Looking for a camper van

I’m not sure where the idea of the girls having an education on the road came from. My husband and I have always loved to travel but when we had the children, we accepted that we’d have to settle down for a few years. The problem is, whilst we were both ready to have children, settling down was never really on either of our agendas.

When we went to Busfest last week, we both realised that we needed to start travelling sooner than anticipated. We’re not about to sell up and drive into the sunset for a year, but we are ready to make the most of the school holidays. Until now, something has always been holding us back. There are still issues with my husband’s injuries but if anything, his accident has made us realise how easily life can be cut short.

The big camper van conundrum

We’ve put a lot of thought into the best way for us to travel. I’d love to Interrail, but that would be hard going with two dogs. We all love staying in gorgeous self-catering accommodation like Blairmore Farm, but there’s no way we could afford to live in the lap of luxury for a whole year. So the logical solution is to buy a camper van.

We’d always intended to wait until we could buy a van outright in a few years time. But we’ve realised that we’d get so much benefit from buying it sooner. We’d use it for weekend breaks and head off for every school holidays. In a couple of weeks I’m doing an ultramarathon and it would have been ideal to have been able to stay in a van the night before rather than having to pitch a tent.

So, we think it might be time to upgrade our big family car. Its warranty is about to expire and it won’t be long before things start going wrong. But this time instead of finding ourselves another car, we want to get a camper van. It will mean taking out a personal loan because we’ll need to get a reliable van that won’t break down. Not only do we want to travel in it, but I’ll be using it as the family car as well.

So we’ve started looking around. We think we’ll go for a long wheelbase VW Transporter or a similarly sized van. We may well buy the van itself and then get it converted, although if it works out cheaper we’ll be happy to just buy a second hand camper.

Whichever way we do it, we know what we need from a van. Space for four of us plus the dogs for both driving along and sleeping. We’ll buy a drive-away awning to give us a bit of extra living space too. So now it’s just a matter of time, waiting for the right van to turn up. And as soon as it does, we’ll be on the road. Bring on the weekends and school holidays exploring the UK and Europe. We’re ready for our next adventure.