Joanne and Craig’s Motorhome Bumble
We’ve been following Joanne, Craig and the sadly late Peanut for the past months as we await another turn on the road. They email out their ‘tell it like it is’ stories, useful tips and vivid photos as their ‘Bumble’ every week (you can download an example here, and another one here) which we devour as vicariously wanderers whenever they arrive. They’ve kindly sent their story below, along with how to get in touch with them. We’re sure you’ll enjoy it. Cheers, Jay and Ju.
Who we are
Joanne and Craig, two ordinary people who had a dream of travelling the 
world. The dream often coincided with talks of our retirement plans or whenever we got chatting about spending more time together, enjoying a stress free life, doing things we’d always dreamed of etc. You know the kind of things we are talking about, right? Well, one day we’d had enough, decided life was too short and took the plunge to live our dream.
We are both in our mid to late 40’s and been together for 30 years doing normal stuff like working, paying off the mortgage and finding hobbies to help us chill at the weekend. We don’t have any children and up until June 2015 we had a mini dachshund called Peanut who sadly died at the age of 15. Both of us love to travel and we’ve done the spectrum from cheap bargain bucket flight to all inclusive with cherries on top.
In 2013, we went through a period of nothing but bad luck and it really made us reflect on what was important to us and what we wanted out of life. The rat race, the material things, the fine dining suddenly didn’t appeal any more. When faced with losing each other and the people you love, it makes you realise what is important. This was our turning point. Like Jay and Ju we worked hard and we’d invested our money. We took a long hard look at what we had, made a few tweaks and decided to take early retirement and… live our dream.
We spent a full year putting things in to place and planning what we would do. This involved working 6 months notice, which was one of the hardest things we’ve done. Both from a financial and mental point of view. By this stage in our lives, we were enjoying a successful career with large salary and benefits. Handing in our notice took away our financial lifeline and giving that up was hard. All of a sudden we had to think about our money in a very different way, yet all around us were our friends, still enjoying the benefits of a normal life. But the hardest thing was was working 6 months and having no desire or motivation for the job. Of course, your professional side keeps up the appearances but inside it was torture. At this stage, we felt trapped between two worlds and even though the new world was unknown, we never questioned our decision. In our hearts, we know it was right and that kept us going.
It was at this point, we discovered Jason and Julie’s website. Now we are not just saying this but their website provided us with so much information and support during our planning stage. Not only that, but their daily updates provided us with the motivation and inspiration to keep heading for the dream. Their website is like a sweet shop for travellers!
We bought our first Motorhome and did the usual stuff like going away at weekends. Each week we would do something new to the Motorhome like fit solar panels then spend the weekend trialling the gadget. We spent hours researching what we needed and then spent the same amount of time installing it. Craig virtually took the Motorhome to pieces and rebuilt it, so he could understand what to do if anything went wrong. We optimised our storage to a fine tea and whittled things down to essential stuff except for my clothes, Craig would say. By spring of 2014, we were ready for our first adventure.
Our Motorhome
We purchased a 2007 Hymer 694SL, a handsome chap and named him Homer. In April 2014, we set off and that year we travelled around Italy, Sicily and a little bit of Austria. We had a great time but the challenges of living in a poorly built Motorhome combined with an newly acquired itchy skin condition took its toll and within 6 months we were back in the UK.
Once again, we questioned what we wanted and still came up with the same answer, so with that we sold the 694SL and bought a 12 month old Hymer B590. By early December 2014, we were back on the road. The B590 named Vin, is completely different to the first motorhome and we love him. Firstly, it feels more stable and nothing falls apart when you touch it. The built quality is good and with a Mercedes 3L V6 we can get to most places that we want to. For us, the size is right with enough room to feel comfortable but small enough to get in most parking spaces.
We’ve installed solar panels, gas and adapted the Motorhome (all ourselves) so we can wild camp where ever we like. We have lots of tips like how to do your washing and drying and Craig’s even done a little mini booklet on travel tips.
The best thing about Vin: he now feels like home.
Our Bumble
Filling up Homer with water
We call our travel tales ‘Our Bumble’. No particular reason other than we just seem to bumble everywhere.
When we set off in April 2014 we’d never been in a motorhome, never mind live in one. It was always a dream to own one but the reality seemed awfully different. Life on the road was challenging and it took some getting used to. Like being together 24/7 in a small, confined space with no me time. No nipping around the corner to see your friends or family or nipping to the pub for a pint. The frustrations of not having electricity and water when you clicked your fingers but most of all the smell of the bog, well it drove us potty!
