Cab essentials: the small things that make driving bit better.

Not the conversion. Not the kitchen. The cab — the bit where you spend hours of your life while on the road. Get this right and everything else feels better.

We're Kate and Charlie — mid-fifties, one anxious dog called Huffle, one fifteen-year-old Peugeot Boxer campervan called Brigitte, and absolutely learning as we go. Whether you have a campervan or a motorhome, if you're new to this or thinking about it, come with us.

IN A HURRY? THE SHORT VERSION  |  The cab essentials covered in this post:

• Grabber for French toll peages

• Glasses clips for the visor

• Clip-on visor mirror

• Hand cream and lip balm in the door pocket

• Towelling seat covers

• Phone holder that actually stays put

• Universal cup holder for proper coffee

• Blackout panels for the windows and windscreen

• Steering wheel lock

• Driving gloves (!)

• Laminated maps

• Magnetic pen holder

• Mini clamp to hold carpark tickets

• Little bin in the glove box and a few more things we have added quietly and would not want to be without.

Let me start with a confession. I have contorted myself into positions that would concern a physiotherapist at more French toll peages than I care to admit. Seatbelt off, hanging half out of the window, reaching upward for a ticket positioned for lorry drivers, then — because of course — the next one positioned somewhere near the tarmac, blood rushing to my head as I lunge downward. All while the queue builds behind me and I begin squirming with embarrassment.

I now own a grabber. It cost £1.99. It is, without question, one of the most important purchases I have made for this van.

This is a post about the cab. Not the glamorous bit — not the conversion, the upholstery choices, the kitchen layout. The cab. The bit where you actually spend hours of your life. The bit that, if you get it right, means you arrive somewhere feeling like a functioning adult rather than a frazzled one.

The toll peage grabber - my greatest purchase

I cannot oversell this. In France, toll booths are positioned for cars. A Peugeot Boxer — and most motorhomes — is not a car. It is a tall, wide, magnificent beast, which means the ticket machine is never at the right height to reach comfortably through the window.

My solution was to unbuckle, lean, stretch, occasionally yelp, and hope. My solution now is a long-handled grabber — the kind you would use for litter picking — that cost less than a coffee. I extend it elegantly from the window. I collect my ticket with dignity. I do not care if anyone laughs. They have not done the peages in a Boxer.

£1.99. The best money I have spent on this van.

The glasses situation - because none of us is getting younger

I now require three pairs of glasses in the cab at all times. Distance glasses for driving. Reading glasses for maps and instructions. And finally, sunglasses. This is apparently where we are in life now. If you are nodding, welcome. There are many of us.

The visor glasses clip has been a revelation. All pairs, always exactly where I left them - not rattling around in the door pocket getting scratched, not buried in a bag, not on top of my head when I am looking for them. Simple. Enormously useful. It also solved the glasses-in-the-dark problem we wrote about in the Christmas trip post - if they are on the visor, they are findable at midnight in minus three.

Kettle & Keys tip:  Buy one clip per person per pair - eg one for sunnies, one for clear specs.

The visor mirror the van was missing

Here is something Peugeot Boxer owners discover fairly quickly: there is no mirror on the passenger sun visor. None. This is a design decision that was apparently made and then never revisited. I guess most panel van conversions are the same?

I found a lightweight clip-on mirror that attaches to the visor perfectly and adds almost no weight or bulk. The practical reason: a quick chin hair check in good daylight is important and the shower room mirror is small and unhelpfully positioned.

But sometimes you just want to put on some mascara in a field in France. Both reasons are valid. The mirror sorts both.

Hand cream, lip balm and hand sanitiser - in the door pocket, always

These live in the passenger door pocket and are used daily. Hours of driving in all weathers does something unkind to hands and lips. Having them within reach - not buried in a bag in the back, actually within reach - means we both use them consistently. The eco options we have chosen for these are in our clean van post — good credentials, good ingredients, small enough to live happily in a door pocket for months.

Mine are Hestt but Dry Robe covers are similar

Towelling seat covers

I resisted these for longer than I should have. We are not surfers. We are not wild swimmers. I was not sure what the point was.

They are warm in a way synthetic covers simply are not - that cold, slightly damp feeling when you climb into the van on a chilly morning has gone entirely. And because we travel with a dog whose idea of a good time involves mud, wet gorse and the occasional French ditch, I no longer wince every time Huffle jumps in. The covers do their job. The upholstery underneath stays clean. Everyone is happy including the upholstery.

