Why Don’t We Full-Time in Our Motorhome ?
When Ju and I started ‘long-term’ travelling in Dave, our aged and trusty Hymer B544 motorhome back in 2011, we rented out our house in the UK and lived in our lovely van for two years with Charlie, our pooch. In other words, we were ‘full-time motorhomers’, we had no fixed abode we could return to at any time (that’s how our insurers defined full-timing). As we neared the end of those wonderful wanderings I would have happily full-timed for ever (I was pretty chilled out on this Greek beach!), if the finances had allowed, but the war chest was depleted and the office called. The full-timing adventure was over, and although we’ve spent a few more years on the road since then, and have engineered our finances to allow living this dream lifestyle, we haven’t gone back to full-timing. Here’s why.
First Up, We Love Motorhome Travel
Before we get much further, it’s worth me saying we did and still do love the motorhome lifestyle and method of travel. It’s incredibly flexible, comfortable and safe (this is what our current van looks like inside). There are no suitcases or backpacks to lug about (except when we break down!). We get to sleep in our own bed every night, with our own pillow and teddy bears! We have a fridge and freezer full of our favourite goodies a few steps away, along with a hot shower, blown-air heating, kitchen, clean loo and wardrobe. With a Kindle we’ve a huge library with us, and we’ve always-on internet (using this system, and these SIMs) so can watch TV pretty much anywhere. There are thousands upon thousands of places to stay, many of them free or low-cost, and some of them simply out-of-this world. Over the years we’ve stayed in 968 places across 30-odd countries (overnight location map here, and summaries of previous tours here). It’s been one hell of a ride, and we’ll continue touring in the coming years, if the gods allow.
Advantages of Full-Time Motorhome Touring
These are the big advantages we found of full-timing:
- It’s Low Cost. It’s relatively cheap to live in a motorhome versus a house. We were spending roughly £15,000 a year (all-in, including van depreciation) while visiting a new place once every 1.5 days for two years while full-timing. There was no council tax, and most of our other bills were far lower than a ‘normal’ house/car combination. We’ve met people full-timing on roughly £8k a year (it helps if you’re into house sitting or workaways), who were very happy with their choice.
- We Felt so Free! Our house in the UK was being occupied by a family who took care of it for us. With few strings attaching us to the UK, and with only the essential possessions around us, we felt as light as helium balloons.
- We Got Another Perspective. By making ourselves full-time nomads, we placed ourselves outside the ‘norms’ of society, which gave us a new and valuable perspective on our lives in the UK.
- Meeting Like-Minded People. We had no return ferry booked, which gave us the time and energy to get to some of the further reaches of Europe and North Africa. In the lesser-visited countries we had some of our most fulfilling experiences and met other long-term travellers seeking the same things in life as us.
But it wasn’t all roses, and we’ve always tried to be honest about the downsides of motorhome travel throughout this blog. Here are the reasons we didn’t go back to full-time travel by motorhome (or by any other means).
Missed Community
By far the biggest issue for us of being full-timers was the fact we missed being part of a static community. We missed a wider network of relationships. Yep, we had fellow travellers around us all of the time, but that community was usually of a transient nature. Even when we lucked out and met folks we shared a common language with and got on well with, we were often only with them for a few days or weeks at most, then we were on our own again. That wasn’t too much of an issue for those couple of years, as we get on well with each other and there were a ton of places to see and enjoy, but we find life to be a richer experience when we aren’t spending most waking (and sleeping) hours, days, weeks, months and years with just each other for company. Put another way: just bouncing the same ideas and thoughts off one another without getting a fresh, outside perspective wasn’t good for either of us (me in particular), I think.
There are ways to be more of a community while full-timing of course. The most obvious approach would be to move less. We came across groups of motorhome travellers in Sicily, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Morocco who were stationary for several months over the winter. They formed communities and forged friendships for the periods they were together. We frequently found we were a couple of decades younger than many of the folks in these camps though and we never quite fitted in, plus we’d a wanderlust to keep seeing more places.
