Dreaming the motorhome dream? Take action now.
Over the years we’ve tried to use this blog to get across the sensations of spending months, or even years, out on the road, wandering the world in a motorhome. My abiding after-the-fact sensation of our tours is a deep sense of gratitude, mixed with relief, that we took the opportunity when we could. Back in 2011, we opted to take a different path to the ‘safe’ corporate 8-to-5 lives we’d been living beforehand, and we’re so thankful we did.
I’d like to use this blog post to urge you, if you’re thinking about making a similar change, to take a serious look at your own life and, if at all possible, to act now, right at this moment to make your motorhome dream a reality. Don’t delay.
The pandemic which surrounds us currently constrains us, but it won’t forever and it shouldn’t prevent you from taking at least some of the action needed. There is no better time than right now to make the decision to change tact, to try something new, and to get started on your plan.
Why now?
To avoid the worse kind of regret, that’s why you should act now.
We’ve met a fair few people roaming freely in Europe, or overwintering in the clement climates of Spain, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia and Greece, and we’ve heard some stories along the way. The Dutch chap who broke his back paragliding and didn’t think he’d walk again (it took a long time but he’d since gotten his legs working and had driven his motorhome to the Tunisian desert). The English lady with incurable lung cancer, travelling while she could (she’s sadly passed away since returning). The German fella whose wife was killed on the autobahn, who was in his van revisiting places in Greece they’d stayed in together.
Some people we met were in good health, but passed away shortly after returning home through fast-acting illnesses. Life is short. Momento mori, remember death. I don’t mean this in a morbid way, I mean it in a vibrant, active way. We all have only so long on Earth, let’s make the most of it folks.
As I type Europe is gradually emerging from COVID-19 lock-down. Borders are slowly starting to open and infection rates are falling, but the virus remains among us, threatening to make hell again if we let it. As individuals there’s little we can do to control the big picture, just to adhere to guidelines set for us and to use our common sense. After months of being constrained to our homes, being bombarded with awful news day after day, fearful for our loved ones, we need something, as humans, to look forward to. The freedom of a motorhome tour is a beautiful thing to anticipate, even if it’s still some way off in the future. The time will pass quickly.
The money.
Cutting to the chase, it’s the money which holds many of us back. There’s other stuff too, like whether we’ll like being in such a small space, or if we’ll feel socially inferior ‘living in a van’, but money is the serious challenge for many. How much motorhome life costs depends on a bunch of factors but, perhaps counter-intuitively, the biggest adventures are the cheapest. A new VW California campervan, for example, might easily cost £60,000, and be used for a few weekends of the year, depreciating like hell for the first year or two while the owners also shell out all the usual costs of living in a house.
On the other hand, a couple taking the full-on plunge, going-full-time and buying a well-used A or C class motorhome might spend less than £20,000 (our first van cost £10,500, and we toured for two years in it), and be free of all the costs of a home. We know of folks spending £10,000 a year to live in this way, although most seem to spend closer to £20,000 a year (lots of info on our costs here, and the motoroamers keep detailed full-timer records here). At the rock-bottom-cost end of the spectrum, vandogtraveller’s book relates how he’s self-built an old van and now lives full-time on a shoe-string budget.
Can you make the finances stack up for you? If not, how can you engineer your assets so that they do? Do you already track your expenses to the penny? If not, get started on it, now. Ju’s been doing this for us for a decade and despite the apparent restrictive nature of this behavior, it’s had the opposite effect and done wonders for us. Simply put, freedom came at the price of tracking, at least partially. We’ve needed to make a whole series of changes to engineer our finances to allow our long-term motorhome tours: cost tracking, reducing our consumption, risking self-employment, self-education about saving and investing, and small space living. If all of this sounds too much hassle, remember the reward: unheard of levels of freedom, a life free of regret.
