A little camper would be fine I'm sure. They are tiring and it is properly embarrassing changing down to 2nd gear everytime you hit a hill, holding everyone up behind on the single lane roads.

As was mentioned our camper was quite huge (shower, kitchen etc.) but it was also new, so was quite well equipped for the roads. We did go a lot slower than cars at times (I caught em up going back down mind :icon_wink: ) but nevrer really below 50ks even on the steepest mountains unless there were bends and then we had to stick to the speed suggestion rigorously to avoid toppling over.

My concern with a beat up old vw or something is having to crawl up the hills even slower. There are plenty of passing places every 5kms or so but 5ks takes a long time when crawling up a hill at 20-30kms there's a lot of these. If you start holding up some of the truckers who need all the momentum they can to even get up the hill, you'll soon be the subject of rage!!! It's bad enough as a tourist as it is. However if you get one the newer toyotas or something (an estima or similar) you'll be fine these got up the hills easily. You don't want 1.5 diesle vw tho for sure.

4x4? surely that's gonna get WAY expensive in accomodation costs over that length of time. Sorry I haven't had time to catch up on your plans but 8 months of paid for accomodation could be stupidly expensive. We've watched our funds dissapear on motels etc. even in the two weeks we've travelled, when we had to stay somewhere. Motels all cost around $100 per night sometimes more and can be scarce in the remoter areas tho, because of the short term stays all the time, you'll struggle for decent rates.

backpacker places however will be fine and more affordable, but they're generally in the more major population centres.

Sorry that hasn't helped at all, I made both ideas sound bad, that's the choice tho I guess.