There is a movement of people out there who live in an RV, but don’t really want to advertise it. But how do you live in an RV and somehow make it look like you’re not living in an RV? For many crafty builders, the solution is to build a stealthy camper that looks like something most people will easily ignore. I’ve seen it done with vans painted as trade machines and box trucks made to look like rental movers, but I think I may have found the final boss of stealth campers: this man built a cheap camper that hides under what appears to be a random stack of pallets.
There are some valid reasons that someone might want to build a stealth camper. Living in an RV still has a negative stigma attached to it, and these people don’t really want to bring any attention to themselves. Building a stealth camper may also allow someone to park their camper in a place where a typical RV might not be welcome. Parking an RV outside of a neighborhood for too long might result in a cop knocking on your door. Some cities even have RV parking bans in place. But, park a plain white van in the same place, and it might be several days before anyone even notices. Add ladders, and it’ll blend in even more as you just look like another contractor.
There’s plenty of debate out there about the efficacy of the stealth camper concept. Some love it, some think it’s a waste of time. I’m not here to litigate that. Instead, I just want to show you the most interesting stealth camper I’ve seen in a long time. This one was built by Steve Wallis, a YouTuber who loves to challenge himself to camp in the weirdest possible places:
The Pallet Camper
Steve starts off the video with a tour, and this will be one of the quickest build descriptions I’ve ever written. His build starts with a regular flatbed trailer. On top of that trailer is a simple plywood box. On top of the box is a tall stack of pallets that have been cut so that the box fits inside. That’s it. There’s no insulation or anything like that. The only thing separating the weather from the box is plastic house wrap on the inside of the box, and Steve shows that the plastic isn’t even keeping water out. Somehow, this is technically a solid-wall camper that has less weather protection than a mediocre tent!
The interior is ridiculously minimalist. Steve has a cot to sleep on and a TV screen to look at. That TV is receiving a feed from four cameras, which function as a 360-degree surveillance system. The idea here is that Steve can watch out for any weird happenings, but also to see if there’s nobody outside so he could leave the camper without blowing his cover.
The cheapness of the camper is charming. The rear door is just a pallet on a hinge that stays closed using a magnet and a ratchet strap. Heck, Steve even says that while the camper is screwed together, more ratchet straps hold it onto the trailer.
Steve then demonstrates the supposed effectiveness of a camper like this by taking it to the parking lot of a Peavey Mart hardware store. For our U.S. readers, that’s your clue that this is going down in the lands of our friendly northern neighbors.
Anyway, this is sort of the brilliance of a stealth camper like this. Nobody’s going to care about a stack of pallets parked out front of a hardware store. Yet, this particular store was near a pet store, a gas station, a convenience store, and a restaurant.
As for power, Steve is using a “Fllyrower” (yes, that’s the real brand name) 12.8-volt, 100 Ah lithium iron phosphate battery with a battery management system and a Black and Decker 500-watt inverter. Steve said he chose the battery because the BMS makes the battery safer. As I wrote before in my lithium motorcycle battery piece, a BMS can prevent damage from charging, discharging, temperature swings, and more.
Steve was also pretty upfront about the downsides. He said the video embedded above took three tries to get right. In one previous attempt, the inverter shorted out and overvolted the battery. The BMS responded by shutting the battery down to protect itself, which ruined the whole experiment. We aren’t told what happened the other two times.
That battery also isn’t doing much. It’s powering a slow cooker and the interior lights, and that’s it. The cameras have their own battery backup. Steve’s only “luxury” is a skylight made out of an old window. There’s no heat, no HVAC, not even a cassette toilet.
Steve also notes that he did screw up in some ways because the wiring for the lights was potentially so shoddy that he didn’t want to chance leaving the battery hooked up all night. He also didn’t make a cover for the skylight, which means turning on the lights at night causes light to bleed out of the top of the camper. Thankfully, that wasn’t a problem this time because the parking lot lights were so bright that using the trailer’s lights made no impact.
Is This The Future Of Camping?
Steve then sleeps in the camper and wakes up seemingly refreshed. He concludes that this pallet rig needs some big refinements, but Steve thinks it’s the way of the future. Steve notes that a lot of vanlifers like taking work vans and covering them in solar panels, but that people can tell that’s a camper. I mean, he has a point there. When was the last time your plumber had a bunch of solar panels on his van?
