On a Saturday morning in March, your author and some friends left their cozy campus bubble to spend spring break exploring and camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Locals might point out that western North Carolina in March tends to get a bit chilly?and they?d be absolutely right. Our group was hideously unprepared, emerging from our tents on the first morning cold, damp, and walking on snow. After a second night of little rest shivering in inappropriately thin sleeping bags, we waved the white flag and spent the rest of the week in the cheapest motel we could find. If only we?d taken a Tonke camper instead of an old Camry.
Tonke (pronounced like Tonka) is a small Dutch company started in 2005 by founder Maarten van Soest upon his return from a trip through the hills of northern France, towing and living in an 19th-century?style gypsy wagon. He built the first Tonke camper, named after his daughter, combining what he considered the good things in life: a modern truck, a 1930s yacht-inspired interior, and an exterior paying homage to that gypsy cart he dragged around France. That first finished product, as well as the creations that Tonke screw together today, indeed seem to seamlessly blend the elements of van Soest?s vision.
The company?s current lineup covers several different concepts, every single one of which just makes us want to drive across a continent. At the bottom end sits the Tonke Van, a Volkswagen Transporter?based pop-up model fitt...