Living fulltime in a camper van and explore Europe
This is gonna be my first post on Steemit - I wanted to write a blog post for months now, but never knew what to write about. But now I just figured - whatever.
I have been living and travelling in a self-converted camper van for 1,5 years now. Before that, I constantly travelled for almost 2 years. During that time I lived in Thailand, France, Austria and Southern Spain. In 2016 I met my now-husband and moved into a commercial van (yeap, no camper at that time, just a van with an airbed in it).
We explored Andalucía and the Spanish east coast until we broke down for the first time. It was tough - it was hot, we were broke and not long into our relationship. But we mastered it somehow and carried on after the garage replaced the whole engine of our van. 1 day on the road, happy bees again, and we broke down again. What was it this time? The clutch - ouch. Again expensive, again weeks without a car, living in a hotel, I was so close to saying goodbye to vanlife. But we made it through again, SOMEHOW.
Fed up with Spain we drove straight up to the UK, where my hubby is from. There we visited his family, insulated and cladded the van and installed a proper bed and kitchen. Yeah! Finally we were travelling in something you could call a camper van.
We explored Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, where we failed our MOT (the annual technical inspection for cars in the UK) and replaced our corroded brake pipes in a car park for over 1 week. We ran out of gas, water - you name it. And all of that of course at the beginning of winter in one of the coldest places possible.
When I think back at that time, the whole year of 2016, I'm still surprised that we made it through it, without big fights and, until now, in the same camper van. I cannot tell you how many parts we had to replace since then, everybody calls us crazy to keep on this van, but it's our baby and we just cannot abandon it. :-)
In 2017, we explored Southern Spain, Portugal, France and Ireland. The year was packed with traveling, exploring new countries, meeting interesting people and getting to know awesome places. But there were actually 3 major events that happened alone this year:
We picked up two stray dogs, one in Spain and one in Portugal. Our fluffy babies are the best and we couldn't imagine our lives without them anymore!
We got married! Yes - we did the big step, flew out to Las Vegas and had the time of our lives there. Who says that weddings have to be organized for months in advance and cost a fortune?
We got pregnant! I'm not due until May'18, but I plan to give birth in Spain and travel around in our camper until then. The baby is definitely gonna be a van-baby!
Super exciting times now and ahead of us - we learned from the past, that we are the worst when it comes to making any plans as we constantly change them. But the rough plan is, to stick around Andalucía and Portugal until the baby is here. Afterwards? Who knows?
I definitely want to go to Portugal again and finally visit Galicia in Northern Spain. One thing is for sure: I keep you all updated :)
Stay safe and enjoy the world!
Love and hugs, Sabrina