I’m not entirely sure that a pallet camper is the future. I mean, it was extremely cool, yes. But this camper leaked so much water that it was somehow worse than a tent, which is actually sort of impressive. Also, the lack of heating or air-conditioning would be a non-starter in many regions. Still, I like the concept and the creativity. Now, the next time I see a stack of pallets on a trailer, I’m going to stare at them for just a little longer.
Hat tip to the Drive.
Top graphic images: Steve Wallis; Wayfair
Maybe just put the seat down and sleep in the car.
For the people getting bent out of shape about this camper being dangerous or poorly designed…it’s supposed to be silly. He makes some weird thing every couple months. He also stealth camped in a pile of brush in his truck bed.
Yeah, guy is a content creator, I personally loved his 70s camp out in the RV. Fun channel
Camping with Steve is ridiculous fun and sometimes extremely Real Feels. Dude just out there doing a weird thing and seems to be enjoying it.
The Bohemian Lifestyle is interesting but just not right for me. Also, I don’t want to die of fire when my iron lithium battery powered crock pot shorts out, igniting the cloth walls of my mobile coffin, now inescapable because some well meaning kid locked the outside (?) door latch to protect whatever valuables I might have stored within a trailer of pallets.
If he extended the trailer a tad and put a porta-john on the back, he could take Clown Core on tour.
I like the stealth, but there’s dudes who drive around clapped out trucks looking for pallets all the time, just like the dude‘s looking for scrap. And why would you not put the house barrier shield on the outside of the box, then paint it black??
This is a penalty box.
Where does this guy do his number one and number two in the middle of the night if needed? Hole cut into bottom??
Haha, I was thinking the same thing. At my first job we kept extra pallets out back by our dock and it was a weekly thing stopping people from driving off with them.
We’re from BC, eh. We don’t just steal shit from each other
#1 is easy. A pee bottle.
#2 is a bit more challenging. Ideally at your closest public restroom. In emergency – in a plastic bag. Tie it up, toss it in the trash. No different than a diaper bag.
As far as I know, he’s only camped in the pallet trailer once, and he was at a campground that had showers and a rest room.
That looks like it would be easy to break into.
Or upcycle into a platform bed/bookcase/coffee table…
Well considering, he made the video, he must have been just fine. You won’t see this pallet camper ever again on his channel. He always has something different. Usually its places he stealth camps, that are his best.
Neat idea; fascinating video. Not to mention some of his other content.
This doesn’t make any sense, however. I own a Transit with solar panels and an RV inside. It doesn’t scream camping; it doesn’t look stealth either.
Having parked and slept in a parking lot, it’s all unnecessary. The truth is that 99.9% of the population has other things on their mind. Their money, their job, their stress. They could care less that there’s a guy sleeping in a converted van. Even for those who realize it, they just go, huh, and go on, like when you see a drunk guy walking on the sidewalk.
One way to get “caught” though is ingress and egress into the sleeping conditions. With a van, you just park, and go in the back. done. No waiting a guy out to finish his beer bottles so you can crawl in a stack of pallets!
Steve Wallis was homeless, so yeah he knows.
Where Steve and I are from, motherfuckers really, deeply care about people sleeping in vehicles
I love Steve. Been watching his videos since Covid kicked off. His ideas are always half-baked and quickly thrown together, but that’s part of the charm.
All he really needs for a toilet is a hole in the floor and then to drive to another parking spot.
As several have mentioned, pallets are just as tempting, if not more so, than a trailer or camper. If truly going for the Chameleon XLE vibe it should be something like a sewer pump trailer, with appropriate ‘patina’d’ paint. Tow it behind a small white pickup with an orange light bar and wear a reflective vest when around it and you could park it wherever you want.
Umm, he has done videos like this, lol. Down to the yellow vest, in a dump truck
I’d guess if the hardware store is cool with a truck + trailer of pallets parking over night, they’d be cool with just about anything parking over night.
And the pile of pallets would be about as welcome in a stuffy suburban neighborhood as a contractor van.
Y’all don’t know what vehicle camping in BC is like. It’s mad out here
I admire his ingenuity, but it’s all fun and games till someone wants to steal some pallets.
This thing is one lit match away from turning into a funeral pyre.
What, with the alphabet soup, fly-by-night Amazon electricals, poor workmanship, and wood construction?
… Oh yeah that checks out actually. He should rename it Apollowe’s 1.
This is awesome, but why pallets? If I made a stealth camper I’d make it a flatbed full of Honey Buckets. Just as stealthy, but NOBODY is going to come snooping around that thing. Bonus: you can have as many doors as you want and you don’t even have to hide them. Also, it’s plastic and waterproof. With built-in skylights! And if you leave just one of those honey buckets whole, you’ve solved your toilet problem.