We recommend these books for getting started on the path to financial peace and freedom (yep, we know this all sounds a bit dull, but persevere, read the books, take action and the end result is worth every minute of it – you might even enjoy it!):
If you’ve the financial basics in place (have no non-mortgage debt, have 3 to 6 months of expenses in an emergency fund, are insured against disaster and have a cost tracking system), then we recommend the following investing books for the next stage in the journey:
If you’re unable to line up your finances to enable a complete escape, maybe you can come at it from another angle? We’ve met folks who’ve taken their day job into the road (4G internet access is cheap and almost ubiquitous these days), those who spend the summer working as campsite wardens and tour in the winter, and those who use WOOFing and house sitting to work in return for a pitch and possibly meals too.
The life.
Life in a motorhome is a simple, stripped-down affair. Your concerns are focused more on the important, the elements of life you can control, and less on the abstract issues which you cannot. Is there enough water, diesel and LPG in your tanks? Are your waste tanks filling up? Are your batteries reading above 12V? How many amps is your solar panel generating? Are your tyres worn or under-inflated? Are you parked under a tree in the rain, which might keep you awake with loud drips on the roof all night?
Unless you’ve acquired some sort of Zen-like state of calm in your life, your brain will always be engaged with some level of worry. For us, we prefer the down-to-Earth kinds of worry, rather than sitting around pondering the latest antics of the politicians, zealots and idealists of this world.
With just a modest budget to allow stays on campsites as and when you want it, and to eat out in a restaurant from time to time, life out there on the road can be as near to bliss as you might find. Although Europe currently remains inaccessible to us, the borders will re-open and, at a time which suits us individually, we’ll be able to travel outside the UK again. We have nothing against out native land, but it’s hard to beat the variety, cost, quality and quantity of parking places across many European countries. The variety of landscapes across Europe (to which I’m going to tag on North Africa too) is immense:
- The endless tree-scapes of Finland.
- The enormous majesty of the Norwegian fjords.
- The flowing green Champagne vineyards in north-east France.
- The gin-clean Adriatic off Croatia.
- The snow-capped high Alps of France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
- The butter coloured dunes of the Saharan ergs in Morocco and Tunisia.
- The colourful villages squeezed against the sea at the Cinque Terre in northern Italy.
This list could keep going and going and going. It really is a beautiful world out there, just waiting for the current shadow of darkness to pass.
The prep.
These are the obvious areas which spring to mind to focus on once you’ve made the decision to tour:
- Get your finances in order, if they aren’t already. If you’re going to have to work for a few more years, you could still plan in shorter trips, perhaps renting a van to keep your costs down and understand what layout options work for you (rentals look expensive but owning a motorhome isn’t cheap unless you use it a lot).
- Research your vehicle. You don’t need to spend a fortune. Alongside the state of repair/maintenance, some of the most critical areas are: the cost, the size and weight of the van, the payload, the seating arrangement and the facilities (heating, shower room, cooking equipment etc). We’d suggest reading up first and working out your criteria before doing some virtual touring via Autotrader and finally heading to a dealers to look around specific models and layouts. Our book, The Motorhome Touring Handbook, has much more advice on sourcing and buying a suitable van.
- If you have a house, and plan to rent it out, we’d advise you engage an agent as soon as possible so you can understand what needs to be done to get the place legal and safe for tenants, and to get an idea how how much rental potential you have. If you need to redecorate or sort out the garden, now might be the perfect time to do the leg-work.
- Start to rationalise your stuff. What do you have which you’ve not touched in years? You might not be able to sell it or give it away just yet, but you can start to sort through all your stuff and lighten the load, especially if you plan to go full-time (self-storage costs add up quickly, and can easily exceed the value of what is stored).
- If you want to take your pooch(es) with you, then you can. Talk to your vet though, as you’ll need a Pet Passport and the Brexit process will affect how this works. It might take some weeks or even months to arrange.
Motivate yourself.
We’ve gone through this process, and we know it’s not easy, especially the first time. We call it ‘the hump’. The challenge is to wade through all this gumph until the point when you finally set off, free of it all, back to focusing on those basics. It’s very difficult, a serious challenge, but if you commit to it, then you’ll get through it.
