Does a Bowlus Really Have Enough Storage? | Packing for 2 People for 2 Weeks

The number one thing people say to me about a Bowlus is this: “It’s beautiful, but there is no way it has enough storage.” I hear it constantly. So today, we’re going to settle it. I’m going to pack two adults for a full two-week trip, hiking, camping, cold nights, the works, and we’re going to try to fill this Bowlus. Let’s see if we even can.

So let’s keep this a real comparison. I have two checked bags here which can each hold 50 pounds. Those are the weights you understand in your hands, so forget cubic feet. We’re going to pack real suitcases. I’m going to put them on a real scale. This is everything we’re bringing. Two people, two weeks, hiking clothes, warm layers, rain jackets, shoes for the trail, shoes for a nice dinner out, a full set of bedding, towels, and a spare set of towels for the same reason. Two weeks of clothes, laundry at the end, and yes, I re-wear things, and everyone does.

So let’s weigh it, the number people never talk about. Add all of that up, and it is right around 100 pounds of clothing and linens for two people for two weeks. This trailer is built to carry 800 pounds of carrying capacity, and we ride in the SUV that tows it, not in the Bowlus, so every one of those 800 pounds is for your things and your water. Even if I hit the road with a full freshwater tank, and that water alone is about 400 pounds, I still have room for more than 300 pounds of gear, food, and kitchen. And honestly, most of the time, I travel with the tank low and fill it up when I arrive, so there’s even more room than that. So let us put it all away, and I want you to watch where everything goes.

So now I’m going to show you what storage looks like inside the Bowlus for our two-person trip. So we’ve loaded everything inside. We’ll go kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom, show you how everything fits.

So first, let’s start here up at the front, standing in the front door. On this side, we have a garbage can down below, and then up top, we have aluminum foil, we have some glass cleaner, and we have extra trash liners there too as well. And then over on the other side, I’ve stocked it full of all of our pantry items. So, we have our coffee, we have nuts, we have beans, we have pasta, we have some honey.

And now let’s go forward to the storage that’s under the microwave. So in this kitchen, we have the three-in-one. So we’ve got the convection oven, we’ve got the convection microwave, and we have the air fryer. That’s the three-in-one. This is the Epicurean package Frontier edition that I’m going to be showing you in today. Of course, we also have a different kitchen option. We will also show what all of the food looks like in that kitchen option for the standard kitchen configuration.

But for the Epicurean package, we have a larger drawer that’s underneath the three-in-one, and here we have all of our other cooking items in here. So, we’re only bringing two of each thing, maybe four. So we have our full packing list, which is going to be down in the description, but a quick peek at everything in here. So we’ve got cups, we’ve got pots, pans, plates, bowls. We have a Nespresso coffee maker. We also have wine glasses, everything we need for cooking that’s located down here, a cutting board, knives, et cetera. And you can still see we have lots of room if you needed to add anything extra down there. I even have a few customers that like to put their Crockpot down there. So, lots of options.

And then over here on this side, we have the drawer, and I have just a few items in here. I have this fun kit that just has a bunch of cooking utensils in there, more knives, oven mitts, and our silverware here. And you can see there’s even more room. So if you wanted to bring more stuff, there’s tons more room in there.

Now let’s go on to the fridge. This is going to be the slide-out fridge, and I’m going to have a whole other video that goes over our packing list for a week off-grid for the fridge. But we’re focusing here on just storage. So I’m going to give you an overall first. So this is going to be our slide-out fridge. It is stocked because we have a week’s worth of groceries in here. And we use a system where we put a lot of them in the glass containers. This is a great system to stock even more inside your Bowlus because you can Tetris them all together. And then on top, we have this drawer. We’ve got our eggs, yogurt, hummus, some fruit. And then this is our freezer drawer up above, so I’ll just pull that out. So we’ve got frozen berries for smoothies. We have our meats in here as well, and then, of course, a little ice cream.

So I’ve showed you all inside the kitchen. Now let’s move on to the living room.

So now let’s go over all of the storage areas inside the Bowlus. So, the first storage area I’m going to go over is the five drawers that are located in the living room. Think of this as similar to the five-drawer dresser that you might have in your home. We also have two closets here, so don’t forget about that.

Now, when I go and pack for a long trip, I love to use packing cubes because it makes it so easy to just know where all of your stuff is, have it very organized, and also maybe bring more than you should. But in here, we have a combo of packing cubes and of loose clothes because I wanted to show both so that it all looks beautifully folded so you can see what everything looks like. But again, I just want to add that I could absolutely stuff more things in here if I wanted to.

So on this side, all of our drawers are going to be hard pull, soft close. I have folded items here, packing cube, shirt, and this is for two people for over a week. Reusing clothes is really normal when you’re on the road. Many campsites also have laundry services, so I like to usually bring seven to 10 days worth of clothes and then think about doing laundry on day 10 when you go to a campsite sort of as a refuel stop, if you will.

We have the dog bowls here. Now, if you weren’t going to bring along your pet, I would remove these. These are removable. And for pet items, you also can store things underneath these bowls, too.

