Van America Custom Van Build Details – The Bed
Figuring out the sleeping arrangement seems like the easiest part of a van build, but there is so much to consider. Read on for what we’ve learned about van beds, what we put into our All Advantures custom van build, and a 10-month review of our new bed solution.
What we’ve learned about van beds
After owning a 2018 Winnebago Travato 59K
Convertible beds probably aren’t best for full-timers.
In our Travato 59K, we had two twin beds, one on the passenger’s side and one on the driver’s side, that could be converted into a king. A couple of retractable arms extended across the walking aisle between the two twins and then a table top and two small cushions rested on the arms to form the middle section of the bed. We each loved having our own twin bed/couch area to lounge in during the day, and the king bed at night provided ample space for sleeping.
However, making the king bed at night, breaking it down in the morning, and being able to move about the van freely means everyone in the van has to be on the same sleep/wake schedule. While this might be manageable over weekend camping or short term trips, we don’t find it realistic when living together in a van full time. There are days when one of us wants to sleep in, stay up late, or feels unwell. To avoid hassles, we would sometimes forego making the king bed at night and sleep in our respective twin beds, but that’s not so great for intimacy.
It’s hard to make your bed in a small space.
I felt lazy about making the bed every night and putting all the sheets, blankets, and pillows away in the morning. It seems a bit like wrestling because you’re on your hands and knees in the middle of the bed trying to stretch the fitted sheet to every edge and corner. There isn’t a way to walk around the perimeter of the bed to make the bed gracefully.
A “mattress” composed of multiple cushions is uncomfortable.
Our Travato’s convertible bed meant four cushions made up our sleeping surface instead of a single mattress. Some cushions were firmer than others and some had more wear and tear which meant uneven support when we slept. Plus, the twin bed cushions laid on top of a soft surface, and the other two middle cushions rested on a much harder surface. If you have a young, strong body this might not matter so much, but my neck, back, and hips really suffered.
A bed in the middle of your floor plan acts as a barrier.
In our Travato 59K layout, the convertible twin beds resided in the middle of the van between the bathroom in the rear and the galley in the front. If you wanted to move between the bathroom and the front of the van, there was no way to walk through once the king bed was in position. You had to scooch or roll your body across the bed cushions to get from one end of the van to the other.
A multipurpose bed might not be secure while your van is in motion.
We discovered in an unfortunate way that the Travato’s king bed had to be reduced to the two twins while driving. The supporting arms for the table top did not lock in place and could retract at any time with van movements. Securing the bed was just one more addition to our pre-drive checklist.
Our biggest bed takeaways from the Travato: We’d prefer a dedicated bed with a single mattress located in the rear of the van that doesn’t require steps to secure it before driving.
After owning a 2019 Winnebago Revel
Camper van beds come in all sizes.
Three of us, including our dog, survived almost four years sleeping in the Revel’s bed that was bigger than a twin but smaller than a full. While we got used to having a tiny sleeping space, we’d be lying if we said we didn’t miss our Travato’s king-size bed.
Dedicated beds with a garage underneath are awesome.
We liked that our Revel had a dedicated bed in the rear versus the Travato’s convertible in the center of the van. I could go to bed early, sleep in late, or take a midday nap without thinking I was disrupting Kyle’s ability to use the rest of the van’s living space. Plus, it came with the added bonus of a huge garage space underneath that was large enough for me and our dog to sleep in comfortably for two weeks while on a road trip with my dad.
You can widen your Sprinter for more flexibility.
The Revel’s bed was positioned so that we could sleep across the width of the van with our heads on the passenger side and our feet on the driver’s side. Though, one could certainly sleep the opposite direction. Kyle is the tallest at 5’10” and there’s no way he could sleep across any Sprinter van with a pillow at that height. However, Winnebago installs flares in the Revel to widen the rear space at the bed’s level. By configuring the van for sleeping across its width, more space was available in the front of the house for other RV features.
The bed’s height position can be problematic for some.
The bed in our Revel sat higher than the one in our Travato. I’m 5’4″ and the Travato’s bed was at about my mid-thigh, whereas the Revel’s was about at my waist. It was a little more difficult getting in and out of the Revel’s bed because there was no built-in step to give me a boost. This becomes problematic if you are injured or otherwise incapacitated, shorter, or don’t have great upper body strength.
A height-adjustable bed makes it easier to move cargo in and out.
One of the most compelling features of the Revel is the ability to raise and lower the bed with a turn of a key and the press of up and down buttons. It can be lifted all the way to the air conditioning unit protruding from the ceiling, and in its top position, I can almost stand up straight underneath while barefoot. It’s so much easier to move items in and out from under the bed when you have five feet of vertical space to work with.
Electric motors fail so have a workaround.
My biggest concern with the bed being on an electric motor was the potential for it to stop working at an inopportune time. What if we raised it up and we couldn’t get it back down? Fortunately, Winnebago built-in a backup feature that allows you to move the bed up and down manually.
Fancy bed features can result in an awkward “mattress” that doesn’t support a standard fitted sheet.
In order for the Revel’s bed to raise and lower, Winnebago designed the bed with three independent sections to accommodate the curvature in the Sprinter’s walls. The middle section of the bed was almost as wide as the narrowest section between the passenger-side and driver-side walls so it could move vertically unhindered. To the left and right of the main center piece were narrow bed sections (the head and foot) along the driver-side and passenger-side walls. These two sections were permanently installed at the bed’s minimum height which is about two feet if you measure from the floor to the bottom of the bed.
Each of the three sections had its own cushion that when aligned, made up the mattress. But each was of its own depth and shape. The cushions for the skinny end sections had snaps to secure them in place so they wouldn’t fall off or reposition when the center piece was raised and lowered. Between the snaps on the end cushions and the variable cushion sizes, this made it impossible to utilize any standard fitted sheet.