How to motivate yourself as you work your way through all this treacle? One way is to stand on the backs of others who’ve done it, and see the world through their eyes. There are a plethora of motorhome and campervan blogs out there these days, many of which we’ve listed out here. While we were going through the months of prep for our first tour back in 2010 and 2011, we devoured Europe by Camper and The World is Our Lobster. I can recall the tingling feeling as I sat at my desk pretending to work (ahem!) while staring at the latest installments of small adventure, from somewhere wonderful-looking, a carefree life. It really lifted me, gave me the sense of excitement I needed to get over the hump.
Ju and I now have this big fat blog of a thing to look back on, to remind us of all the incredible places we’ve been fortunate to visit. We have this map, which we can scroll around, clicking on places and diving into the photos and videos we took while we were there, trying to capture in words how we felt at the time.
Signing off.
I’ll leave it there folks, but let me urge you one last time: if it’s something you want to do, don’t let it stay a dream, make it a reality, no-one will do it for you. If you have any questions you’d like to ask us about this process of getting over the inertia of life and taking that dream tour, or even shifting your life into a full-timing adventure, drop us a line in the comments section and we’ll do our best to answer.
Thanks, Jay
New to motorhome life,
planning your own motorhome adventure or
looking for the perfect gift for the motorhomer in your life?
Check out our OurTour range of books.
Nice reminder of what is waiting out there! We should have taken delivery of our new van the first week of lockdown. Obviously this hasn’t happened, as the new van needs IVA testing before it can be registered, and the DVSA offices have cancelled all none urgent appointments. Beyond frustrating! Hopefully we will get the van in July and we will re-assess our travel plans then, hopefully to mainland Europe for a few months if safe!! Fingers crossed that we are all on the road again before long.
Stay safe, Mark and Jo.
Hey guys
Thanks for the nod to the Meaningful Money Handbook – really appreciate it!
If ever you want to do a giveaway of the book, let me know and I’ll sort some copies for you.
Cheers
Pete M
Hi. Would love more detail on where exactly you were amongst the Borolo vines, looks fantastic and would add it ti our itinerary. Cheers.
Hi Frank
The details for the sosta we used when we took the photo are here fella: https://ourtour.co.uk/home/camera-clickin-mad-in-la-morra-piedmont/. There was another nice sosta among the vines which we stayed in too a few miles away here: https://ourtour.co.uk/home/the-hills-of-le-langhe-big-wine-country/. Cheers, Jay
We bought a new camper in Jan for our 49th wedding celebration and managed two weekends away before lockdown – now it sits on our driveway while we dream of foreign getaways- they will come though!!
Sounds frustrating Lynne! You’re not alone, I know. That’s one of the reasons I wrote this post: none of us ever know what’s going to come and mess up our plans. Hopefully just a delay for you guys, the world’s been through worse, and will be waiting for you. Cheers, Jay
Great reminder J&J, of why we live this way, thank you 👍
We’re off again soon (luckily we’re still in Spain)
We echo your words and urge others to ‘Just do it’!
Hope to catch you two one day on the road.. we so often just miss you!
Stay safe & take care both 🚌
G&J
My husband and I have been talking and dreaming about exploring Europe by motorhome for years. Last year we finally made the dream come true, but frustratingly we are now interrupted, same as everyone else . This post is inspiring and a reminder that we will be able to travel again soon, when safe to do so. I have followed your journey from the very start and I am grateful for all the inspiring blog posts and books you have written. Best wishes to you guys.
Its great to read that you’re in a position to resume your travels once the situation eases off – and thanks for your kind words Gilda – much appreciated. Cheers, Jay
Hi Julie and Jason
Long time no speak. Hope you are safe and well.
I’ve been pondering something which you will clear up for me in a flash I am sure!!!
If you are a non Eu citizen you need a shengen visa in order to travel for 90 days in 180 ???