There is a ‘fitting in’ aspect to consider too, I reckon. When we decided (had to) come home after our two year full-timing tour, we considered staying on a campsite long-term a few miles from our old house. The site looked nice enough, although it was just off a housing estate and some reviews complained of broken glass and litter on the entrance road. Let’s put it this way: it wasn’t going to look like the photos in this blog post! We decided that just wasn’t for us. We wanted to both (a) feel good about ourselves and (b) fit in with the community around us, including our family, friends and about-to-be work colleagues. It’s all a very personal choice of course, and we might have been much happier staying on a more picturesque or better-placed site.
We Eventually Get Tired of Life in a Motorhome
No matter how much we enjoy motorhome life, as with many things in life we get tired from time to time and need a change. It is a pretty wonderful way to wander, but it can be wearing too, for example:
- On the road we’re constantly looking for places to stay and hoping they’re still there/not full/not being used by a fair or some such when we arrive (the park4night.com and campercontact.com websites and apps are both very good for finding places, or have a look at all these long-term touring maps).
- We’d often go to bed hoping we’ll get a good night’s sleep without locals doing donuts in their cars (Portugal), racing motorbikes up and down the car park (Sicily), bouncing 1000 decibels of music off the side of the van (Switzerland), a massive disco party forming around us (Italy), locals leaning on the van chatting loudly at 4am (fishermen in Spain) or neighbours firing up their engine at any time of the night (anywhere which isn’t a campsite).
- Whenever we leave the van we have a background fear that it might be broken into (more thoughts on break-ins here).
- Every few days we have to find water and somewhere to empty the loo and grey water.
- There are a lot of other tourists out there, and in busier periods travel can feel like being on a conveyor belt. This is especially the case in the (relatively few thankfully) spots where the tour coaches or cruise ships arrive, places where the locals and their way of life have pretty much vanished.
- The weather (whether it’s a heatwave, a freezing blizzard, lashing it down for days on end or blowing a hoolie) is all easier to handle in a house.
- Driving a slow, wide, lumbering motorhome on A and B roads month-in, month-out isn’t relaxing. Many roads, villages and tunnels across the UK and Europe are narrow and require pin-point vehicle placement to avoid smashing a wing mirror or two (we’ve adopted a trick with a couple of bits of tape to help with this).
While motorhome travelling is a fantastic way to see the world, it’s still travelling, and that means it’s going to be logistically harder than staying at home. We speak some French and a tiny bit of German and Spanish, but none of these languages well enough for even a halting conversation. We often have only a brief acquaintance with wherever we are at the time, so finding doctors, garages, shops and so on all take that bit more effort than at home. Being on the road for month after month, year after year takes more energy than you might imagine. We’ve met folks who’ve been on the road for decades, and aren’t likely to ever go back to living in one place, but that just wasn’t for us (it might be in the future, but not for the moment).
Work’s Easier at Home
Ju and I have finally engineered our lives so we don’t have to work if we don’t want to (here’s how we did it). We have worked while on the road though, setting up websites, putting together videos describing research projects, writing books, blogging and so on. During our initial couple of years out we did try to work out whether we’d be able to sustain a life doing this kind of ‘digital nomad’ work, but for us it just made much more financial sense to come home and do a traditional job while we worked towards financial freedom.
Our decades of experience were valuable, and our skills could generate a good income for us, but only if we were in the UK and stationary. We did consider coming back home and living in the van here, but that just didn’t feel right to us. While we were travelling it felt right to be in a motorhome, but when we were in one place for months at a time it felt right to move into a house, where we could more easily live a ‘normal’ life while working.
Nomadic Bureaucracy
There are some paperwork and logistical hurdles to leap if you don’t live in a house or somewhere else with a fixed address. These all disappear once you’re living in a house you own or have a rental agreement for.
- You need a residential address to register your vehicle with the DVLA. A relative’s address worked well for us.
- You need an address for your bank, pension companies, credit card etc. Again a relative’s address worked for us.
- On the above points: remember some paperwork might be urgent and need opening before you’re next home. There are virtual address services which can open, scan and email paperwork to you, although we’ve no experience of using them personally.
