Three years ago!
Two 39 year olds and one pampered pooch set off on an adventure that would change their lives. Little did we know that within 48 hours we would have:
- Discovered that our freezer didn’t work (thawing our precious supply of British bacon)
- Lost the skylight on the M25
- Had a sleepless night convinced we had killed someone on M25 with said skylight
- Made Dave (the motorhome) watertight with plastic from a carpet shop, ratchet straps and duct tape
- Realised that the world doesn’t stop at Calais – we can get Dave fixed anywhere
- Eaten out first tasty croissants!
After that start it was almost plain sailing! Still we now know that we can deal with anything that life throws at us – including Bucharest traffic in Friday rush hour!
I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. If you are thinking of doing an trip like ours, then do, it was amazing and has totally changed our outlook on life.
Ju x
So nice to have a blog from you, I missed them.
Hope you are nite missing the open road too much
Time ticks on
What you do or have done, makes you stand out from the rest.
You have both opened your eyes to a life that you are now working towards.
Good luck.
John
Hey. Good to see your posts again. It’s Thanksgiving here this weekend and that thanks includes the posts from you guys. Still nice weather here in Canada but we did get a surprise dump of SNOW the first week in September which destroyed a lot of trees in Calgary. We do get a full winter here but not usually thar early. Take care. I followed all your posts and it’s good to see some of your old ones.
Hiya Ju, Jay, Charlie (and of course Dave wherever you are)
Greetings from sunny Greece. Really enjoyed reading your excellent blog. Hope you’re busy making plans for your next big adventure?! You’ve been an inspiration to us and this year we’ve started our own blog: http://www.heidihymer.wordpress. com. It’ll be a while before we match your standard, but would love to know what you think. We’re planning on being away all winter now, spending most of the time in Greece and returning via the ferry to Italy.
Best wishes, Peter and Elaine, and Heidi
Yours was the first blog I sutumbled upon on this subject. I found it inspirational & motivational. So here we are 6 months later, the time is right, the cogs of the no return train are slowly rotating. Fist stop on this journey, financial security, empty ISA’s sell this house, buy another more rentable property. So now we are almost at stop/station n# 2, choose a vehicle, it all take longer than you’d expect. We hope to be away latest August 2015, no return ticket. Scary, xmas eve as a child exiting & we both just want the months to evaporate away so we can get going. But its all down to pioneers like you two, as well as others…eg. Morroco meet-up.If only Id have skipped you blog, closed the window without reading a word, we could both stay here in our life of comfort, work-eat-sleep, laugh-smile-cry, good morning-goodto see you-goodbye. Whats wron with that? Now we have been”educated” by you. I could give you a list of what’s wrong with it. It’s a groove, a non-existance, a groundhog day life. We are getting off this “let’s make the guy in the Jag even richer” merry-go-round. So…Julie & Jason, I hope one day you will be reading our weekly blog as WE pootle around Europe, enriching our lives & those who chose to follow us, just like you did. Thank you both so much for sharing it with us. Inspirational.
Wow! Thanks for the kind words everyone. Familiar names and new names, it’s fantastic to hear from you all.
It’s a bit surreal to think we have inspired others to travel, as other blogs inspired us, but we are so happy that we have. It doesn’t matter how far, how long or actually how you travel (yes, even if it is in a caravan!) time spent seeing new things and meeting new people is really worth it.
Also to add i love blogs like this, enjoyed following you guys and seeing the post today brought a little smile and warm feeling!
Well by Jingo! you’ve got a lot to answer to! Here I am on the French/Spanish border in Harry the Hymer with the Hubster and a very old Charlie (he was young when we planned this trip) he’s now over 14!!! We’ve taken to pushing him round in a buggy! I can’t believe we’re doing this but am loving and appreciating every second. We actually swam in the Med today! Have seen some cracking sights and I’m changing my outlook on life every day. If you’ve got nothing better to do, have a quick peek at hi http://www.hiddengypsy.com it may just bring back some memories. Good to hear from you again!
