Shop Talk: Wayfarer Vans Show Us the Simpler Way

Ian Horgan’s journey in the camper van world started with a soggy adventure in Durango, Colorado. In 2014, he and his then-girlfriend, now wife, rode out a thunderstorm in a leaky tent. Soaked and miserable, they were determined to find a better way. From that germ of an idea, Wayfarer Vans was formed.

At the time, Horgan says, there were really only a few reputable van builders out there, and while they made great rigs, they tended to carry weighty price tags. So, Horgan decided to build his own on the relatively small Ram Promaster City platform. He figured if he wanted a simple, quality camper van, other folks probably did, too. And so began his mission to palletize camper vans.

The first Wayfarer Vans builds were kits designed for self installation, flatpacked and shipped directly to customers. The outfit has since evolved into a full, end-to-end builder and now offers four van-dependent builds that they install at their Colorado Springs facility. Those builds start at $22,000, and installation takes just a couple days. While they’re pumping out more vans than ever, they still try to abide by Horgan’s original philosophy of creating simple, high-quality, modular builds for an affordable price. We caught up with him to hear more.

Q: What makes Wayfarer Vans different from all the other van builders out there?

Horgan: I tend to say that we put the “camp” back in camper vans. We’re not going to build you a special espresso drawer. You’re going to use an Aeropress or something already in your camping closet.

Q: How do you balance simplicity and affordability with quality?

Horgan: That’s an interesting tightrope to walk and it’s a lot of fun. It’s really just our manufacturing process. You can see a lot of builders doing it now where they offer these preset designs, but I think Wayfarer Vans was the leading edge of that. I say we make “mass customization.” I don’t think it’s groundbreaking stuff in terms of manufacturing in general, but it was for the camper van world. A custom builder on average might take about 300 man-hours to do a van, whereas we’ve cut it down to about 26 or 28 hours. We don’t have options for the countertops or the wood species or the flooring or whatever. But we do have options for accessories. And when we design a new accessory, we make sure it can go into every one of our vans.

Q: You refer to yourselves and customers as “Wayfarians.” Why such an emphasis on community?

Horgan: From the beginning, I recognized a lot of camper van builders are so focused on what they were doing. I want to celebrate the people who are buying this. The people who go out and do the things that they want to do. If you just buy a van and then you don’t know what to do with it afterwards and it just sits in the driveway, what good is it to you? We created the Wayfarer Vans app, and the premise was to give a platform to the community so that they can share their favorite campsites with other Wayfarians. The key to the app is it’s still a closed community—you get a code for it once you buy a van, and then you have access. So, if somebody is new to camping and they don’t know where to go, they have a pocket full of 900 of some of the coolest camping spots in the country.

Q: What’s your philosophy on offering amenities while keeping things simple?

Horgan: Over time, we’ve added more amenities, but every time we do that we put a magnifying glass up against it and ask ourselves: Does this carry our brand forward? We don’t want to add more complexity just because people want it. Take the heater. We looked at all the options and asked: How can we do this in the Wayfarer way? All I want to do is just push a button and have the thing work. I think a lot of RV builders and manufacturers try to make things more like a house, but you can’t. It’s a dynamic, moving thing that’s going to be bouncing down the road.

Q: What’s your favorite design feature?

Horgan: I really kind of nerd out on the friction hinges because I just think that they’re so simple and effective. It’s not a gas strut and you’re not having to make weird design changes to the cabinetry. It’s so analog. If I could point to one thing that exemplifies how we’re different, it’s those–and they’re not cheap. We’re an affordable conversion, but we don’t use cheap material.

Q: What’s next for Wayfarer?

Horgan: I just got back from a week-long trip in Lone Pine, California, that we called a Wayfarer Weekend. We booked 10 sites at a campground at the base of Mount Whitney and celebrated our community and what it is to own a van. We’re going to do another one in Michigan and a third in Stanley, Idaho, this year. I’m hoping that this just builds momentum. I’d like to have six to ten events a year to get people out there together, hanging out, making those connections and, you know, traveling in a van.

Shop: Wayfarer Vans

Location: Colorado Springs, CO

Founded: 2015

Specialty: Modular Van Builds

Pick Your Van

Customers can choose between four builds—the Walter, Walt, Wilma and Wilford—each of which is tied to a specific model of Ram ProMaster or Ford Transit.

No Frills

The Walter, built atop a ProMaster with a 136-inch wheelbase, includes cargo tracks, a bedframe with a five-inch memory foam mattress, a galley kitchen with a fold-out leaf, as well as LED lighting, magnetic window shades and wool-insulate walls.

Look Inside

Wayfarer offers van tours at their shop in Colorado Springs, but they also work with a network of “Vanbassadors” who will meet up with prospective buyers and show them how these vans actually function.

This article originally appeared in Wildsam magazine. For more Wildsam content, sign up for our newsletter.