“Oh I wish I’d done that when I was younger”
I thought to myself with a heavy internal sigh. Why had I spent my twenties in London pubs and clubs, spending all my time and money with my mates with nothing to show for it except a few hazy memories and a couple of alcohol induced broken bones, when I could’ve found myself a cute guy and convinced him to travel around Europe in a beat-up old van instead?
I’d been watching van life videos on YouTube, specifically Wild We Roam and thankfully ‘right in that moment’ I picked myself up immediately on that thought!
I wasn’t past it, I was 50, fit (cough, well, lets just say with no major heath conditions) and healthy-ish, I was not on my deathbed going through a list of things I regretted not doing in my life.
And then, warming to my train of thought, I suppose I did have the cute guy with me now…
Mr. Dean and I had talked about, on a few occasions, how we should hire a campervan and go travelling around the UK/Europe/Beyond, we both thought we’d like to take a couple of months off and do that ‘one day’
But when is ‘one day’? When does it arrive, how do you make ‘one day’ into today or tomorrow even?
I don’t have all the answers, but what I do know, is once I started talking out loud and telling people in person what I wanted to do, sharing my dreams with others, that’s when things started to happen.
Up until this point it was all in my head, my hours of guilty pleasure time on YouTube and overthinking how I’d missed the boat, how we couldn’t do it because of Mr. Dean’s job and I had my art business Jo Scott Art, with a lovely big studio, with it’s own shop front, how would that even work if we were to go travelling?
But I began to see, we were ‘kind of’ doing it already, the one thing Mr. Dean and I both have in common is a craving for travel, he was working in Africa on a rotational contract (1 month working, 1 month off), we were renting an apartment in a seaside town in France and would spend his month off there (I had no qualms about closing my studio for the month) so we were already living differently to the ‘norm’ and working around this idea of time-blocking work throughout the year. We talked seriously about if we should do this and could we do it?
Call it the law of attraction or whatever, but once we started talking about it, lots of things started to fall into place and we noticed we already had a lot going right for us, we had no dependents (the young one’s all grown up and independent, the older ones all sadly no longer with us, with the exception of one who is well looked out for), being free of external commitments was a big factor in being able to move forward with this project.
We were both committed to the plan, there’s a lovely lady in my business club, who is dying to do this with her husband, but he’s just not interested. Without Mr. Dean on board I fear I’d still be in my head regretting not doing something like this in my twenties, would I be planning to do this on my own in my 50’s while he stayed at home? Unlikely. For this to work for me, it needed both of us.
We visited an independent financial advisor (I can highly recommend this if finances aren’t your thing or you lack confidence in financial planning like me, it’s one of the best things we did). They were able to look at everything we had and didn’t have and by discussing with them what we wanted to do we had a plan.
There are some holes in the plan, it’s not all going to be plain sailing, I still need to work so any support for me, be it on here or via my website will all go towards us carrying on with this journey.
Mr. Dean’s contract was up in Oct of that year but it finished early in March, this was 2020 so you know what happened next, 3 months of lockdown gave Mr. Dean some serious time to research what type of van we were going to get.
We’d already rented out our house and were splitting our time between my sisters house in the UK and our place in France
The pandemic meant no travel and with the uncertainty ahead we gave up the apartment rental in France when it ran out in the April. There was no point keeping my large studio, with no visitors, I downsized to a shoebox/storage unit with just enough room for a desk, so I still have a space to work from when we are in the UK.
I outsourced all my fulfillment services for my art business, with the exception of my commission work, I only do these when I’m in the UK, there’s that time-blocking again.
The pandemic certainly focussed our attention on doing things we had been putting off, the ‘if not now, when?’ question gets bandied about quite a lot in our conversations, neither of us has a bucket list as such, but if either of us suggests something we might like to try, then we get into planning mode. An ultramarathon in the Antarctic beckons for Mr. Dean in 2026 and I went on my first ever painting retreat in North Devon this year.
The Van Build that never was
I’m digressing, we were never going to buy a van and ‘do it up’, renovation projects of any kind, have not been our thing, one advantage of not being in our twenties is we had some savings, we wanted the van to be a home from home, so we went large, not US RV large, but German Hymer Motorhome large.
In July 2020 we bought a 2013 Hymer Starline and left the UK in October 2020, then spent quite a few months locked down in Portugal (but that’s another story I’ll write about soon).
The vehicle itself is 8 metres long by 3 meters wide, it’s home, adventure and freedom all together on 4 wheels, the downsides are few and quite difficult to pinpoint, it’s been undeniably life changing, in a good way. We have a rough plan each year, nothing too fixed, we’ve been wintering in southern Europe, because well why wouldn’t you? and staying in Northern Europe during the summer, plus a few months back in the Forest of Dean every year, so I can focus on my commission work and do a couple of shows.
That’s how we got started, at the time of writing this we’re at our 3 year mark but feels like we’ve only just started, so now I want to know, what about you?
Is there anything you’ve dreamt of doing but have put off? Is there something you’d like to put out into the universe to get the ball rolling?
Do you have any questions for me/us? Mr. Dean. we joke, is ‘Just Van’ , he’s here in the background (and knows all things technical) so if there’s anything you’d like to ask us, please do in the comments or ask me in the chat? I can’t wait to hear from you - Jo x
"Is there anything you’ve dreamt of doing but have put off? Is there something you’d like to put out into the universe to get the ball rolling?" Oh, we've got a lot in common. Can't wait to get to know you. You're Doing It!, Jo!
Ok this is cool! I have not aspired to van Life but perhaps that’s because camping as a kid really put me off. How do you manage your internet connection?