The phone holder that actually stays put

The drinks holder in the centre console of a Peugeot Boxer. You know the one. There is a bendy-arm phone holder that fits directly into it and it is, genuinely, brilliant. The arm adjusts to exactly the right angle, the phone sits completely stable, and the driver can always see Google Maps without touching it. No suction cup slowly losing its grip and depositing your phone into the footwell on a bend. Just the map, right where it needs to be, hands-free, every time.

The DAB radio and double phone chargers

We covered the DAB radio upgrade in the electronics post [LINK] — if your van is running an old radio without Bluetooth, the upgrade costs less than a nice dinner out and transforms the driving experience entirely. Fred our son made us a van playlist. It sounds considerably better through a better system.

The double USB phone charger in the cigarette lighter socket means both phones are always charging when we are driving. On a wild camping trip where you are relying on the drive to top up your battery, this is the difference between arriving somewhere with full phones and arriving somewhere with phones that are about to let you down at the least convenient moment.

Kettle & Keys tip:  Get a charger with both USB-A and USB-C ports — different cables, both covered, no discussion needed.

Water bottles in the door pocket

Frank & Green water bottles fit the door pockets of a Peugeot Boxer perfectly. This is a specific and slightly niche piece of information but if you have a Boxer and have been wrestling with bottles that are either too wide or too tall, these are the ones. Hydrated driver, hydrated passenger, no rattling, no spillage. Sorted.

The spirit level on the dashboard

We covered this in the first nights post [LINK] but it belongs here too. A small bullseye spirit level, velcroed to the dashboard where it is visible from outside the van, tells you instantly how level your pitch is before you have set anything up. An unlevel pitch means an unlevel night's sleep. The spirit level costs almost nothing and solves this completely. Two minutes on arrival, completely level, job done.

The blackout situation — windows and windscreen

The cab needs two things for a comfortable night: something over the side windows and something across the windscreen. We use silver insulated panels that pop onto the side windows — they keep the warmth in and the light out, and fold flat for storage. For the windscreen, a concertina blackout blind pulls across from one side with a clamp to hold it in place. The clamp doubles, incidentally, as the best parking ticket holder we have found — it grips the ticket on the dashboard so it does not blow away every time the door opens. Small extra use. Worth knowing.

The steering wheel lock

A motorhome or campervan is a vehicle worth stealing. A steering wheel lock is a visible deterrent that costs almost nothing relative to the peace of mind it provides. We use ours every time we park anywhere we are not immediately watching the van. It takes thirty seconds to fit and makes us feel a ton better.

Driving gloves

This sounds like an affectation. It is not. A large van steering wheel on a cold morning is a genuinely unpleasant thing to hold with bare hands, and driving gloves are warm, give better grip, and mean you are not waiting for the steering wheel to heat up through the heating before your hands feel like your own again. I was sceptical. Charlie now wears his every morning from October to March with no comment from me (well, maybe the odd Alan Partridge reference).

Laminated maps and dry-wipe pens

We have a laminated spiral bound book of maps of France and a set of dry-wipe pens. Low-tech, completely reliable, works without signal, does not need charging. We plan routes on it, mark campsites we want to return to, and circle places Fred tells us we cannot miss. The digital tools do most of the navigation work but the laminated map on the dashboard tells us the shape of where we are going in a way that a phone screen never quite does.‍ ‍

The magnetic pen holder and the little bin

A magnetic pen holder on the door frame- one pen, always there, always findable, always working. For writing down a barrier code at 9pm, noting a campsite name before the signal goes. A pen when you need one is a small detail that feels significant in the moment.

A small bin bag in the glove box. Apple cores, the receipt from the peage, the wrapper from the emergency Madeline. It goes in the bag. The cab stays tidy. Replace it every couple of days. Simple but effective.

A torch by every door

A small, bright torch by the driver's door and one by the passenger door. Not buried in a locker. Not in a bag. By the door, findable in the dark without turning anything on. For the pitch you arrive at after sunset, the hook-up point that is not illuminated, the dog walk that goes on longer than expected. We use head torches for anything hands-free but the cab torches are the ones that are always within arm's reach when you need them immediately.

Kate, Charlie, Huffle & Brigitte

Kettle & Keys

comfort, wherever you park up.

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