The start of our crazy journey

My partner Rob and myself (Emelia) have been living in our little old caravan with our two border collie cross' and our cat since May 2022. It's a crazy everchanging life we live but worth it. It's not been all sunshine and rainbows, it's not an Instagram worthy life we live, and we think it important to share the reality of life in a van, that includes the good and the bad.

In the middle of a rental crisis, we were caretakers on a property being used, and sacrificing work and our lives for the sake of our "rent" we felt burnt out. More and more was asked of us and finally too much was asked. With no real plan we gave our notice as we knew we didn't want to go broke just to have a home that was never ours. After house sitting and staying with some very generous friends, we started our crazy journey of living full time in a caravan. When we left the farm knew rentals were expensive and hard to find not even taking into consideration our two working breed dogs, Muffin and Mellie and our now very much-loved Cat who we call Kitter. And to make our life even crazier we have not one but two horses Barney and Lilly. We put the horses on agistment, and we decide to look into living in a caravan.

With little savings left we could not have got our van or continued to live in a van, without the generous help of our family and friend's support. And to our family and friends Thank You! After covid, caravans had become very popular making them quite dear at the time. We all make mistakes and sometimes you have to trust the unknown. Scouring the web on many different sites to find something within our reasonably small budget that we could make work and many missed opportunities, we found it. With emphasis on little and old, we picked up a 1983 14ft viscount grand tourer. Far from our dream van, (and I mean a universe away) we had to make the best of it. We have lived in it since, after many modifications, and we still continue to upgrade and modify it to suit. From two singles to a king size bed and a new canvas pop top sleeve and many more updates.

It's been a crazy year we are looking forward to sharing more about our journey, specific renovation stories, and how we get on in our day-to-day life where we stay, fun trips away, the perks of living in a van, the dreaded cons of van life, and anything in between!