GENIUS!
This is terrible and I now want to see it happen. 🙂
This is the best idea I’ve ever heard.
Upvoted. Your idea is great.
The trailer needs to be hooked up to an early 2000s Chevy pickup with rusted out fenders and rockers to complete the look.
Clearly this man has never met a skid guy. You park a seemingly unattended pile of pallets, skid guy is gonna have them loaded up on his “I truly don’t understand how that thing manages to run” truck within an hour.
Believe it or not, but in BC we don’t just steal each other’s shit
So in that last picture… the corner of the wall definitely looks soaked. Did he have an accident in the middle of the night or is that thing not water tight?
Bring on the Flex Seal.
The video makes the thing appear about as water tight as approximately two paper bags. Version 2 should definitely have something better than plastic wrap for a water barrier.
If you watch the video, he talked about it not being water tight. He just wanted to make through the night. He won’t be using this on his channel ever again.
For a true stealth look you have to hide them behind the ladders
Even in a van, people just don’t care.
They do where I live.
Park a cargo van with solar panels or a vent visible on the top on a residential street and a Karen will call the police – who will respond as they have nothing better to do – who will tell you to move along.
Seen several vans get “the knock” myself.
What if the van were disguised as a solar contractor van. You could put the panels on racks and stealthily wire them up…
Does he realize that a stack of pallets is an attractant to many of the same riffraff he’s intending to deter?
I’m going to build mine as a stack of copper pipes!
Has anyone considered a pile-of-catalytic-converters camper?
“Introducing the 2025 Cadillac… Converter!”
That might actually be more expensive than buying a camper van. lol
“Tonight at 11…man found dead in parking lot from excessive carpenter bee stings.”
All this discussion about people stealing the pallets seems weird to me. Where I live, you can go on Craigslist and usually find multiple postings for free pallets. Some are businesses and they’ll show a big pile of pallets– take as many as you want.
I doubt that he cares much. He won’t ever use it again. It served is purpose and he got a good video and a fun night out of it. He’ll have a new creation in the next video. He once built a camper out of Styrofoam and towed it with his bicycle… lol
I wonder how feasible hiding in plain sight by building a camper out of a portable office on a trailer would be?
True, a portable office is basically a more robust, better insulated camper, with the implication that nobody is inside after hours. And if they are, they’re probably “supposed to be there”. You have to tow it with a clean, late model fleet-spec truck though.
It’s the vehicular equivalent of speaking in a confident tone while holding a clipboard and wearing a white hard hat and high-vis vest.
This is not how I live my life, but an unscrupulous person could park anywhere for free, (at least temporarily) if their vehicle is fleet spec, has an orange strobe, and they put out pylons.
Even better dress it up with fake high end security company logos and wear appropriate clothing. The locals are more likely to assume you’re there for their indirect benefit instead of their direct detriment.
Steve has been known to wear a hard hat and a vest, while carrying a clipboard.. all I the name of “stealth.” Then, he downs a couple of “step twos” (cans of beer) and gets super paranoid.. some of his videos are hilarious.
I love Canucks so much. This is just so peak Canuck. Awesome!
Straight out of The Red Green Show.
It’s a fun idea and I’m sure it was done purely for the clicks, but for certain specific situations, it might bear further refinement.
I doubt it is just for clicks. Lots of people are living in vehicles today either by choice or necessity.
If you watch his channel he loves unique camping situations. It’s also his job so yeah it’s for clicks too, but he was doing crazy camping stuff out of passion before it became a full time job
Steve was Homeless in his younger days. I have been watching all his videos for years. Him and the late Crazy Neighbor used to build rafts and float down rivers or sleep in abandoned buildings or roundabouts, or behind police stations. He is like a Bob Ross of camping.
I watched this the other day. Interesting idea but with the leaking and space lost to pallet cammo not sure how practical that is. I always admire the box truck stealth campers especially the idea of blending in with trades. You could probably throw up contractor for local gas company and no one would think to bother you.
The call before you dig stickers are perfect for this. freely available and no one owns them, they paste them everywhere in the trades.
So, the secret to making a stealth camper out of pallets is to make it look unpalatable.
I feel like Mercedes is going to mention your later tonight or when she remembers to do COTD.
I already submitted COTD for tonight (and am no longer at my computer), so Canopy is already a frontrunner for Tuesday!
Thanks for your consideration. 🙂
Yes, that wood be the strategy. You nailed it. I skid you not!