Zoe Buske, 18, spent three years saving up to turn her 2009 Skoda Roomster, which she paid £5,000 for, into a DIY campervan
An 18-year-old transformed a £5,000 Skoda Roomster into a snug DIY campervan in a mere 12 hours, with only £400, and she’s all geared up to embark on a European tour with her partner. Zoe Buske, a software engineer from Wiesbaden, Germany, was inspired to start converting vehicles into campervans after bingeing on YouTube tutorials since the age of 15.
Zoe embarked on her conversion project well before she was even legally allowed behind the wheel. Upon obtaining her driving license at the end of 2024, she snapped up a 2009 Skoda Roomster for £5,000.
By May 2025, Zoe had accomplished her makeshift makeover using ‘furniture-grade plywood’ to craft a bed and additional storage above the rear seats. Without delay, she and her girlfriend Ronya, aged 20, inaugurated their revamp by spending the night in a car park.
Although initially apprehensive, Zoe found their first overnight in the DIY vehicle both secure and agreeable. A later jaunt took them to Luxembourg for some camping fun and sightseeing. Poised for a three-week Scandinavian getaway, Zoe regularly posts her exploits on TikTok, where her conversion journey has attracted upwards of 2.5 million views, reports Devon Live.
In conversation with PA Real Life, Zoe said: “I love looking at new places and travelling and this is just perfect – it was all convenient and my dream has come true. It kind of it makes you more free – you don’t need to plan as much.”
Zoe has been captivated by the concept of turning cars into sleepers since she was a teenager, spending countless hours poring over online videos at 15 years old. She recounted: “I did so much research, I looked at every possible car that I could afford to do it.
“Even before I had my licence, I knew I wanted to buy a car that was big enough for it, it was the only thing I would ever talk about. I just wanted to convert this car and travel Europe.”
Securing her driving licence at the end of 2024, Zoe acquired a 2009 Skoda Roomster in February 2025 for a modest £5,000. “My parents, they’re both not the biggest fans of camping, so at the beginning they were worried it wasn’t going to be comfortable, but they were very supportive by the end,” Zoe mentioned. “They helped me find the car, and my friends thought it was really cool.”
The vehicle was stored in her grandmother’s garage while Zoe amassed enough savings to kick-start the conversion. By the end of May, she’d gathered roughly £400 to transform the car.
She meticulously measured “every single part” of the Skoda and drafted an initial plan for its transformation. Eager to explore, she installed a bed across the folded rear seats and boot with additional room for a gas stove, all crafted from timber despite having “never done woodwork” or such DIY projects before.
She explained: “I got some furniture grade plywood and, basically, in a store, they cut the wood for me in the sizes that I had written down. Then I basically just screwed everything together. There was a bit of trial and error because my screws didn’t work and bits from the drill snapped in half.
“When I got that done, I went to Ikea and I bought a really thin foam mattress and cut it to fit – it isn’t perfectly rectangular in the back. Then I cut some material out to black out the back windows for when we’re sleeping.”
Zoe managed to finish her ambitious project under budget in just 12 hours, spread across three days, quicker than she’d expected. On the completion day, May 24, she felt an immense “sense of achievement” and was incredibly “proud” of what she’d done.
Unable to wait to try it out, she slept in the newly converted van the same night, driving only about thirty minutes away and settling in a car park. She said: “Some teenagers decided to blast music so we had to move and we found another car park,” adding that initially “we felt quite safe but it was scary at first”, but by the end they felt quite secure.
Drawing on her past outdoor experiences, Zoe said: “I have been camping with my father before, it wasn’t the first time for me to sleep outside, but we didn’t have proper window covers so I was super scared someone would come in or knock on the window and ask us to leave, which didn’t happen. And besides that, it was very comfortable. It wasn’t super cold or super warm, even though it was like 10C outside.”
On May 29, Zoe and her partner embarked on an adventure to Luxembourg, camping out and using their car to explore the city. Now, Zoe is keen to set off on a three-week tour of Sweden in her customised vehicle, planning to stay in various car parks along the way. She has aspirations to one day travel the entirety of Norway.
She expressed her concerns: “I think I do worry about my safety (as a woman) and I think it’s natural even though me and my girlfriend go together. We make sure we lock the doors from the inside and cover the windows so people can’t see in.”
Zoe has been sharing her van conversion journey and travel experiences on TikTok under the username @oldghostsinthecastle, with some videos garnering over 150,000 views. She recalled: “I had a lot of people doubt me and tell me the bed won’t hold and it ended up holding pretty fine, we had no issues.”
Reflecting on the feedback she received, Zoe said: “I think what stuck out most to me was, one woman, she wrote that she was 60 years old and when she was my age she would never have done it and thought it was super cool that I did it. And I think the general response was positive but I had people say it doesn’t look good, but the goal is that it’s functional anyway.”
For those considering their own car conversions, Zoe advised: “I think the most important advice is to just start and don’t listen to people who think you can’t do it without experience.”
