The van converters who became an unexpected Instagram hit

Charlie Low and Dale Comley have achieved what once seemed impossible for them: actually carrying out the van conversion they have been dreaming of for years.

Dale, a 29-year-old engineer, and Charlie, a 25-year-old data analyst, met on a climbing trip in Italy and now live together in south Bristol.

Fittingly, their accommodation for that first holiday was meant to be a motor home, but the caravan failed its MOT a week before they went out.

Converting and living in a van was a mutual ambition even before then, and after a period of planning they finally bought a bold yellow Mercedes Sprinter, called Ringo, in January 2019.

Ringo has been fitted with creamy surfaces, a double bed, and even a pull-down projector screen for movie nights.

The pair created an Instagram, account, @nohmaadventure, to document the redecorating process, which has since gained almost 75,000 followers across the world and has since morphed into a website, newsletter and burgeoning YouTube channel.

But their newfound influencer status is somewhat accidental.

“We were just doing it because it was fun to document it, and it was nice to be part of the van-converting community,” Charlie tells Bristol24/7 via Zoom.

“I don’t think we were ever going, ‘Oh, it would be nice to get thousands of Instagram followers’, so when it did happen we were like, ‘what’s happening?’”

The van is fitted out with a kitchen, bed and projector – photo: @nohmaadventure

Their Instagram followers remained at around 4,000 until the van was finished, but quickly grew to 20,000 in just a few months upon the van’s completion. It has continued to grow since.

“Ultimately what people want to see on Instagram is a nice finished van in a cool place,” Charlie says. “So as soon as our van was finished, and there were pictures of beautiful bits of the Lake District and the bedroom with mountains out the window, it just kind of exploded.”

It took the pair 1000 hours over 15 months to complete the renovation, and they are now set to launch their own van conversion business. The goal was to finish it in 2020 and drive away into the sunset, but as lockdown hit, Charlie and Dale found themselves grounded.

“It was pretty rubbish timing,” Charlie says. “We were planning on moving into the van full-time last year, but because of Covid we haven’t been able to do that.

“But we’ve got out in it as much as we’ve been able to. When the first lockdown lifted, we spent a lot of time in the Lake District and the Peak District, just exploring bits of the UK and doing lots of climbing.”

They have grand plans for when they do move in, however. Three months in Europe, followed by a summer of exploring and climbing back in the UK.

Dale and Charlie plan to live in the van from April – photo: @nohmaadventure

The couple were helped in their renovation by Charlie’s degree in physics and Dale’s background in engineering.

“We both had different things that we could bring to it,” Charlie says. “I did a lot of the electrical system because of my physics knowledge.”

Dale, meanwhile, was a perfect choice to rig up the water system. “We both learned quite a lot from the other,” he says.

The couple’s blog on their website details the intricate ins and outs of the conversion process. It’s designed to be a resource for anyone wishing to convert a van themselves, and has proven to be so popular that they are now looking at taking it on as a fully-fledged business.

“We realised that there are a lot of people who are wanting to do this as well,” Charlie says. “It’s a really cool thing to do, and it’s nice to have something to enable you to go on all these adventures. So we want to be able to help other people achieve that.”

It took 1000 hours to convert the van. Photo: @nohmaadventure

The pair add that it’s “absolutely” possible for people to renovate a van without science or engineering backgrounds.

“There are certain areas which are sensible to get a professional to do, say the electrics or the gas,” says Dale. “But 90 per cent of it is manual labour that is not necessarily highly-skilled. So even if you’re getting someone to do, say, 10 per cent or your work, you could do the vast majority of it yourself.”

Charlie adds that “there are so many resources that you can use to learn how to do things”.

“Like for me, I have a physics degree but I’d never really made anything before,” she says. “When we were converting our house, that was the first time that I was learning how to use a drill or a saw.

“Ultimately everybody has to start somewhere. You just have to make the commitment to actually doing it, and once you’ve decided that, it’s very achievable.”

Main photo: @nohmaadventure

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