When we gave up our house three years ago to move to hit the road to France, we didn’t really know what to expect. The decision to ‘give it all up’ was not one we made lightly, but ultimately we knew it had to be done. The chains of perpetual debt and enslavement to everyday taxes and bills were growing ever tighter, and something had to give.
So, France it was! (there is a larger story associated with France, one which I’ll get to another day)
Then the pandemic hit, and France became slightly inconvenient. Technically, we were illegal aliens there, particularly with Brexit looming. Our vehicle had come to the end of its legal time limit there. Vaccine passports were on the horizon and all out lunacy in a language I could barely understand, let alone speak, was in overdrive.
After spending tens of thousands of pounds travelling to France with all our animals in tow, we made the tough decision to spend it all again, coming back.
The round trip had left us with virtually nothing in savings, as we rolled up back to our county of birth, Devon, our three decade old beloved and quite weary by this point campervan made a groan and a creak, and the steering rack snapped.
But, we made it. Since we were clearly going nowhere for a little while, now that we had no steering, we laid up in the local train-station car park in our hometown.
I found a second-hand steering rack, scraped some pennies together and fitted it myself. All was good, we had mobility once more.
With little cash to hand and a family to feed, the first mission was to begin earning some money. After a few quick calls to some old engineering clients of mine, I had some work lined up in the glamourous world of CNC machine tool repairs. This would ensure next month we had some cash coming in, but that would not be much help now, plus, it also meant I had to find a vehicle for work….
In the meantime, I had a little cryptocurrency left over, so I cashed this in. This would keep us going until the money began to flow.
Did I mention we had a giant Maine Coone cat? To be on the safe side I purchased a GPS tracking tag for him, since we would be moving about - it turns out however he took quite well to be a travelling cat (except for the actual travelling bit which typically resulted in vomiting, urinating and foaming at the mouth). He didn’t need the tracking tag. He quickly learnt to not go to far, and take his time investigating new surroundings.
The other important thing to note here was the season, winter. Winter and living in a campervan means you need some way of keeping warm. We fortunately had a wood burner. A small little thing crudely fitted (by myself) just inside the entrance to our campervan. Devon, if you didn’t know, is rural. So plenty of trees around, which means plenty of fallen branches, particularly in winter when the wind is high. So, saw in hand, it wasn’t long before we had plenty of wood to keep us warm.
Next necessity, water!
We take water for granted living in houses in the modern age, we just turn a tap and there it is, da-daaaaa!
Well, not quite in a campervan. Turn the tap and you’ll get nothing if the tank is empty. So the next major problem was sourcing water. When filling up our campervan with some fuel at our local petrol station, I had noticed a tap fitted to the side of the tyre pressure check machine. Perfect! Or so I thought.
I purchased a tap clamp and some hose. After 8pm we drove the campervan down and I hooked up the clamp to the tap….. or at least tried. They tapered the tap so that clamps would not hold. After much struggling, I did managed to fill the campervan up.
For future fills from this source, I used some 20 litre containers which we already had, this was much easier……. but within two weeks of using this water source, I turned up one evening to get some water, and the tap was gone. It seems after a decade of the tap existing here; they decided to remove it - One can only assume it was our daily usage that put an end to this free commodity. Ufffff!
I considered using river water, though believe it or not, one is not allowed to collect water out of the river, well not from the riverside at least. A work around would be to drop a pump off the top of a bridge and pump the water up and out into containers, but this was beginning to seem a little over the top, just for some water.
Eventually, we found a far easier option. My sister-in-laws’ water supply was unmetered and so she kindly allowed us to collect water from hers whenever we wanted. It would mean filling containers, putting them in my car, and then driving them to the campervan, as access at the water source with the camper van was not possible. But it was good enough!
So, wood, water….. the last thing was power. While we are not power hungry people, we do need power for the water pump. A shower at least once a year would be nice!
We also require power for charging phones, laptops ect.
Solar panels were an expense I couldn’t afford right then, so instead I routed a supply from the vehicle alternator to an additional 12vdc battery. A Slightly expensive way to generate power, but it worked and for now would suffice. It’s always good to run the engine for a little while each day anyway. She is 30 years old, so a little workout each day does the old girl good.
We had all we needed: heat, power, water and food. Now we were at a slight advantage with food. While we were in France we stocked up on food, you know, in case the pandemic turned into an all out apocalyptic event. So we had enough dried food to last us well over a year, if cash flow dried up.
While living on the road, in a vehicle, may not be every one’s cup of tea, and it isn’t something we intend to do forever - it is a great way to get one’s life in order. It forces you to do away with many of the modern world’s un-necessaries and go back to basics. You begin to appreciate the essentials in life. You also find yourself becoming far more in tune with the environment. It forces you to not overfill the kettle, put an extra layer on instead of the central heating, get excited about a storm in anticipation of the bounty left by the trees the next morning.
Luxuries are few, but when they come, luxuries they are indeed.
But most of all, what we have now is freedom. No monthly council tax, no water bills, no heating bills, and the ability to just move whenever we feel the need.
Life on the road is hard. It tests your patience and mental strength, but it’s also very empowering and beautiful. The experience is necessary, I think, at least for me. To truly understand how little you can have, and still be happy, content and healthy. How little you can have, and yet have so much.
Looking forward, we will probably upgrade to a bigger vehicle, buy some land and maybe in time eventually build a permanent structure - but, we shall see where the future takes us……..
Peace, Love & anarchy!