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We've been driving trucks and vans that we can travel, camp, move friends futons, and loads from Costco and IKEA for over three decades. Every thing from my first R22 powered pickup to Landcruisers to vans from all makers. My first van was a shortwheelbase Dodge with a 318 V8 and a four speed manual transmission. You could always get a second gear chirp out of the tires if you wanted ;).
Sleeping beds and storage where all 3/4" plywood and 2x4s. My buddy bought that van to pull the V8 and replace his I6 and it went for probably 500K miles. I didn't know the word "overland" but that's what we did in it - minus the khaki. Desert southwest to Alaska. Two day crazy driving trips to MOAB - living out of it for three months on Canadian mountaineering summer peak-bagging fest - it went everywhere. Next up was another Dodge - and 20 years later I still see it around town schlepping a local surfboard shaper's creations around. From there it was to a deluxe to us Ford Club Wagon Chateau with enough velour to put Hugh Hefner to shame.
The bed system on that was again plywood but this time with 1" metal pipe for supports. I think my wife still misses the front seats from that van, but she won't say that in front of our Sprinter.... Our first new van was a VW eurovan weekender. We had that for three years and sold it back to the dealer with 30K on it for 3K more than we paid for it right as the west coast yuppie hysteria was in full swing with the news that VW was no longer going to import the E4 van. Following that we had a nearly 10 year old van dry-spell.
We had little kids so we took our Eurovan profit and bought a 13' (including the tongue) Scamp trailer. We could put an open pack-n-play in it and lock the door from the outside. But pulling a trailer was never very fun so we saved up and finally picked up the van we really wish we had had all along. We're still waiting to name her, but the right name hasn't stuck yet......
We've been driving trucks and vans that we can travel, camp, move friends futons, and loads from Costco and IKEA for over three decades. Every thing from my first R22 powered pickup to Landcruisers to vans from all makers. My first van was a shortwheelbase Dodge with a 318 V8 and a four speed manual transmission. You could always get a second gear chirp out of the tires if you wanted ;). 
The bed system on that was again plywood but this time with 1" metal pipe for supports. I think my wife still misses the front seats from that van, but she won't say that in front of our Sprinter.... Our first new van was a VW eurovan weekender. We had that for three years and sold it back to the dealer with 30K on it for 3K more than we paid for it right as the west coast yuppie hysteria was in full swing with the news that VW was no longer going to import the E4 van. Following that we had a nearly 10 year old van dry-spell. 