The other poster are right on. They do have thier charm and if you do your own work and you view the van as something of a project in and of itself, they’re okay. But the Vangons especially really do have dismal reliability records, which is especially bad because they’re usually used for road trips. Ask any former vanagon owner-- they’ll tell you about all the various trips where their vans crapped out on them. For many, that’s part of the adventure and hence part of the appeal of the VW van. Also, the mileage on them isn’t as great as you’d think, especially for as underpowered as they are.
In terms of a practical vehicle, though, there’s much better out there, although granted not as ubiquitous in the used market as the VW. Conversion vans based on American vans are pretty good, although many of them have add-ons that make them way bigger than a standard van, which I’m not such a big fan of.
The Dodge Sprinter based campers are defintely something you should look at if they’re in your price range. The Sprinter, in reality, is a Mercedes-Benz commercial van with decades-long track records of outstanding reliability. The turbo-diesel engine gets spectacular mileage for a vehicle of its size. But they’ve only been in the US market for a little while, so used ones are still pretty pricey.