- Getting stuff posted to us was a problem when we were travelling so quickly. We had some eyeglasses posted to Sicily which never reached us. An ACSI CampingCard (discount camping scheme) never arrived in Croatia. We had some success using post restante (where you use the address of a post office on your route and they hold you items for a small fee) but it didn’t feel very reliable and we felt it best suited to low-value items.
- Remember whether you’re full-timing or not, your van needs to be legal in the UK wherever you happen to be. That means you need to ensure your road tax is up-to-date and, if you’re off roaming around Europe, you’ll need to come back to the UK to refresh your MOT.
- If you travel for even a few weeks at a time, and keep a house in the UK, be aware your insurance might be rendered invalid (check your policy or contact your insurer). Some folks we’ve met opt to take this risk.
- As we understand it, HMRC (the tax man) isn’t much bothered where you are (whether in the UK or abroad) as long as you pay your taxes in the UK (we complete personal tax returns each year). Our house rental management agent did have to inform HMRC we were going to be out of the country though, which could have meant the agent being required to deduct tax from our rental income, but HMRC allowed us to pay our tax via our tax returns.
- If you’re claiming benefits (including the state pension), it would be prudent to check how these might be affected if you opt to full-time, especially if you head abroad (we have no experience of this).
- And last but not least, when the UK finally leaves the EU a bunch more red tape will come into play. If we were full-timing only in the UK this would have no affect, but once we crossed into the EU countries, it would. We’ve written a bit about the impact of Brexit on motorhome tours here.
How We Live Now
This is how we’ve set ourselves up these days:
- We live in a house in the English Midlands. This has a shop embedded in it which has no access to the house and is rented out. We share the house with tenants, although we have a large en-suite room which is secure and has all of our possessions in it (dubbed ‘The Cooler’).
- Our van is in a COSSOA-approved storage facility (a farmer’s field) about a mile from where we live and we pay for the storage spot whether we’re using it or not (it’s £1 a day). This means we always have somewhere we can keep the van when we’re in the UK. The facility manager is pretty laid back about us doing minor repairs on the van too, which makes it much easier to complete jobs like installing a new skylight, refillable LPG, internet antenna and respraying the front bumper (my current project)
- We spend a few months of the year travelling, and the rest at home. So far we’ve stuck to motorhome touring, but we’re also looking at mixing it up with other methods of travel to get further afield.
- We tend to avoid travel in the high season (July and August) as places can get pretty packed out and temperatures uncomfortably high. That’s not to say we don’t recommend high season touring; it’s entirely possible and can be more fun as more events are kicking off, we just have the flexibility to enable us to choose when to travel so usually opt to head off in the quieter months.
Get the Full Picture
That’s all we can think of for this particular topic! If you’re interested in motorhome touring for holidays or as a full-on, full-timing escape, a new way of life, then have a look at our book: The Motorhome Touring Handbook. It’s available from Amazon as a paperback or Kindle eBook and aims to cover everything from buying your first motorhome to touring Europe for a year:
Are you a full-timer or thinking about going full-time in your motorhome? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic – pop ’em in the comments below and we (any anyone else reading this) will get to see ’em and benefit from your experience.
Cheers, happy travels folks, Jay
Whilst we’ve never full-timed, our aspiration when planning early retirement was to travel for half the year. But reality hasn’t worked out that way. On our first big (for us) trip, we loved France (still do), but struggled to enjoy Portugal and only liked the north of Spain. Plus, we moved to Anglesey, a beautiful island in North Wales. The local community has welcomed us; we’re learning Welsh and have become involved in local groups and charities. So the itch to travel is less now we’ve put down roots. We still love to travel in our campervan though, but about 4 weeks in France is enough to scratch the itch. We love the freedom our van gives us though.
Best wishes,
Paul
Hi Paul
Sounds like you’re well set, good for you guys. It’s interesting how things turn out eh? We’re also loving the way we can get in the van and head off wherever we please. Some good friends of ours have just booked into a skiing campsite in the French Alps for a winter season, pretty amazing stuff, although I reckon we’ll try and get somewhere warmer ourselves!
