Why Vanlife? Our Journey to Adventure

As I sit here writing this on a sweaty weekday night, tools spread across the bedroom floor, and multiple tabs open for various purchases that we need (or want) for the van. I’ve started to wonder – why did we choose this? Why did we choose to spend our savings on a van before a house? Why not a car? Why this? Why that? Well, come with me (or in this case “us” as a couple) as we discuss the Why, What, Where, How, and everything in between.

Why did we choose to get into Vanlife?

The idea came to us early in our relationship after talking about how we’d both like to travel. We discussed numerous different avenues to go down to achieve this but then it hit me. Buy a van. After pitching the idea to friends and family, everyone seemed to agree with the plan, thank god. The plan was – Get a Van and get over to Europe, working from the van if we can whilst seeing as much as we can. If others could do it, why couldn’t we?

“Yeah, but why a van?” we hear you ask. Well, we did discuss the possibility of just flying a plane here and there, but that to me isn’t “travelling travelling”. Those would have been just mere holidays. We find that you are constricted to where ever it is you have landed, restricted to a certain city or beach or the like. Having something more mobile to sleep in and move in was something which just appealed more to us. I (Ashley) grew up travelling through France every summer in a caravan, so it’s always been something I’ve been accustomed to, but this time I chose to veer away from a Caravan and go for a big nice Mercedes Sprinter. Gulp.

Why a Sprinter?

There are probably a million reasons why someone picks a van over a motorhome. Why someone picks a VW over a transit? Why some people might paint their vans green or red? But it all boils down to one thing. Personal preference. We did the research, and we watched the videos. We stalked lots of people’s pages, hell we even read a book! And the Mercedes Sprinter LWB was the Van for us. This was mainly due to the size of the beast. We wanted a fixed bed, a fixed shower area, a cooker, a sink, seating area. The works. As much as we’d rip someone’s arm off for a T4, we just don’t think there would be much space left once a double bed was put in. We explored the idea of the larger Transits as well as the Crafter but settled on the Sprinter. This was due mainly to how many we had come across on YouTube videos and such. There were plenty of tutorials and heaps of information on them. We also heard their engines run forever so fingers crossed on that one, either that or someone lied!

DIY or Pre-built?

Here was another tough one. Did we want to slave away for months on end, maybe years, trying to achieve our dream van, saving ourselves some cash and picking up new skills along the way? On the other hand, did we want to save up a butt load of money which would have also taken months and months, probably years, to pay someone to do it for us? By which time life would have been passing us by? We went with the former. If we had the money I probably would have paid a professional to bring our visions to life. Seriously though, we’re glad we didn’t have the money. In the year we’ve been working on this van we have enjoyed every second of it. We’ve learnt an abundance of new skills and even surprised ourselves at our determination to achieve something we want *taps each other on the back*. We are constantly making new memories in the van and we’re only about 25% through the conversion. So there’s no rush to finish it which makes it all a bit more enjoyable. (But by god, we cannot wait till it is done!)

Adventure is out there!

As we previously mentioned we’ve been on this journey now for almost a year and it’s been incredible. Having this van and stepping into vanlife has opened so many doors in terms of adventuring. We can rock up and go wherever we want, whenever we want. We’ve been to numerous places across the UK. We’ve hit up a couple of fantastic festivals and also met some incredible people. We definitely made the right decision in venturing into vanlife. It has made us see life differently. We are more spiritual and calmer. We feel more at one with nature. We have come to realise that materialistic things are not of any great importance. The real joys of life come from living. Exploring new places, conversing with new strangers, and trying exciting new things. We could have probably taught ourselves these things without the van, but until you experience your first night in the van, you won’t understand. There’s a real sense of awakening when you sit there looking out at the beautiful view, the sun going down and not a care or worry in the world. You feel there is more to life than the mundane 9 to 5, wishing for more. Well, that’s how it affected us anyway.

You should do it too! If you want.

Now don’t shoot the messenger. We’re not saying you should up and spend your life savings on a van and go live in the wild. It’s not always fun and games, and it doesn’t automatically give you that summer bod, beach bum, filtered life either. As great as everyone makes it look on Instagram it’s only as good as you make it. Which evidentially is kinda the rule for life in general, right? For us, it was “Are we going to sit here miserable with our 9-5s or are we going to do something about it?” And boy are we on our way. This van is giving us the freedom, or more freedom to do as we please. It opened up our eyes to a life of adventure and exploration. It ignited a fire within us to push towards a travelling lifestyle. It may work for you, but it may not work for you. Rent one out for a week and see how it feels. But if we’ve learnt anything in this life it’s “If you don’t try, how will you know.”