Standard Class B beds can be uncomfortable.
The Revel bed’s center cushion was the primary mattress but unfortunately, it lacked comfort or support. It was like a bad futon mattress. Kyle could feel the wood slats on which it rested and it took a while for my hips to adapt. The end cushions mostly served as space fillers and didn’t contribute much to our comfort.
Custom mattresses are a back saver.
We were so happy when we met RoamRest at Adventure Van Expo and hired them to make us a custom mattress for our Revel. Each person’s idea of a comfortable mattress varies, so we appreciated being able to visit RoamRest at their facility in Oregon for testing different levels of foam firmness. We were able to design a mattress best for us, one of our best van investments.
Our biggest bed takeaways from the Revel: We like having a dedicated bed in the rear that can raise and lower with storage underneath. We appreciate a mattress dialed-in for our comfort and want one that can use standard bed sheets. And I need a way to crawl into bed without jumping or lifting myself up.
So what went into our All Advantures custom van build?
The bed platform
Since we installed Adventure Wagon’s Sprinter kit, we chose to include their compatible MOAB Traverse Elevator Bed.
The MOAB Traverse is installed in the rear of the van. Two bed rails are secured along the AdWag kit’s L-track on both sides of the van at your desired height, and then a mattress platform made of two collapsible panels are secured to the bed rail. You can choose to sleep lengthwise down the van or widthwise across the van.
To preserve space in the front of our van house for other features, we opted to sleep widthwise. However, it would mean installing flares for our bodies to fit with our heads on the passenger-side and feet on the driver-side. Adventure Wagon makes interior panels specifically for Flarespace Flares, so that’s what we installed. The height of our bed is positioned at the bottom of the flares which is at my waist.
Going into a custom van build, we were willing to sacrifice bed space if it meant squeezing in more items on our wishlist. Since our Revel’s bed was smaller than a full, we assumed that we’d end up with something similar. We were so excited when All Advantures told us we could fit a queen size bed in our new van and still also include a dinette that turns into a bed/couch and a galley larger than what was in our Revel.
Our dinette would be located directly in front of the bed whose seats would double up as steps to the bed. No more standing on my tippy toes or using my arms to push myself up like in our Revel
Adventure Wagon gives you a choice of black anodized or bare aluminum for the bed’s frame. We went with black anodized to match our L-track. For the platform top, we chose black hex over bamboo to match wall panels that were also covered with black hex.
The two panels that make up the bed’s platform are collapsible and removable, so the rear space in the van can be used for other purposes. Maybe you also use your van for business and need to convert the inside from camper van to work van on business days.
While the AdWag bed doesn’t move up and down with the push of a button like the Revel’s, it’s still height-adjustable with some extra effort. First, you must remove the two-panel platform and anything on it, including your mattress and bedding. You must then unscrew the four 14 mm nuts that hold the bed rails to the L-track. Once the bed rails are removed, you can position the 14 mm nut L-track fittings to your desired bed height along the L-track. Once the fittings are in place, you can reinstall the bed rails and your platform. For a helpful video on how this works, check out AdWag’s site here.
That certainly is a lot more effort than turning a key and pushing a button in the Revel to raise the bed. However, for us, we found that we only raised our Revel’s bed two to three times per year. We rearrange, purge, and deep clean at least once after the ski season, and again before the start of the ski season. With our new van, we don’t anticipate actually raising the bed. Rather, we’ll be happy to just remove our bed platform and mattress so we have the maximum vertical space possible when moving cargo.
The mattress
Adventure Wagon sells a mattress compatible with the MOAB Traverse Elevator Bed, and it’s possible that it’s very comfortable. However, due to our positive experience with RoamRest, and the fact they had our preferred foam firmness on file, we asked RoamRest to make us another mattress for our latest van.
The mattress hinges in two places, making it a trifold. Each hinge has a zipper so we can break the mattress down into three smaller pieces for easy moving and storage.
Since our senior dog was frequently having accidents, they put a removable waterproof cover on our mattress that we could take to the dry cleaner. They also offer water resistant covers that are machine washable and dryable.
The bottom and sides of the mattress are made of a thicker, more durable material to protect it against items being moved in and out of the van such as skis and snowboards. We don’t want their sharp edges shredding the mattress.
And while the mattress isn’t a perfect rectangular cube, a standard queen fitted sheet fits well.
A 10-month review of our bed solution
The Adventure Wagon MOAB Traverse Elevator Bed feels solidly in place. We don’t notice any creaking when entering and exiting and moving about the bed. I also haven’t noticed any moisture buildup between the mattress and bed platform which can supposedly be a problem in some van builds.
We haven’t yet tried removing the bed panels or adjusting the bed’s height. If we do, I’ll post an update here.
We love all the space underneath the bed for storage, but that leads me to one criticism of the MOAB Traverse Elevator Bed. The underside of the panels are unkind to skin. It’s not a flat surface due to their collapsible nature, and there are metal braces with sharply cut edges. When reaching through from our dinette to grab bags stored underneath the bed, I’ve scraped skin off of my fingers more than once. Our storage duffels become increasingly damaged every time we move them in and out. If I put my body under there, hitting my head on the metal braces doesn’t feel good either. It would help a bunch if the metal edges were at least blunted.
We, once again, love the comfort of our RoamRest custom mattress. No liquids have made it down to the mattress, so I can’t speak to its waterproofness yet. While I still have to wrestle the fitted sheet onto the mattress, it’s not a mattress issue. It’s just van life and tiny living. If that’s one of the worst things, life’s not bad!