Cheers, Jay
Hi guys. Interesting read,thanks. You asked for input so here’s ours. We love looking for a new place to stay every couple of days and if ones shut/Full or has a fair on we move on to the next.Most have services and in an emergency there are more and more popping up in fuel stations so have never had a problem. We too come from Nottingham and look at the rise in burglary there so feel a house is just as likely to be broken into. If we have a broken nights sleep, dogs barking all night in Portugal or bastille celebrations going on too long we have an easy day and an early night. On our he very odd occasion we find somewhere packed with tourists we sit back and people watch till they go away, usually our van is much closer than their bed! If the weather isn’t good for us, too hot or cold we just move somewhere more comfortable for us. We love full timing and hope you continue enjoying your travelling.x
Hi Marie
You’re quite right, all the points you’ve described can be easily overcome. We spent two years full-timing and another two years in various long-term tours, so we’ve done all the exact same stuff as you, and we had a right old ball of a time (as I imagine you are too)! There comes a point (or many points) for everyone doing this stuff though when you have to ask yourself whether you, personally, want to keep at it, travelling constantly, living the true nomad life. We’ve hit that point several times over the years and made decisions in both directions (go home, or keep going). Life on the road is pretty wonderful, but the biggest draw home for us was, eventually, community, and the non-transient relationships which come with it.
Cheers, happy travels, Jay
P.S. the only point I’d ‘defend’ a little more vigorously is the one re: break-ins. Again this is (of course) purely a personal perspective, but we don’t have the same low-level fear of break-ins at home than we do when we’re travelling. Every time we came back to the van after leaving it, many thousands of times, we had a vague fear a window would have been forced open or the door lock mangled. It never happened, we were never broken into, but still we just don’t have that fear when we come back to our house.
Hi Both,
Interesting read! We had, at one point thought full-timing was the way we wanted to go, but for many of the reasons you have outlined we now think that probably 3 months at a time will suit us best (and will perhaps be forced upon us anyway!!) and have downsized our place from an old cottage to a lock up and leave flat. We’ve also just sold Frank (our A class Frankia) and are about to order a Murvi Morello PVC for better manoeuvrability and go any where ability! – very exciting! We like the idea of having a permanent base ‘at home’. We hope to be back on the road and on a biggish trip to Spain Portugal and Morocco in January 2020. Inspired by you and other avid motorhome bloggers, we will continue to advertise our presence to the world via our website and Instagram – all part of the fun of the journey. Keep on posting – as Our Tour is our first port of call for advice and inspiration.
Mark and Jo
Thanks guys – if you head for Morocco we can highly recommend the Anti-Atlas Mountains – some pretty bonkers landscapes and oases down there – and of course the Erg Chebbi remains a favourite. Cheers, Jay
Inspired by you and other blogs. We have taken a year off work to travel from last October (before Brexit restricts us) I agree that life on the open road is fantastic and am not looking forward to going back to the grindstone! For us though we have family that we miss and our son’s are only in their early 20’s. We have been surprised that we have not been full time in the end, we flew home from Spain for Christmas and drove home for Easter for a month. I agree that deciding where you will go every day and sourcing water etc can get tiring your current set up seems ideal. Like you we have met some great characters on our travels but I think part time travel suits us more.
Hi Gillian
Sounds like another common thread re: children and (in particular) grand children. We have neither but we’ve met loads of folks who don’t full-time as they miss their families too much, especially when they’re young. Interesting (perhaps!) but for us, we found we were in touch with our parents more than usual while we travelled, as we blogged our way along they’d know what we were doing and feeling, and we were able to video call them quite frequently (something which has gotten easier and cheaper using 4G).
It’s a great privilege being able to travel so much, and an even greater one being able to retain a base in the UK and travel as and when we want to. We’re incredibly lucky, life is good!
Cheers, happy (part-time) travels, Jay
I think you pretty much covered all the bases there! And things aren’t that much different when you are based in North America either. (Canada, in our particular case).
