have in our Chevy Astro van a kitchen per see, I just wanted to show you that you really don’t even NEED a kitchen in your camper van to cook good meals.

When it’s rainy outside, we put a cutting board down on a footstool, put up our single-burner Jetboil stove, and start cooking! We are sure to leave windows cracked and our Fantastic Fan running to pull out any carbon monoxide fumes. We cut and prepare food on a similar cutting board on the other footstool.

During nice days, our entire cooking unit is portable! We set up a GSI folding table outside and cook in the great outdoors.

This has worked for us for several years, and doesn’t require any installation or building.

What Will Your Next Campervan Kitchen Look Like?

We hope this inspired you for crafting your very own campervan kitchen. If you want to grab pre-built kitchen block for your van, check out this post: The Best Campervan Kitchen Pods for a DIY Build.

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4 Comments

  1. For the second kitchen, is that a potty? If so, where can I get one?

  2. It is! I know little potties like that are sold on Amazon. I actually need to write a post about little campervan potties like this, but try looking around on Amazon and see what you find!

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  4. Annette Choti says:

    I have to admit I’m a long time reader, first time commenter onyour site haha! Thank you for this great blog post! We are figuring out the kitchen situation in our conversion van build now and this is so helpful!!! Thank you!

    1. Hi Annette! I love your guys site 🙂 I pin your stuff when I can. I’m glad you enjoyed this post!

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