However, the places we discovered were amazing and having the flexibility to stay where ever we wanted was fantastic. For us, the first trip allowed us to really understand what we wanted from a motorhome and how we needed to adapt to motorhome living. Now we have everything in place, travelling is just wonderful and the freedom to bumble where ever is totally liberating.
Places we’ve been
2014 – down west coast of Italy, round Sicily, up the east coast of Italy, in to Austria and Germany then home. 2015 – set off December 2014 and travelled down to Portugal for the winter. We covered everything south of Lisbon both inland and coastal. Then at Easter we crossed the boarder in to Spain travelling all over Andalusia. We have just arrived in the region of Murcia and looking forward to bumbling around both the coast and inland. We will probably head home at the end of the year for our MOT and get everything ready for 2016!
As a rule of thumb we travel to a new place each day but if we like it, we stop a while longer. We eat just like we would at home, visit all local attractions and it costs us around €23 per day for everything – diesel, food, camping, services, tolls, entrance fees, LPG etc. On top of this we have annual insurance and servicing costs….but that is it. So for around £7,000 per annum we now live a wonderful life travelling around Europe, seeing some fantastic places and meeting some brilliant people.
We do a weekly ‘Our Bumble’ for friends, family and anyone who fancies a read It’s a simple PDF that we email to everyone with a write up on what we did, what we found and of course, loads of pictures. You can download an example here, and another one here. We keep it real with stories of our adventures including the good, the bad and the ugly. We live our dream and we love it but at the end of the day, we are still a normal couple, so we have our ups and downs, so we share all. Like being one of the first couples to walk El Chorro after being closed to the public for over 15 years. To heartbreak of losing our best buddy, our dog, Peanut, who we miss like crazy. At first, we just emailed a few people but over time the list has got bigger and now we issue Our Bumble to a few hundred people. In addition, we keep a list of all the wild camping spots, the GPS position and a few photos, so we can share with fellow travellers. We’ve attached a couple of our bumbles, so you get a taste of what we get up to.
Our plans…keep bumbling around, enjoying the freedom to learn new things, discover new places, meet fascinating people and to live our dream. Hopefully one day we might bumble in to you!
If you would like any more information, receive our weekly bumble or if we could be of any help then please email us at ourbumble@icloud.com.
mmmmm – sounds great.
My better half and I are looking into purchasing a motorhome for the first time. Daunting! Have fallen in love with Hymers. We still have lots of ‘life’ stuff to sort out and so far we have discussed trips rather than a living lifestyle. Like you, we want to spend more time together, both self employed, but Janette tied to her business more than I am to mine – need to put things in place that will allow us the freedom to do this. Our journey so far has consisted of magazine viewing and one trip to a motorhome show where we fell in love with Hymers (2nd hand – budget is key). So we are at the beginning of a new journey that we don’t know where it will take us (or even if we’ll get there). We are not in the flush of youth :-) but Janette in particular has the energy and exuberance of someone 10 years younger. Advice to ourselves; hire one first!? And if we do buy – take short trips to start. ANY advice welcome :-)
Hi guys, Joanne and Craig may have a few thoughts.
My two-penneth: choosing a motorhome is really difficult. What you think you want when you start off may not be what you want after a few months on the road. For example, we found we never watched TV, hated having to make a bed up and loved being able to get a few people sat and the table.
Our Hymer was our second van, so we learned lessons from Van #1 which worked a treat for us. The drop down bed over the cab was big enough for us, we could get in and out of it, push it up and store all the bedding on it. Perfect, kept the van length below 6m which made it much easier to shift through narrow towns and park up on ports, tight car parks etc. Having a fixed table is essential for us too. Having one stored in a cupboard was grim in our first van. In such a tiny space you really need the place to work for you. On the flip side, we were not bothered about the loo being a wet room (no separate shower), just worked out fine for us somehow.
Would I hire? Probably not as I’m severely tight. I’d look, look, look. Think, talk to people, read up, work out what you really need. Ours had no turbo so wasn’t fast, but it got over umpteen mountain passes and we were never in that much of a hurry. Being slow may have kept us in one piece in some places.