We’ve done several years of full time RV travel encompassing all of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. In our particular case, we have pretty much tired of North America (except we LOVE Mexico) and have expanded our horizons. I think if we continued to limit ourselves just to Canada and the U.S. as most full timers there do, we also would go back to a more “normal” lifestyle. But it’s a big world out there, and we like the cultural difference that countries less similar to our home ones offer.
So my own suggestion (and I noticed that you did hint at this) is to try some RV travel outside of the UK and Europe. You could easily set up a motorhome exchange with someone in North America or Australia. While that comes with its own list of cautions, they are usually easy to overcome and it can be an economical way of seeing an area that Zagan can’t easily get to. (Renting is far too expensive!)
Hi guys
I’ve happily read about your Australian tour, sounded wonderful!
I’m not sure how North America compares with Europe and North Africa in terms of cultural variations, but Ukraine or Tunisia are very different places to France and Spain. Ju and I have both been around the world in our earlier lives. We’re not planning on stopping travel but I have a feeling we’re into diminishing returns with full-time travel. Travel has moulded me, held up a mirror to show who I am. Do I need to be permanently on the road to build on this? Probably not, I think.
It occurred to me yesterday that we eventually arranged our finances to allow a three-day choice:
1. Travel full-time.
2. Travel part-time, living in a house in the ‘off-season’
3. Stay in our house full-time.
If our choice was between 1 and 3 then I suspect we’d choose 1.
Right, best get packing – we’re off house sitting for a few days (option 4? :-)). Enjoy Hawaii!
Cheers, Jay
Great post, and we’ve definitely seen both sides of what you describe. We fulltimed for ~9 years as digital nomads, which was wonderful in many ways but also got tiring in others (the constant moving, constant planning thing!). We’re now part-timers based in S.France and that suits us well at this point. We were happy to avoid the craziness of summer thus year, and will set off again in Sept for a little tour (after kids are back in school and temps are reasonable). Perfection.
Both lifestyles are great, but we’re with you on preferring the part time travel now. In the future…who knows!
Nina
I have followed your blog since the start and have come to apreciate your honesty about motorhome life. There are many positives and just few negatives, but overall it is such a great way of traveling. We bought a motorhome (inspired by your travels) in January/19 and have toured Spain and Portugal for 4 months and currently touring Norway. We are loving it, but we do have a house in Dorset, since we have decided that full timing is not for us at this stage of our lives. We downsized from a family home to a smaller, lock up and go type of property and it suits us well. There is no one fits all approach to a happy lifestyle and perhaps it is a case of testing it out and make adjustments as necessary. Love your blog, great post😄
Very interesting and honest perspective. We live in Australia and bought a motorhome in UK. We travelled full time for 22 months and love the simplicity and freedom of motorhoming. We went home for 9 months and are now back in The wilds of Scotland. Our intention going forward is to spend 6 months at home with a couple of months in Asia or South America en route and 4 months a year in Europe.
Owning a motorhome in UK for non residents is a bit of a challenge but absolutely worth it. Thanks for your insights guys.
Hi Jay and Ju, I have been checking out your blog for a while now – great inspiration and offering certainty that we are doing things the best way for us! We are rebels – we travel in a Ford Ranger truck and tow a caravan – we are just about to set out for 6 months to explore Spain and Portugal – this is our first major long term trip to Europe (previously we spent 7 months in Canada and the US); and whilst we would like to stay longer Brexit, family and a need to work at least some of the year to fund future trips calls us home next year. I think this will give us the right balance to sustain a part nomadic existence over a longer period, and your comments above seem to support that. Full timing is hard, the ability to come and go and mix it up a bit offers the best of both worlds. We can’t wait to start our next adventure! Sheila and Doug
PS: Ju, your Essential Packing List has been invaluable – thank you!
Sounds like you’ve found your niche guys, great stuff! Cheers, Jay
Hi guys, we travelled for 9 months last year and experienced all the things you listed!!! In the end, the daily search for water points or grey dumps got too much and we camped up for 6 weeks in a fantastic campsite in la Ribera nr murcia, hired a car and lived like ex pats! We loved that way of life, getting to know the other campers, even though there was generally a large age gap.
