Campervans and chemical toilets - why I'm glad mine didn't have one

One of the tough decisions I had to make when buying my campervan was whether to go for a Toyota hi-top - which can fit easily into any carspace, and can double as a town vehicle during the times you're not travelling -- or whether to get something a bit larger with a toilet and maybe a shower.

In the end, I went for the campervan, and I'm glad I did.

Even if you only use the toilet when absolutely necessary, those chemicals really smell. And it's right next to where you are cooking and eating and sleeping. (Horrible.)

So I got by fine with my iphone 'Toilet Mate' app, which finds and guides you accurately to the nearest toilet, no matter where you are in Australia, as long as you have 3G access. (And for some more of my favourite travel apps, check out this post.)

At night, if I needed to do a wee, I had an icecream container with a good-fitting lid, dedicated to this purpose, which I kept handy in the cupboard under the sink. In the morning I put it in a plastic shopping bag and carried it to the public or caravan park toilets and emptied and washed it there. No problems at all. (Or if I was in the bush, I diluted it with water and used it to fertilise a convenient tree.)

It's just wee, after all. Do we really need to use heavy horrible chemicals to deal with it?

Especially as, when diluted, it is actually a brilliant fertiliser. (Lots of nitrogen and a range of other goodies. Farmers buy it as Urea, and pay quite a lot of money for it.)

And by the way, if you do feel the need to have a porta-potty, apparently it's when you mix number ones and number twos together in the one potty that it creates the need for such high strength and quantity of chemicals, as each requires a different process to break down properly. Keep them separate, and you'll need a lot less of those expensive and smelly chemicals.

Finally, if you're travelling or living in a campervan and are worried about what might happen in a dire emergency (food poisioning or a stomach bug etc), here's a tip I gleaned from browsing websites written for and by people in the US who had lost their homes due to the subprime mortgage disaster, and who were living in their vehicles.

Their tip was to get a small bucket with a good-fitting lid. Double line the bucket with disposable plastic shopping bags (or triple line it if you want to be extra sure), and then put some kitty litter in the bottom. When you've used it, tie it up, and dispose of it in a rubbish bin as soon as you can. Not recommended except for extreme emergencies as this is not the kind of thing that we want going into our rubbish system. But handy to know about, if you ever need it.

As for not having a shower in the van, I was glad I hadn't used up valuable space for that too. Unless you are in a large motorhome, it's unlikely that your water tank will allow you to have much of a shower. And the small space that would be available makes it rather uncomfortable. I've heard of lots of people who end up using their shower space for storage.

For me, a peaceful, slow and thorough wash with a basin of water is one of the pleasures of camping. And there's always the ocean or a river. Or the gym (my Fitness First membership was very handy for this, as I could go to any of their gyms anywhere in Australia.) Or a caravan park. Or a friend's house.

Indeed one of the delights of travelling and living in a campervan is to discover how little you actually need in life compared to what you think you need.