Wayne we are right behind you thanks to Julie and Jason! Just sold our house, downsizing and hope to be off end of next year to!
This website is a fine legacy and must be a valuable album of memory’s for you both. Keep on saving…Norway awaits!
Good to hear from you again. We’re full-timing in UK BUT will be in France as soon as my broken leg is healed!
All the best,
Roger
Hi Julie and Jason, thank you for continuing to maintain Ourtour. For the past couple of years the down to earth, witty and constructive content has been inspirational to us in planning our own escape from the rat race to spend a year travelling by motorhome.
In no small part thanks to the three of you, we finally made it happen and are now in our third month. I am typing this from a hotel car park just outside Podgorica, formerly Titograd, in Montenegro. We are updating a blog as we go, nothing special, just a means of keeping in touch with family and friends, and a sort of journal to remind ourselves of an epic adventure.
It is named in honour of our two travelling companions, our poodles Cleo and Eric – the Woolly Wanderers http://www.woollywanderers.com
Thank you
Jude, Shaun, Cleo and Eric
Hi all, Jay here. Just wanted to say thanks so much for your positive comments. Before we took the leap from our safe jobs to travel, blogs inspired us, gave us the confidence we were not completely mad, informed us and above all tempted us into the unknown. Europebycamper was one, doyourdream another. We pored over them after work, wondering if we could do what they’d done.
When we wrote this blog, it evolved, as these things do, but I think our general aim was to get across how we felt about travelling, alongside practical stuff we experienced. We wanted other people, especially our fellow Brits, to see Europe the way we were seeing it. A different view from what you might see on the news. We saw kindness, resilience, humour and generosity among other things.
I guess we hoped to inspire people in the way we had been inspired, and, judging by some of these comments, we achieved this goal, which is just fabulous.
So, thanks again for taking the time to comment, and happy travels! One day some we may just bump into you somewhere wonderful.
Jay
Hello, I’m just about to organise my tour around Europe. I wouls like to know where you would suggest are best places for a single girl with a labrador that is safe. Many thanks. Viv
Hi Vivienne. We get quite a few questions about how safe places are and to be honest it’s hard for us to know for sure. We slept in over 500 places, and left the van in countless others, and were never once broken into or attacked. Ju had her wallet stolen on a Rome train, but the thieves only got an old purse stuffed full of paper, as she carried a false one at the top of her rucksack.
Thinking about it, that’s the answer really. You’ll be safe but need to keep your wits about you. Don’t sleep in motorway services or unaccompanied alongside busy roads. Don’t sleep in unguarded places in cities, find a campsite or at least somewhere where other motorhomes are. If you don’t feel comfortable somewhere, move on. Don’t leave anything at all on display in the van. Close the curtains when you go out. Make up a ‘person’ sleeping in the end using pillows when you’re out. Avoid cities, again! They’re full of millions of folks and some of ’em are going to be bad eggs.
I don’t think there is an country I’d suggest avoiding. The poorer places feel edgy at first but once you’ve met some people they start to feel much safer. Coming back home we found we were much more nervous in our own country (suddenly aware of how many drunk people there were) than most places we visited.
Most everyone is kind in the world, but it just pays to be vigilant.
Take it easy, have fun! Jay
That safety piece is really interesting. I did a motorbike tour of Europe with a mate a few years back, the poorest parts were definitely the edgiest until you took time to speak to people. I remember trying to get some antihistamine in a chemist in a small town in eastern Slovakia, we came out of the shop to see two burly guys next to our motorbikes. As we approached they turned around and were eating ice creams. They asked us about our motorbikes and wanted to know where we’d been. The big question was, ‘are our roads better than Polish ones?’ to which we readily agreed they were, and they broke into huge smiles wishing us a safe journey. My advice is as said, get away from cities (they’re all very similar I feel) and speak to the locals. The shock of how guarded we are in the UK is prominent on return but unfortunately that emotion fades…..time to get back on the road again and realise the world is s bright place and not always as portrayed on the news.
Good advice Ian, nice story old chap. Cheers, Jay