The van’s gone now but I think one day we’ll buy another and do a bit more exploring.
Thanks for all your blogs and information, we probably wouldn’t have gone without them!
X
Cheers Scott, appreciate the kind words and it sounds like you had a good adventure. Jay
Hi J&J
We’re 3 months into full-timing (entirely your fault) but it’s coming to an end.
We found a perfect French house a couple of years before we were going to start looking.
If the purchase goes through then we’ll move in mid-October (and pray Brexit doesn’t force us out).
Every day since we made an offer on the house I’ve been desperate to start decorating and DIY, and motorhoming has felt like simply killing time until we move in.
It made me realise that the perfect balance would be the house in France, with rental cottage/rooms, and registering Humberto in France, to use as our “escape pod”, in the off season.
I enjoyed our month in cold, wet, wind-battered Brittany, in January, as much as 2 months in the sunny Dordogne and Pyrenees, so we’re not sun-seekers.
There’s simply no way I would enjoy months in an “RV Park” in Southern Spain.
Hopefully our French home (fingers crossed) puts us in a good central location, near Bergerac, to explore Europe at the drop of a hat (and without subjecting Humberto’s suspension to the remnants of British roads).
I totally understand your need for “community”.
I need to continually pinch myself though, to remind myself just how fortunate we are to be in a position to make choices like these.
Many people are in jobs they don’t really enjoy, have mortgages they are struggling to pay, with inadequate pensions, and will never get the opportunity to make the “tough decision” to hit the road.
Basically, do what makes you happiest and suits your personality. There’s no rule book.
One thing is for sure though. Life is short. If you CAN do it, do it now.
Couldn’t agree more Lee, we’re in a tiny minority on Earth with this wonderful choice of just how much to travel. Your new house in France sounds like a great new chapter in your lives – a base with great access to Spain and all of Europe to the East. Brexit might force you to apply for residency (I guess, unless you only stay 90 days in any 180) with the associated impact to tax, inheritance laws, access to health care etc, none of which I understand. Whatever happens, good luck, I’m sure you deserve every success. Jay
There’s a nice Municiple in Eymet, and a tiny free Aire in Lauzun. Should you end up there, you must get in touch as you’ll be close.
Considering going to live in France full time. I’ll need to beat the Brexit deadlines which I think will be 2 Years after this October 21st. I’m in UK. A/ Living in a camper van how could I register with the authorities; I would have thought they would require a permanent address? B/ how safe is wild camping in France.
Many thanks -brian
Hi Brian. On question a, sorry I don’t have the foggiest idea. My guess is you’ll need a permanent address in France. On question b, yes, it’s safe in general. Avoid motorway Aires and use park4night.com or similar to source places and it’s as safe as anywhere. Cheers, Jay
Hi,
we’re in a very safe good financial position in our 70 -ies with a very lovely house.We decided 12 years ago to be around in Europe in summer & to meet all our friends /family in winter. Reasons: As winter arrives nearly everywhere in Europe at some time with rain & coldness , we were caring for our senior life time, when we’re really getting old & friendships & family are gaining a more important.aspect. You have to care/look afer for these strong bonds, because nearly every nice travel friends will stay at the surface.
These thoughts won’t keep us away from leaving tomorrow for Uluru. G’day Heide from Germany
Good advice, thanks Heide. Jay
Jay & Ju, There are many fantastic things about your blog, it’s a brilliant resource packed with great information, it’s filled with inspirational stories and warts and all experiences. But most of all it’s real, it is written with honestly and openness by real people who are prepared to give generously of themselves without evangelising. Your open and frank sharing simple of everyday stuff, your thoughts, dreams and innermost feelings makes your writing come alive to a virtual, but nevertheless, appreciative like-minded community. Thank you for opening a wide window into a world some of us are just beginning to discover its rich diversity, its delights and to experience our own highs and lows. Dave
Cheers Dave, much appreciated. Jay
Hi both. Interesting read. We never had the opportunity to go full timing on the road as we weren’t so financially savvy as you guys. We do however full time in our motorhome by working as Holiday Site Staff (now managers) from it in the U.K during the summer and touring in the winter. We look forward to our 4-5 months touring each year but likewise also can’t wait to get back home and start working again to break the monotony of seeing somewhere new every few days! It gives us a feeling of having a long holiday each year plus gives us the camaraderie of colleagues that you have mentioned you miss. We also get to keep life long friends whilst always making new ones who come visit us. The summer wage also pays for the winter Holiday!!!
