Why We Quit Our Jobs and Downsized to a Campervan!

Laying in bed with the flu in February of this year, I sent the email.

"Dear Boss.

I resign. I need to have an adventure—the road is calling me home. Life is too short and I have put it off long enough."

Well, not exactly the above, but along those lines. Also a lot more PC than I would have liked, but it was enough to get the point across. I had envisioned writing it so many times during the lead up to leaving. Perhaps writing it when really ill WAS the best move. Having been through fever-fueled epiphany after epiphany over the week, I knew in that moment of weakness, I was at my strongest. I had never been so sure. It had to be now! Click... Sent.

The run up to this decision had been in motion since before I had even thought about college. My dad was trying to help me with my GCSE options and asked me what I wanted to do when I left school.

"Travel and meet people," I replied.

"Why not become an international coach driver?" came his response.

Although we are still to this day unsure if he was joking or if that was an informed and helpful comment, it wasn't one that I followed! Instead I became a travel agent. Ahh great! I hear you say. Free holidays I bet!

Sadly, no. I worked as a travel agent from the age of 16-19. I got sent on one educational trip paid for by the company. Was it a trip to an all inclusive in the Caribbean, an African safari or an 18-30 to Ibiza? No. I got sent to a conference in Chester UK at a Warner's hotel. Warner's, if you are not familiar, is catering to the 50+ adult only sector with actives such as archery, golf and fruit carving. I didn't even get to leave the country.

Skip forward almost 20 years and several jobs including banking, insurance and assistant manager in an animal rescue charity. My passion for travel hadn't left, but I hadn't really started either. Life got in the way, as it tends to do.

I purchased a VW T5 and loved her to bits. I called her Halen... Van Halen. I had travelled with my ex around the UK on weekends and short holidays. We tended to stay on a site as we were inexperienced in campervans, but we started to see the #vanlife community emerge. I was hooked. I followed YouTube videos of rebuilds and watched as I saw all of these people "living the dream" of a nomadic lifestyle.

Wouldn't that be great? I would love to do that! In honesty, I didn't think that I was allowed to. We were supposed to grow up, get jobs, buy a house and have children, right? All of these people were breaking the mould and doing what I wanted to do.

A friend of mine went to Australia for a year and another friend's boyfriend went to New Zealand for six months. They are planning to up sticks and move there in a few years. People I knew were doing this... so why couldn't I? Maybe I could?

Skip forward again to the summer of 2018. My grandfather's health is deteriorating. My grandmother has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and leukemia. Both are in their mid 80s and doing their best to look after each other without the need for carers and a dented pride, a battle they know they will lose eventually.

In July I fall down a hole and badly damage my ankle. Ten weeks of pain and unable to work, walk or do much more than hobble with a backpack around the house, as you can't carry things with crutches.

I look at my life. I'm heading into my late 30s and embarking on a new stage of life. Now I have a new partner with adult children who I adore. A family all of my own. I have all the things I didn't fully realise I was missing. For the first time in a long time, I am genuinely happy. Louise is incredible. Without her by my side, I am not sure I would have got through the last year. She is so strong and loving. I want to spend the rest of my life loving her like my grandparents loved each other: deeply when it mattered, and chasing each other with a wooden spoon when there was anyone watching!

Despite feeling complete, I still have this need to explore and walk the earth. Louise and I talked about it and decided that we both want to do this. We can take some time out once we have saved up some money. We cut down on everything we can without giving up our weekends to explore our own backyard.

November comes and my grandfather passes: Pop's candle blown out. His life summed up, not by a stranger at a packed funeral in a religious setting. He didn't want that. He was summed up by the song "Red Rose Cafe" that he used to sing to my brother and I on road trips and formed the basis of our memory of him. A simple cardboard box funeral at eight in the morning, with no service, just a gathering of immediate family and neighbours to ensure he has actually gone! It was the only time he was ever late for an appointment...

Talking to his neighbours after the "funeral" we mentioned that we liked to travel. They said they always planned to, but something kept getting in the way. A bad hip, grandchildren that they wanted to be close to or other reasons meant that now, at their age, they couldn't visit the places they had always wanted to. "DO IT NOW" they said "While you are young enough."

12 weeks later and my grandmother passed to be with her soulmate. We saw the same neighbours again.

"Have you decided to go yet?"

"We want to, but we still need to sort things out first. The VW isn't big enough for longer term travelling ,and our jobs, money, the kids..."

Throw in an unsavoury stalker that wont leave me alone at work and you pretty much have the full story. It's now February. We saw a bigger van in a Facebook group and bought her home a week later.

Once we had ascertained she was fit for purpose, we began to declutter our home. Slowly, bits got sold and money started to come in. The main sale would be selling the T5, and that would give us enough to travel.

20th March—We had sold everything we didn't need and put the rest in storage. The van sold with just a week to go! I had been asking my colleagues, when we leave, do we turn left or right at the top of the drive? They said left. At 5:15, Louise was in the car park, the van full to the brim and beaming with excitement. The staff saw us off with the soundtrack to The Greatest Showman and we turned left.

We have been travelling now for a few months. The UK has so much to offer. We have been to some amazing places, from attractions such as the Heights of Abraham in Matlock bath to the Norfolk broads. from the New Forest to Anglesey and, more recently, a week on the Costa Blanca as we start to explore a little further from home.

It isn't one long holiday—as many think—but a time to learn, a time to reflect on who I am, a time to find some peace.

Being able to write about our adventures brings me great joy. A few people have written to us on the blog and said they have been to places that they read about on our site and loved them.

Louise and I are stronger than ever, and if there was ever a test of commitment, it's living in a small space 24/7 with everything that goes with it. Trying to navigate when the signal drops out and Louise is shouting "What exit at the roundabout!" that we are quickly approaching and I am shouting "I don't bloody know! we have no signal!" can be tense at the time, but we always laugh about it later. We love a good detour!

Maybe this is a life detour—or maybe the path less travelled is the right path for us. All we can say is that we haven't regretted a moment of it.

If you have the urge to break the mould, whether it be to embrace #vanlife or to move to another country—do it. DO IT NOW WHILE YOU CAN.

Don't regret not doing something. If it doesn't work, you can say you tried and have the memory and the experience to learn from.