August 22, 2026 · Bellingham, WA

Photos from the Pacific Northwest Buzz-In

About twenty electric microbuses in a lot by the bay, on a grey Saturday morning. Enough of them converted to campers that you could walk the row and compare builds side by side — which is the only way to actually judge one.

Event: 2nd Annual PNW Buzz-In
Organized by Peace Vans
Where: The Boardmill Building
Bellingham, Washington
Turnout: Roughly twenty vans, up from about nineteen last year
Photos: Shot on Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Cropped and colour-corrected, nothing added or removed.

Six Volkswagen ID. Buzz vans parked nose-on in a row — black, yellow, purple, orange and two blue — in a gravel lot with a grassy mound and a ferry behind. — Most of the turnout, mid-morning. A ferry sits in the background off Bellingham Bay.

What we learned

Two answers, one of them a shrug

A representative from a local Volkswagen dealer was on hand. We asked two things, and got one soft answer and one genuinely useful non-answer.

On inventory: they said they were hearing the 2027 ID. Buzz would start landing on lots in November or December. They were careful to say nothing was confirmed, and they were right to be — on 24 September, a month after we spoke, Volkswagen told dealers the van's return is delayed to the 2028 model year. Worth remembering next time anyone quotes you a date.

On Overnight Mode: we asked whether it will be exclusive to the Tourer package or offered across the trims. They didn't know. That is not a dodge, it's the actual state of things — three months out from inventory, at a Volkswagen-attended event, retail staff had no answer.

Which is worth saying plainly, because several outlets have written about Overnight Mode as though the details are settled. Volkswagen's press release lists it inside the Tourer's contents and says nothing about other trims. Until that changes, assume you need the Tourer.

The builds

What people have actually done to them

Volkswagen won't sell an ID. Buzz camper in America. These owners did it anyway — a full birch galley at one end, a plywood platform behind a load of tools at the other.

Interior of a green ID. Buzz seen through the sliding door: a grey bench seat facing a full-height birch galley with cabinets, and a Peace Vans sill plate. — A Peace Vans build from the sliding door. Birch galley down one side, bench that folds flat, and enough floor left to stand in.

Rear hatch of an orange ID. Buzz open, showing orange cabinet faces, a slide-out fridge and a mattress made up with a patterned blanket. — The same idea in orange, with the bed made up and a fridge on a slide. Note how much of the floor the cabinetry gives back.

Rear view into a green ID. Buzz with the bed cushions folded into a bench, birch storage cabinets along the side wall. — Bed folded back into seating. This is the compromise that matters day to day — whether the thing you sleep on is also somewhere to sit.

The rear hatch of a silver ID. Buzz Cargo open, loaded with stacked red Milwaukee Packout tool cases, with louvered vents cut into the blanked side panel. — An ID. Buzz Cargo — the panel-van variant, side windows blanked — racked out with Milwaukee Packout cases. Look at the panel: three louvered vents cut into it, which is one answer to the airflow problem the Tourer solves with clip-in window panels.

Side view of the same silver ID. Buzz Cargo with its sliding door open, revealing a raised sleeping platform with a mattress and bedding inside. — The same van from the side. Behind the tools there's a bed on a raised platform. Works on weekdays, sleeps at weekends — which may be the most honest ID. Buzz camper answer anyone has landed on yet, and it didn't cost eleven thousand dollars.

A green and white ID. Buzz with an aftermarket pop-top roof raised, parked next to a yellow ID. Buzz. — An aftermarket pop-top, raised. Volkswagen doesn't offer one on the ID. Buzz at any trim — this is the gap the shops exist to fill.

Close-up of a slide-out galley in an ID. Buzz: two birch cutting-board lids, a portable compressor fridge, and cabinet faces covered in travel stickers. — The detail nobody photographs: cutting-board lids over the sink and burner, a compressor fridge on the slide, and a cabinet face earned one sticker at a time.

A blue ID. Buzz with the tailgate raised showing a dark cabinet module and birch counter, with a flower-decaled blue Buzz parked alongside. — A darker take, and a neighbour who went with flower decals. No two of these were the same.

Second-row captain's chairs in cream leather inside a green ID. Buzz, with palm-print curtains drawn across the side windows. — Captain's chairs and homemade window curtains. The Tourer package includes blinds from the factory; everyone else improvises.

The lot

Twenty of them, no two alike

The colours are the first thing you notice. The second is how many were clearly driven there rather than trailered.

A pink and white wrapped ID. Buzz photographed head-on with a smiling face decal applied below the VW badge. — The one everybody photographed.

A grey vintage Volkswagen Karmann Ghia parked beside an orange and white ID. Buzz. — A Karmann Ghia parked next to an ID. Buzz. Sixty years of the same instinct, give or take.

A person lifting a green kayak onto the roof rack of a yellow and white ID. Buzz. — Loading a kayak onto a roof rack, which answers a question the brochures don't: yes, you can reach.

A yellow and white ID. Buzz plugged into a public charging station on a Bellingham street. — Plugged in on the street a block away. The unglamorous half of electric van life, and the half that decides your day.

A row of pastel-coloured ID. Buzz vans parked at angles in a gravel lot with a grassy mound behind. — Mid-morning, still filling up.

Not a camper — a show build. The cabinet in the back is a custom audio install: two drivers behind wheel-spoke grilles, grille cloth across the face, badged BUZZ. The plaid seat covers and VW-logo bins are aftermarket, and the van sits on the deck. We took it for a sleeping platform at first glance; it's speakers.

The front fascia panel removed from a lowered teal ID. Buzz, revealing a large Energizer-branded battery mounted behind the grille as a joke. — The same van with its front panel off. That Energizer strapped behind the grille is a bit — an oversized consumer battery standing in for whatever actually moves an electric bus. Given the vehicle, we'd gently suggest switching to rechargeable.

An orange and black ID. Buzz parked in front of a brick warehouse wall, with an orange Terrawagen vendor canopy behind it. — Terrawagen and Mountain Mats were vending alongside Peace Vans, and a local Volkswagen dealer had staff on site taking questions.

Photographs by Keith Norman, August 22 2026. Cropped and colour-corrected; nothing added, removed or generated. Licence plates blurred.

If you're weighing one

What's worth checking in person

Walking the row confirmed a few things that are hard to judge from photographs — including ours:

Headroom under a raised pop-top. Renders always flatter it. Stand up in one.
Bed length. The Buzz is shorter inside than it looks. Lie down before you commit.
Whether the bed is also a seat. The builds that fold into a bench are far more livable than the ones that don't.
How a galley deploys in the rain — with the tailgate up, at dusk, on a slope.
What it did to their range. Ask owners directly; the published numbers are thin.

The Buzz-In runs annually. If you're anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, it's worth the drive next August.