From City Chic To Living In A Campervan
From City Chic To Living In A Campervan
Our World Our Life Our Way
I’ll never forget my first backpacking trip, it was an adventure that made me realise we want to make travelling our lives. It was also in running out of money that found us in a random job working in campsites over Europe, which gave birth to our campervan dream. The unexpected journey changed our lives completely.
The Dream
I think most people dream of owning a campervan. The idealistic 1970s VW is the perfect vision of the hippy lifestyle living. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that a year after our first backpacking trip together we would find ourselves living in a camper full time. Of course, as pretty as the VW campers are, living in such a small van with two people constantly would probably turn that dream into a nightmare. Instead we bought our beloved Tommy Truck, a 20 year old Ford Transit.
The transit was pretty much converted when we got it, although not to our taste. We were instantly wanting to put our own stamp on it. But it was enough to have us on the road within 3 weeks, and then spend a summer in Tuscany renovating it.
The Transition
The transition to living in a campervan was easier than I first imagined. It was like it was meant to be, a fate written in our stars. The small space practically becomes invisible when you have the entire world outside it at any given point. And that my friends, is one of life’s true dreams. Being able to wake up in your own home but in a different destination each day. The alps, a beach on the Mediterranean or even a forest in Tuscany, the possibilities are endless.
That’s the most amazing difference from living in a campervan compared to the concrete jungle of the city, the possibilities. Imagine being able to wake up and have breakfast by a lake in southern Germany, to then having lunch in a beautiful village in Luxembourg and finally, dinner and drinks in Belgium! That is the luxury of campervan life. A far greater luxury than all the mod cons the city could ever give us.
Of course there can be stresses, but the stresses are minimul compared to the society chains we escaped. The open road doesn’t just give you a sense of freedom, it gives you tranquility and excitement every single day. Each day you see or experience something new. The best way I could describe it, is that it feels like being a child all over again. Imagine driving with the Italian dolomites at either side of you, or passing a sign that says welcome to Austria, or even past the masses of colourful tulips Holland is so famous for. It really does beat the motorway commuting to work everyday. Driving becomes an experience of wonder and beauty, instead of it being rage and stress.
Adapting To Campervan Life
The major thing about living in a campervan is being able to be adaptable. Take the space for instance, when you go camping, backpacking or for a campervan weekend you take only what you need. Except if your anything like becca you will want to take everything you own with you! Though, when you live in a campervan full time you really have to be mindful of space, or it becomes a daily stress. At first it was a nightmare for both of us. Beccas thing is clothes and well anything really. She has a real issue with leaving things behind, and for me, my problem was Converse! My mum has this beautiful nature of over buying you anything you say you like. I once said that I liked chicken wings, and the next day the freezer was full of them, enough to stock a restaurant. So you can imagine my converse dilemma. But after a while you get used to knowing what’s important and scale things down. Of course, the converse and beccas one million items of clothing are still very much travelling with us, but the scaling down on unnecessary items was easy. That was after becca had the time to say goodbye to each and every one of them. Now we don’t even notice the items we left behind and we still have what seems like a million things stored in the van. But it’s not the over buying random stuff you keep in the city home, it’s things that you really want. Somewhere along the line you adapt. Adapt to putting as much as u can into small spaces, and adapt to understanding what it actually is you really want. I mean when you live most of the year in flip flops, converse, shorts and vests, what more do you really need?
Every Little Hurdle Has A Way Over It
As two people who love socialising at dinner parties and love hosting we found it difficult at first to come to terms with the possibility that having friends over for dinner might be a thing of the past, giving our small space choice of living. I mean imagine 4 or 5 people squeezing into the back of a Ford transit to have dinner. Sounds nuts, but after you realise that you have the world outdoors anything is possible. Dinner at ours now consists of an outdoor dining experience with the surrounding nature as your backdrop. Our Tommy truck camper becomes our gourmet kitchen and together it makes for a very unique dinner party. We want you to imagine it. We are not talking about just a few chairs and a table. We are talking about lights draped around our outdoor space with dangling dreamchachers aligning our table that sits prime of place, dressed of course with our candles and stones from our adventures around the world. We make our outside space as special and funky as possible, wherever we are. The hammock even creates an after dinner relaxation space. One of our friends the other day compared it to a 4 star resturant. We will need to work on that 5th star soon. How many of your friends can offer you a dinning experience under the stars? It’s moments like that which make you stop and think, look at the life we chose to create. There really is no boundaries.
Dirty Duties
We are lucky enough to have a fully functioning sink and running tap in our camper, but unlike the conventional home where there is an endless supply of water and a huge waste pipe, in the camper the water does need refilning and the waste tank emptied. For us, usually a game of chess over a glass of wine quickly determines who’s job that will be. Its not a daily struggle, maybe every third day or so the tanks need filled and emptied, but a task both of us really don’t like. But then again, it doesn’t matter where you are or how you chose to live, most people hate doing the dishes. We won’t even discuss who has the duty of emptying the porta loo. But it is these little things that allows us to live how we do. We have also just purchased an outside shower, next it will be solar panels, so we can live off the grid for longer… by a remote beach maybe.
Be Bold, Be Different
When you chose to live like this things change. However, if you can give up what society deems as luxury or acceptable and chose to create your own luxury and acceptance, then living in a campervan will be the most exilerating experience of your life. It’s one that made us start spending our cash on ourselves and our experiences, rather than a mountain of bills. The world would be boring if we all just stuck to living the same way. So be bold, be different and experience a life you dream of. For us, that just happens to be living in a campervan…… ACROSS EUROPE!!!
