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Our First 6 months of Vanlife, is the dream a reality?

Its now 15 months since we decided that our next big adventure would be to give up everything, our home, most of our possesions, cars and every day life to live in a converted Citroen Relay van, crazy right?. Maybe, but it seemed like a good idea at the time! What is the reality though? In this article (The 1st of many I hope!) I delve into, and analyse the first 6 months of our Vanlife journey and ask the question(s) Is it for us? Is the van big enough? How the hell are we going to earn funds whilst travelling? What are we going to do if the van breaks down? The questions are endless, the excuses are plenty and the answers and solutions are difficult to come by! So lets start at the beginning.

Why Vanlife?

Why the bloody hell would you want to live in such a small space without the comforts of a normal home? Thats the question we get asked the most and lets face it, its a fair enough question isnt it? I could answer by saying "we love to travel, we love exploring, the freedom, the sense of adventure" and all these points are valid points, HOWEVER in reality, lets face it, its the obvious one, MONEY! Yes wonga, cash, pound notes ...... or lack of them! Lets not sugar coat it, the main reason so many people are embarking on this wacky way of life is the cost of living crisis, it is crippling the average joe on the street, including us, and we were looking for an escape, along with hundreds (If not thousands) of others. There was an element of wanting another adventure and the travelling but in all honesty we were both sick of working full time jobs and still being skint!

The Build ........... Oh god, not the build!

When the decision was made to embark on our vanlife journey, the next decision was how?! I certainly didn't have the cold hard cash to go out and buy a big old motorhome or coachbuilt campervan, I didn't really have the money to buy a van, nevermind convert it into a campervan! So how did we manage it? Good question, can we call it begging, borrowing and steeling? Ok so not the steeling bit but hard graft, flogging my worldly belongings, a bit of finance and good friends and we managed to get it done! Easy right? NO! ABSOLOUTELY NOT!

My working life has covered grounds maintenance, running fisheries, service engineering and repair work, I know my way around electrics, plumbing, carpentry and joinery and most of the other practical skills you would require to build a campervan. So in reality it should have been easy shouldn't it? The thing is with vans is that nothing is bloody easy! The shape of them, nothings level, they constantly fight you! Even the simplest of jobs can take hours when it should have been a 10 minute job! Herman (Our campervan) was no different, he fought from day 1 and still has his moments when we try and do bits to this day, bloody nightmare!

We started our build in January 2023, we had this crazy notion that we would have it done by the August, ready for the bloodstock heavy metal festival, which we had campervan tickets for. Did we manage it? Ummm, no! When we did rock up at Bloodstock, we had a bed and a makeshift kitchen! My advice to any of you budding van builders, take your time, dont rush trying to meet deadlines or you will mess it up I guarantee! We eventually managed to get done in around September 2023, when I moved into full time vanlife .......... ALONE

Vanlife .... Alone

So September rolls round and Lindsey is sorted work wise, her employer has agreed to let her work full time remote, the benefit of being an office worker! The original plan was for us to be full time vanlifers by March 2024, I would take on a seasonal campsite warden job (In the short term anyway) and Linz would be sorted working remotely, that was the plan anyway!

I decided to post my details on the UK campsite wardens job page (see link at bottom of the page) a site i heartily recommend if you are looking for seasonal work. I posted a brief description of work i had done, experience etc (you know the drill) and that I was looking for work between March/April until September which will leave the winter for travelling, perfect.

Long story short, it worked, I got a message from a rather lovely lady called Helen from Woodside Lodges in Ledbury (Herefordshire). A few days later I made my way down to see Helen and her equally lovely sister Emma, they both own and run the site. Initially it was going to be working the months I outlined earlier, but after a few conversations following that initial visit it was decided that I would also work the winter as they had recently lost a long serving warden due to illness.

Ill be honest this turn of events wasnt ideal! I was till running my gardening business, I still had work to do on Herman and of course Linz wasnt able to work remotely until March 2024 as agreed by her and her boss, a quandry indeed!

After more conversations it was decided that I would start my new warden job a month later (Early October) giving me a month to clear outstanding work in my business and clear up a few remaining jobs on the camper, I should mention at this point that the roll came with a free camping pitch with EHU, all good!

Unfortunately this opportunity coming quicker than expected meant I would start vanlife alone, Linz was still office based 80 miles away in Tamworth. I did have a couple of days off each week to come back and see Linz and the family but it certainly wasn't how Id envisaged vanlife!

Life as a lone vanlifer would continue until January 2024 when my mum passed away ........

Continued below ......

Post Christmas blues .... Annus horrobilis?

January and the new year couldn't have got off to a worst start, unfortunately I lost my dear Mum due to a long term illness, it did come rather unexpectedly though.

January was spent back in the Midlands, parked on my daughters drive organising mums funeral, sorting her affairs and coming to terms with losing her, it was an emotional time, no doubt about that.

January and February also threw up a few more curve balls and at times I thought our vanlife dream could be over before it had really started, the weather didnt help either, constant rain and wind coupled with personal heartache really tested my mental health.

BUT the show must go on right? Things are improving slowly, mums house sold which had been worrying me and Linz finally joined me in mid February, we were now BOTH full time vanlifers!

New Beginnings ....

March and April was spent acclimatising to both of us living in a van, until now Herman had been my own personal bachelor pad and Linz moving in did take a certain amount of adjustment, especially as Linz seemed to have misunderstood the 'down sizing' part of the conversation! When we designed Herman we factored in the fact that we was going to need plenty of storage, good job because its certainly full now!

In all seriousness though, having Linz back by my side came at a time when I needed her most, life at woodside lodges is so much better now I have Linz to come home to, we have been together for 30 years, its not easy being apart!

Continued below ......

So what next? ......

What next indeed! As I sit here writing this we have just returned from a couple of weeks away in Norfolk and then a further week in Carmarthen, West Wales. It was the first time really that we had spent time away in Herman 'Properley', looking for park ups, the challenge of finding places to empty grey water, fill up with fresh water, emptying cassettes... the list gos on doesnt it? We came through it quite well really, it was really enjoyable to embrace proper van living. That trip away was another chance to iron out any issues with the van, get used to all the systems and of course get more organised!

It was basically a 'dry run' for our trip to Europe come june 6th! A trip we are really looking forward to, France and Spain is the basic plan but other than attending the Rock Imperium Festival on the 19th June we are going to be winging it! Of course we will be vlogging the whole trip for our youtube channell.

Future plans ....

Wow, we have so many plans! Ultimately we BOTH want to be full time on the road, yes I know we are living full time in Herman now, but ultimately I have to earn money, and at the moment that income has to come from working as a campsite warden. I have spent 2 years trying to figure out how to earn hard cash whilst travelling and this blog, our youtube channel and affiliate marketing is my starting point. I am also currently studying a social media marketing course which will not only help with my own vlogs but (hopefully) set me on the road to a career in social media marketing.

I am also working really hard on improving the content and quality of our youtube videos, the channel is still in its early stages with viewings still very up and down and the subscriber count at just over 200, not a lot but I'm working hard to build the channel.

I am also planning to invest in new camera equipment, microphones and other bits to help improve the whole experience for our viewers.

Finally I am actually an half decent writer, I have written over 200 magazine articles for all of the major angling publications in years gone by and intend to write more going forward, this time for travel publications and this blog!

Ultimately though we need all of YOU to help us out! You can do that by simply sharing all of our content on your socials, liking and subscribing to our youtube channel and telling your friends and family about us!

You can start by sharing this blog!!

Thanks for reading and REMEMBER .... KEEP WATCHING, KEEP ROCKING AND KEEP IT REAL! \M/

Chay & Linz