Now, while I’m thinking about it, I also want to mention that do not forget you have the entire tow vehicle. What I often find is that people forget that they have a whole tow vehicle inside the Bowlus as well. What do I like to put inside my trunk? I like to put extra drinks inside my trunk. I like to put beach towels, beach toys, any of those extra things, as well as anything that might be a little bit dirtier. So if I’m going somewhere where I’m bringing some snow boots or rain boots or rain gear, I do like to put all of that in the tow vehicle so that inside the Bowlus can stay nice and clean, but don’t forget you have all of that area as well.

Now, in here, I have even more clothes. Again, you can see I’ve used the packing cubes, but if I wanted to, I could fit more. And then in these two drawers, I have more clothes. So folded pants, folded sweaters, all of that on this side, and then same on that side. So, everyone can get their own drawers, usually two and two if you’re bringing your pet along, or maybe even more. So now let’s go back to where the additional clothes storage is in the closet.

So now I’m going to show you the closets inside. So on this side, I’ve laid out all of the storage really beautifully. So I have shirts, I have jackets, I have extra towels up above. I even have a robe. I have hand towels, too, shoes down below. So this closet could also fit more. Again, I’ve laid it out so each hanger is on each section, but many a times, I have brought extra hangers and hung up two items per hole within that hanging rod as well. So I think you could fit at least about double in here, in my opinion. I love the really thin hangers in order to do that.

Now, on the other side, I’ve filled up the closet area mostly with outdoor chairs and an outdoor table. I have a few clothes up above and shoes down below. But these also could fit in the trunk of your car if you wanted the full use of the closet as well. Or you could get the telescoping ones that fit really beautifully in the outdoor storage hatch. So lots of options to make storage work for you for your use case.

So here I have those two camp chairs. I have the outdoor table here as well, which also doubles as the sofa table, and that’s being secured by that strap inside. I’ve got shoes down below. I’ve got some shirts and denim up above. And so that is the storage within the closet.

And while I’m here, I also want to mention that as part of the Frontier Edition or as the Endless Highways Adventure Package, we have this amazing lashing system. Now, this is at three points within the Bowlus between each room, if you will. So between the bedroom and the bathroom, bathroom and living room, and then living room and kitchen, you have these lashing points. I have nothing secured with these lashing points for this video. So I just want to point out how much more room I even have above this. And in the shower, there’s another one as well to secure extra water tank capacity. But if you were going on a trip where you didn’t need extra water tank capacity, that room is also up for grabs, too. And so you have tons of space to be tying things down, bigger gear, paddleboards, bikes, surfboards. All of that gear can come in through the front door and be tied down, but also other gear can be secured and tied down. So if you have a travel trunk you like to use, that can be here and secured and tied down, so lots of other ways to do that.

All right, let’s move back into the bathroom. So now I’m going to show off the storage on the shower side. Right now, we have the shower over here. We’ve got pump bottles for shampoo, conditioner, body wash, all of that. I have the two towels on the seat here in the shower. You already saw that I had two extra ones in the closet. And then behind me, I have one of the robes hanging.

Want to take this opportunity to point out all of the hooks inside the bathroom because they’re really awesome. So you’ve got hooks here, hooks on the bathroom door, hooks inside next to the vanity. All of those are awesome for hanging towels, hanging items. I also like to bring a laundry bag and hang that from one of the hooks, usually inside the toilet room or inside the shower, and that way I can just toss all the dirty laundry inside that and have that in one place. Easy to take when I get home to flip it over, or easy to take, like I said, into one of the laundry mats at a campground.

All right, now let’s show you the vanity side. So now we’re in the vanity area, just showing off what I have on the countertop here. So cup for toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, hand soap, hairbrush, just to set the scene, if you will. And then inside the medicine cabinet, I have tons of space. You can see there’s more than enough room for everyone to have their own shelf. Lots of space back here. I have a few kit bags as well, just so you can see how to keep it easy to just keep all of your stuff organized inside.

Now, as I close this door, I want to show you some of the places that I don’t have anything. So one of those places is going to be under the king bed. Now, if I had this set up in the twin bed configuration, you’d probably want to keep this empty. But one of the nice things about the king bed is I have a bunch of space under there as well. So bulkier items, bigger blankets, bigger jackets. If you’re going to cold weather climate, that’s a great place to put that gear underneath.

And then, in the bedroom, we also have those two shelves up above I don’t have anything there right now. You can kind of see we have lots of extra pillows just to make this look nice and set the mood, but of course, you might not want to bring all of those pillows along with you as well, and so you can kind of hone down on what sort of bedding gear you want to take on your trips.

So hopefully that gives you a really great idea of how much storage is inside a Bowlus. More than enough space with even room to spare for a couple or four people to be camping for seven to 10 days, never mind the extra storage that we have inside that tow vehicle, never mind the extra storage we have inside the bathroom, and as well as all the tie-downs.

Thank you so much for joining us on this video all about storage inside a Bowlus. I hope you’ll agree that there is tons of storage. We’ve packed for two people in here for a trip for seven to 10 days. Also, please keep in mind we’re not even using all of the available storage space. We’ve got that storage space under the bed. We’ve got all sorts of extra gear inside this closet. We’ve got room under the dinette. We have not stuffed all of the drawers or closets, so tons of room for your next trip. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, or comment if you have any additional questions. We read and respond to every single one of them. Until next time, we’ll see you on the road.