Annexes, awnings and privacy screens: what a family van actually needs

We spent about $2,400 on a full walled annexe for our first van and used it maybe six times in two years. The zip-off panels lived in a canvas bag under the bed, taking up the exact spot I wanted for the kids' scooters. Meanwhile the $180 privacy screen for the toilet end got used almost every single stop. That gap between what sounds essential in a caravan yard and what actually earns its place once you're living out of the van is the whole point of this article.

I'm not against annexes. I'm against buying gear based on what looks good folded up in a showroom rather than what solves a real problem you'll have at 6pm on a wet Tuesday with two kids wanting dinner. So let's go through the annexe and awning options roughly in the order I'd actually spend money on them, not the order the dealer will show them to you.

The roll-out awning is not optional

Every off-road van worth buying comes with a roll-out awning as standard now, usually a 4 to 4.5 metre unit off the side wall. If you're looking at a used van without one, budget to retrofit — it's the single piece of shade and rain cover you'll use every stop, powered site or free camp. We use ours within about ten minutes of pulling up, rain or shine, because it's where the kids eat breakfast and where the dog's bed lives during the day.

The thing nobody tells first-time buyers is that awning fabric matters more than the arm mechanism. Acrylic (like Sunbrella-style fabric) breathes, resists mould and lasts years in UV; cheaper vinyl-coated polyester goes brittle and starts weeping at the seams within a couple of seasons of Queensland sun. If you're comparing two vans and one has a no-name vinyl awning and the other has branded acrylic, that's a genuine point of difference worth asking about, not just a tick-box.

Wind is the annexe's real enemy, not rain

I've watched more annexes destroyed by wind than by anything else. A gust catches the fabric like a sail and either bends the awning arms or rips guy-out points straight through the material. Dan from our tracks team calls it "the sail effect" and he's not wrong. Before you buy any annexe walls, check the van has proper tie-down points rated for the annexe, not just decorative D-rings, and carry at least six decent pegs plus a mallet that isn't the little rubber one that comes free in the accessory kit.

Our rule now: if the forecast shows wind over about 25 to 30 km/h, the annexe walls stay in the bag and we just use the roll-out awning with the legs pegged down hard. It's a small discipline that's saved us two annexe repairs so far.

Privacy screens beat full walls for most families

A full walled annexe — the kind that zips onto the awning and creates an enclosed room — genuinely earns its keep if you're doing long stays at one powered site, the kind of six-week Big Lap layover where you want a proper outdoor lounge. For most touring families moving every two to four nights, it's overkill. It takes 20 to 40 minutes to set up properly, needs a flat, mostly obstacle-free site, and most free camps and bush blocks simply don't offer the ground for it.

What we actually use every stop is a simple privacy screen — a shade-cloth panel that clips under the awning rail and drops down, usually covering the section near the door or the outdoor shower/toilet hatch if your van has one. It takes under two minutes, works on uneven ground, and gives you the bit of privacy you actually need without committing to a full annexe build. If you're kitting out a family van and only buy one add-on beyond the standard awning, I'd make it this.

Camp kitchens and annexe walls don't always mix

If your van has a slide-out or under-bench camp kitchen — and most off-road family vans do these days — think about how it interacts with any annexe walls before you buy them as a set. We've stayed at parks (Bay of Fires — Cosy Corner in Tassie is a good example, exposed and windy) where the annexe wall design meant the kitchen hatch couldn't open fully with the wall zipped on, which is exactly backwards when you're trying to cook dinner in the wind.

Ask the dealer or a current owner to actually zip the specific wall panels on with the kitchen open, not just show you the annexe alone. It's a five-minute check that avoids a genuinely annoying daily friction once you're living in the setup.

Floor matting: worth it, but choose the right one

An annexe floor keeps grass, mud and ant trails out of the van, and with two kids and a dog tracking things in, ours has more than paid for itself. But the woven polypropylene "camp matting" that comes bundled in a lot of annexe kits is heavy, slow to roll and unroll, and takes two adults to shake out properly. We switched to a lighter interlocking foam tile setup for the section right outside the door — quicker down, quicker up, and it doubles as a soft spot for the kids to play cars on bitumen powered sites where the ground itself is the problem.

One thing I'd flag honestly: some caravan parks have rules about pegging directly into their grass or require matting on certain sites specifically to protect the lawn, so check the park's site conditions before you assume you can peg out freely. Easts Beach Holiday Park in Kiama, for instance, has fairly tight site boundaries on some of its powered sites where a full annexe simply won't fit without encroaching on the neighbours.

What I'd actually put on the shopping list

If I were kitting out a family van from scratch today, in order of priority: a quality roll-out awning with acrylic fabric (usually standard, but confirm it), a clip-on privacy screen for the door or wet-area end, a set of proper annexe tie-down pegs and a real mallet, then a lightweight floor solution for the high-traffic zone near the door. Full annexe walls go last on the list, and honestly only if you know you'll be doing extended stays at one site rather than the two-to-four-night rhythm most families on the East Coast Run actually keep.

This is roughly the same logic I'd apply to any van fit-out decision: buy for the trip you're actually doing, not the trip in the brochure photo. We made that mistake with the annexe walls and I still see it happen at nearly every caravan park camp kitchen — someone wrestling a full annexe onto a site that was never going to suit it, while the family two sites over has a screen up and dinner started.

A short word on storage

Whatever you buy, work out where it lives in the van before you buy it. Annexe walls, matting and extra poles are bulky, and if they end up jammed into a bunk locker or blocking the water tank access, you'll resent them by week three. This is the same trap we cover in our piece on off-road van storage layout mistakes — gear that doesn't have a proper home either gets left behind or makes everything else harder to reach, and a bulky annexe kit is one of the worst offenders because it's heavy, awkward and used less often than you'd think.

If you're still shopping for the van itself and weighing up layouts, it's worth reading through our guide on buying a family off-road van style features before you start layering on annexe accessories — the base layout decisions matter more than any add-on you bolt on afterwards.