Sounds like a great way to live Gideon! Cheers, Jay
Hello, very interesting to read your perspective but this lifestyle of moving location every 1.5 days does not appeal to me at all. To be honest I’m not too crazy about travelling but I’m living in a MH full time since February… and I’m loving it! I decided to move to a MH because I was fed up with the noise in my neighbourhood. I was living in a small city in Spain and my neighbours were all Spaniards – adorable people, really friendly and welcoming towards me as a foreigner but extremely noisy in the evenings/night time. I really like that city, the great friends I made there and the wonderful weather in winter. So I put my flat up for sale and now I’m spending winters in the camping site in that same Spanish city… and summers elsewhere where is not too hot. To me the great advantage of staying in a camping site in Spain in winter is that you seldom find Spaniards camping in winter, haha. So far I’m having a blast! This summer I spent two months in France, away from any heatwave, in a camping site with the best sea view where I could access the beach from my pitch (for only 24 euros a night !). On my way there I’ve tried some park4night locations but for me it’s not worth the hassle (noise from locals mostly, as you experienced too). In the few occasions the camping neighbours were annoying me I just moved pitch. Another reason I prefer spending the nights in campsites is security: I don’t have to worry about my stuff being stolen (I tend to go for long hikes and bike rides when I’m not working). I’m mid forties and work part time from home, so it really doesn’t matter where I am based. But I prefer to stay for a while (at least a week) in a single location. Before doing this I used to stay in camping sites for longs periods of time with a tent, sometimes months at a time… now I’m doing similar but with so much more confort. I feel really happy not having a house/flat to worry about for now. In the future I’d like to own land and have chickens, so I’ll keep my eyes open for a small property in a lovely location. Ended up writing a long post but you asked for different perspectives. Sorry my English is not that great. Happy travels to you :)
Your English is very good Adriana! Thanks for a different perspective. Jay
Hi, finally found someone that’s done full time motorhome and not van as this is something we’re looking at doing.
Fantastic read and I’ll be delving more in to your blog shortly and possibly get your book from Amazon.
We are thinking of selling our house and hitting the rd whilst hopefully finding bits of work along the way. Definitely want to visit Norway and Italy as these are highly on my go to places. We’re mid 30’s couple living in Lancashire but have no ties here so we’re looking to move on to somewhere new too and feel motorhome life would help us find that place. Due to Covid we have had to hang fire with these plans. Hope bro see you on the rd one day
Ryan and Kate
Hi, a great read. Until last year we lived on a boat but took the plunge and now full time in our large RV..We both still work full time and stay fairly local mostly Covid has obviously had a major impact but for now we are safely tucked away until lockdown lifts. Any other full timers tips on surviving lockdown with sites being closed would be appreciated. We are both key workers but our situation doesn’t seem to be catered for by lockdown rules we would usually move from site to site locally, kind of modern day gypsies working and paying our dues, but they have all been shut since December.. Being moved on is our biggest worry as is a heavy fine for breaking rules
Hi guys
Good to hear from you. As this is a fairly old post I’m not sure how many people will read it/reply, but hopefully someone will. Ju and I aren’t in a good position to advise, as we’ve shifted out to Spain for the winter and campsites here have remained open. We’ve also got a home and van storage in the UK, so when we return we’ll stop using the van. If you have a look for the Motoroamers on Facebook, they have a support group going which covers full-timers and may be helpful for you guys. I sometimes watch The Urban Motorhome on YouTube too – he’s full-timing without using sites in the UK so again might be of some use.
The best of luck, hopefully things will start to improve soon, cheers, Jay
Hi Jay, many thanks for the response