The ante-room serves as a staging area for cooking, working on projects, bathing, and other activities.

The bed and bedroom are the essence of a vardo. The pared-down essentials of travel. This is the bed extended to full width.

The washing up station is my favorite addition. The tank is a recycled Russian samovar and holds a little over a gallon of water. The copper sink provides a place to shave, wash, and brush your teeth.

It is all the details and little fixes that happen over time that make the vardo so personal and cozy. I try to focus on the practical and little innovations that make our life easier on the road.

In a small space, everything has to have its place. Everything fragile or dangerous also has to have a place to travel to avoid damage.

It’s hard to escape an almost nautical feel to the vardo. Many of the same issues have to be overcome as those in a boat. Hence the railings on all the shelves.

I owe much to my good friends who have given many of the finer bits and pieces that I use every day we travel.

I also enjoy repurposing found objects for real use in the vardo. In this case, some hundred-year-old glass insulators serve as convenient rings to hold a clothesline.

The large work counter serves many purposes. My beautiful copper water tank was made by the multi-talented fellow-traveller Mick Robins. The large overhead shelf is very handy for often used items.

The slide out bed spends most of the day in this position, giving more floor space as needed. It’s still plenty wide for a single person to sleep on in this configuration.

Just as with the 19th century living wagons, I try to use every square inch in a sensible way. Having a wood burning stove in such a small space presents its own set of problems and limitations.

This awning arrangement is a new one for me and worked beautifully. The tarp is a fly that normally attaches to my wedge tent but this arrangement served well as a workshop and outdoor cook space for the week.