But for the rest of this year and previously to this year all British citizens had free movement within the schengen, but as I understand it that was and is still only for 90 days in 180!!! So how come you and us and a million other motorhomers were doing year long + trips in the schengen without worrying???
We didn’t give it a second thought when we travelled last time haha in fact we didn’t even know it was the law. So is this correct? Or have I got it wrapped round my neck?? Wouldn’t be the first time!!
Hi Katy – as UK citizens we were in the EU up until this year and had the associated freedom of movement to work and travel. That still applies until the end of the transition period (currently the end of 2020). At that point the 90 in 180 days limit kicks in for us. Another reason we’re grateful we did our long Europe tours when we did: we had no idea our freedom of movement was going to be curtailed when we set off back in 2011, it was pure luck we went when we did. Cheers, Jay
[edit: had another query about 90-in-180 applying before the end of the transition period, response below]
My understanding is that the 90/180 law doesn’t apply to us as UK citizens until post-transition period. I **think** the directive which currently applies is this one: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32004L0038.
It says:
“Union citizens should have the right of residence in the host Member State for a period not exceeding three months without being subject to any conditions or any formalities other than the requirement to hold a valid identity card or passport”
And:
“For periods of residence of longer than three months, Member States should have the possibility to require Union citizens to register with the competent authorities in the place of residence, attested by a registration certificate issued to that effect.”
So, again my amateur understanding, was that we **could** travel across Schengen for as long as we wanted as long as we didn’t either become a burden on our host country, or stay for longer than 3 months in any one country at a time. If we wanted to stay longer than 3 months we technically needed to request a registration certificate, but since there were no internal border checks in place, that would be nigh-on impossible to police and, as far as I know, it was widely overlooked by the authorities.
The 90/180 is a different restriction – it moves the 3 month restriction to the entire Schengen area and this time I have heard of the authorities fining and banning folks for exceeding the limit when they leave at an external Schengen border.
Long time lurker, my question is can UK and Europe cope with a significant increase in motorhomes, I’m talking mainly about overnight parking spaces and campsites etc. I’ve already read that in the USA some people have been put off by the overwhelming numbers of RVs at the popular spots and that is a big country!
Hi Nick
If you imagine your local traffic hotspot, motorhome capacity is a similar situation. For us, the A610 which takes us to the M1 motorway can get very busy around 7am to 9am weekdays. Outside that time it flows freely. A car-crammed photo taken at rush hour isn’t representative of the road’s general state of emptiness.
Same for campsites and beauty spots: head to a popular one in July and August and you may well find it full. Any other time, you’ll likely find you can very easily get a space. Southern Spain and Portugal get rammed along the coast in winter, but drive a few miles inland and you’ll either be alone or have plenty of choice for places to stay. In roughly 1000 places across Europe, we’ve booked into only a handful of spots, usually arriving to find there was plenty of space anyway, the rest of the time we’ve turned up and found a spot or got one somewhere nearby.
My gut feeling is that there are more motorhomes on the road in France and Spain than when we started out a decade ago, but (a) Europe is huge and (b) there is a ton of opportunity to open up new facilities: lots of new aires have been created in Spain for example.
Cheers, Jay
I’ve a question about security of bikes which affects my choice of motorhome. Having your bikes on a bike carrier exposes them to being stolen but gains you internal storage. What security do you employ for your bikes and have you had an security related incidents?
Great blog incidentally.
Hi Max. As we prefer a shorter van, we don’t go for layouts with a fixed bed in the back so no garage for internal storage. We’ve heard loads of stories about bikes being taken or attempted to be taken off the back of motorhomes and we’ve seen the state bikes get into when on the back, even with a cover they still get exposed to the elements. Rather than lots of security measures we have very cheap bikes. We get them off gumtree, paying around £40. We do put a couple of bike locks on them (we don’t want to give them away) but we know if a thief wants them, they’ll go and with minimal damage to the van. Cheers Julie