Think about whether you want a load of storage. Weight limits have to be considered. Coming down a mountain pass overloaded is not going to be fun. Do you want to take a moped? If you do, are you happy storing it on the back (weight, security) or do you want a garage (longer van, more expensive, harder to manoeuvre).
We met a couple of fab Australians who solved some of the issues by buying a big van and driving a car too. Worked for them. We met parents travelling full time with two toddlers in a little VW camper. And we met folks driving Concordes, luxury buses. Everyone needs something different.
Hymers are cracking though (in our experience). Great quality, very good design, parts available, characterful. LHD also worked very well for us, much better visibility for overtaking, which we somehow managed to do from time to time!
Good luck. If you want to do it, it will happen. It’s not easy doing what Craig and Joanne did, it’s a difficult hill to climb, but we’ve been over that hill too and it’s quite wonderful on the other side.
Cheers, Jay
Hi Jay,
Thanks – have been following the website for a few months now. We saw a B504 and B544L last weekend – interesting, trying to get my head around the compromises we would inevitably have to make (as you say garage space or living space). Our initial thoughts are that living space is more important – that may change in the future – who knows. We like the drop down bed which means that any other bed (i.e. over rear garage space) would seem to be superfluous. We already like the idea of a shower with a screen door separating, so again that might mean slightly newer build (we are thinking 2000 – 2004)? The 544L had the 2 bench seats with a table, although the table seemed to take up a lot of space we were assured this could be swapped for a smaller table. Interesting what you say about a stored table.
As you say – keep looking, build up an idea of what we think ‘might’ work and then go for it.
The table in the B544 ended up working a treat for us. We had 6 people round it at one point. Also, of one of you is sat using a laptop the other still has room to eat, use another laptop, whatever. Worth thinking about.
The B584 has a separate shower area, and you can get older ones with this layout. Also has a smaller table. We’re thinking about either B544 or B584.
For bikes, they’ll get plastered if stored on the back unless you get a cover. If you go for the cover, it’s worth a quality one, they take a hammering in the wind. Also if you go to Spain or Italy you’ll need a red striped board attached to them, check out the AA website for traffic laws. You can pick stuff like the up when you get closer to the relevant border though, no need to buy in the UK.
The searches continue! Jay
Forgot to say we would more than likely be taking pushbikes.
Nothing to say other than very interesting read . I have a early bay window volkswagen van have owned it for 20 years and i’m thinking of buying a Hymer
for travelling abroad in my retirement so I shall continue following you …..thanks and good luck
Hi Joanne & Craig
We have enjoyed reading your posts. We are nearly fully retired and looking forward to extended trips to Europe in our motorhome. Our current motorhome – Betty the Burstner (Nexxo), we’ve had for 2yrs 5mths and done 14,000miles in two main trips. We spent 3 weeks touring southern Ireland and 6 weeks touring France – loved both trips so much, can’t wait to get out again. Agree with general comments that France is motorhome heaven for camping but can’t wait to try some of the other countries you’ve visited.
We’d love to read about your past experiences.
We have a drive, with a slight slope on which you’d be welcome to park up if you’re ever in North Wales, 10 mins off the A55, 40 mins from Chester.
best wishes
Mike & Gail
Hi Jason and Julie
Came across your blog a month ago and making my way through it, what Joanne and Craig have written is true – your site it like a sweet shop for someone who loves traveling. Very inspired by your financial independence journey as well, it has given me some thoughts. :-)
My question is – how do they manage with £7000pa as their budget? It seems really low and if it really can be done, perhaps we could rethink our own plans. Have you met other couples who manage with such budgets? Is there perhaps an old bumble with costing information?
Looking forward to stories from your next trip to the mountains.
Cheers
Swathi
Hi Swathi
Thanks for getting in touch. Joanne and Craig now have their own website http://www.ourbumble.com where you might be able to find the answers to your questions about their finances.
We spend around £15k a year, but that covers everything including insurance and servicing of Zagan, but not depreciation. We have met others who travel on less (one couple said £5k but I don’t know what that included), and as we aren’t tight with our purse strings I am sure they easily do.
A lot depends on how you plan to travel, if you don’t move much you’ll save on diesel, and if you don’t eat out and only free camp you’ll keep your spending down. Quite early on on our travels we decided that wasn’t for us – we could spend a lot less, but felt like we were missing out. That is why we made sure we have enough in our budget for those meals out or trips up a cable car into the mountains etc.
Cheers Julie