van's are awesome, obviously its way out of your price range, but check out sportsmobile, they make awesome stuff, could give you ideas. when im making a little more money i think throwing like 60k at one is one of the first big investments i make.
i saw some guys last summer in moab with one, the thing was decked out with biking stuff, had like 8 bike racks on it, including a roof top tent, and the thing was lifted pretty high with some offroady tires, they were shuttling each other up some trails and hauling ass in it, i was jelly.
also think about a truck, you can do so much with a decent sized truck bed, multiple "stories", extending stuff off the back of the bed and up over the cab, etc.. id almost argue if you did it right you could sleep more people and fit more junk in a truck.