Am I crazy to do this this?...

[JC2001]

I've been planning a retirement tour of the UK and Europe in a motorhome with my dog for a while. After the C19 lockdown everything was put on ice but I have now decided to go ahead and travel as I fear this state of ongoing 'lockdown-anxiety' may go on for months or even years.

I take comfort from hearing about the many people already full timing in the UK but I'd welcome people's views: am I crazy to do this now, would any of the full-timers have preferred home through the pandemic?

I'm open to all comments, suggestions, advice and even a little ridicule!

 

[Nanniemate]

In answer to your question NO do it and have fun

 

[In a Pickle]

Please keep in mind that the U.K. government is still advising all but essential travel and travel insurance may be invalidated, I also read last week that according to the Foreign and Commonwealth office the European health card will not cover you. Perhaps worth checking up on this situation again for peace of mind.

 

[Val 3 dogs]

Go for it, live your dream, we are only here once. Make provision for your dog to be repatriated should anything go seriously wrong. Otherwise don't hesitate.

 

[Richard n Ann]

Do it but don't sell your house, it's great to come home after 3 months and the house feels massive

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[JC2001]

Please keep in mind that the U.K. government is still advising all but essential travel and travel insurance may be invalidated, I also read last week that according to the Foreign and Commonwealth office the European health card will not cover you. Perhaps worth checking up on this situation again for peace of mind.

Thanks for this. I'm planning to stay in the UK until we get into 2021 when we will know our status with EU countries. This should give me and the dog enough time in the UK to settle into van life and allow space to enjoy/regret/reflect on* this leap of faith.
* I'll delete as applicable in 12 months.

 

[Chris]

Go for it.

 

[M-J]

Go for it, if you can do it in the uk now then you’ll find the rest a breeze.

 

[dunnah01]

I'd say do it abroad first and then in the UK once full-timers aren't leppers

 

[JC2001]

I'd say do it abroad first and then in the UK once full-timers aren't leppers

oh! I imagined difficulties due to C19. This sounds like an issue I wasn't aware of. Why lepers... are you saying something like full time touring the UK will lead to difficulties with others?

I do appreciate your views even if they’re scary to behold

with thanks

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[dunnah01]

The UK seems to be very hostile to full timers at the moment due to them being put in the same debate as lockdown breakers heading for beauty spots. It may take a little while to forget this situation. We're in France and it's very easy to get around and live on the Aires system.

 

[Boris7]

Please keep in mind that the U.K. government is still advising all but essential travel and travel insurance may be invalidated, I also read last week that according to the Foreign and Commonwealth office the European health card will not cover you. Perhaps worth checking up on this situation again for peace of mind.

Bear in mind there are always reasons not to do the thing you want, theres no real issue with insurance, unless they have specifically told you otherwise. Government advise is advise only and has no real impact in law.

make up your own mind and do what you thing is right

 

[nicholsong]

Practicalities?

What will be the income stream? Will it be twice what you estimate you need?

Keep some form of UK address for insurance, NHS, GP etc. - loss of that makes full-timing more difficult/expensive.

I agree with keeping a house and letting it out.

That is for your first year in UK

Then it will get more complicated in Europe according to what is agreed with EU, so staying in UK at present is to be recommended.

I hav quite a lot of experience of being out of UK in EU, but it is going to get more difficult.

Geoff

 

[TonyC123]

oh! I imagined difficulties due to C19. This sounds like an issue I wasn't aware of. Why lepers... are you saying something like full time touring the UK will lead to difficulties with others?

I do appreciate your views even if they’re scary to behold

with thanks

I'm a newbie (taking to the road full time in August), and I'm planning to spend my first 6-8 months in the UK to get used to the lifestyle, get my van kitted out with any extra bits for full timing, visit friends and family around England, and stay reasonably handy for finishing off some post-retirement work projects.
My original plan/expectation when in the UK was to spend about a third of my nights wild camping in rural areas of England, the Highlands, Wales. And from next May, to spend the maximum allowed time travelling Europe (which looks like being 3 months out of every 6, very broadly speaking).
I don't have any worries at all about the Europe part, other than finding affordable health insurance (with the EHIC being gone next year), and brushing up my GCSE French and Spanish.
But I do have a few significant concerns about possible issues wild camping in the UK. In March and April there were numerous reports of MH and van dwellers being confronted by groups of local rural vigilantes and asked to return to their home towns, with threats of violence or vandalism to their vehicles.
The locations of any non-local van dwellers were sometimes publicised in local facebook groups, and the locals were exhorted to harass and expel them.
Van dwellers who thought they had found very remote locations and were going to be able to remain in isolation and undisturbed were often disabused of this notion by a local knocking on the door to inform them that their wild camping activity was illegal and dangerous to the local community (we all have to visit a shop at some stage, after all).
A group of 30 or so van dwellers were apparently heading north from England in late March and planning to find a location to ride out the pandemic in the area of Ben Nevis, but were prevented.
This was done with the aim of preventing the incoming travellers from putting the local population (or its very limited healthcare services) at risk, and significant numbers of van dwellers were expelled from the rural areas they had intended to live in during the pandemic - often with the help of local police.
I was watching a youtube video of a group of three campervan tourists on a holiday on Skye in late March, who spoke of being shouted at and waved at by angry-looking locals as they drove through some villages. The fear and the anger in rural communities was, at least for a time, very real and very widespread.
But even closer to towns, the police were keeping an eye on groups of van dwellers, and occasionally trying to move them on.
My suspicion is that solo full timers close to towns may have been mostly ok, but groups were being monitored regularly by police.
We have to bear in mind that this hounding of full-timers was during some extremely unusual circumstances, and it won't reflect the welcome wild campers will get in rural areas next year, but it has left me with an impression that wild camping in the UK is getting more difficult, and for me less appealing, so I am adjusting my budget with the expectation of spending maybe 90% of my nights on cheaper CLs and CSs.

 

[Figaro]

I think you're correct about the pitchfork and burning torch brigade in rural areas.
I had a brush with a Welsh person in the very early stages before proper lockdown.
The hatered quite shocked me as I wasn't expecting it.
Hopefully things will quieten down but if you can use the cl and cs network so much the better.

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[Figaro]

To the OP, do your research, take what precautions you need to and go for it, I'm sure you'll not regret it.
One life, live it

 

[TonyC123]

I think you're correct about the pitchfork and burning torch brigade in rural areas.
I had a brush with a Welsh person in the very early stages before proper lockdown.
The hatered quite shocked me as I wasn't expecting it.
Hopefully things will quieten down but if you can use the cl and cs network so much the better.

In one sense I do get the fear and anger towards strangers that arose in some rural communities during March.
In some of these areas there are probably a tiny handful of ICU places available, and there may be a concern that if a transient MH or van dweller had to occupy one of those beds, it could mean that one of the older local people might die from a lack of access to a ventilator or whatever.
I have no idea how justified these fears were, but when you look at that sudden hatred, and at the rush of selfish panic buying in March which led to some people accumulating a year's worth of toilet paper (which directly and immediately prevented other people from having any), the whole episode left me personally with the feeling that the veneer of civilised behaviour- at least in some people- is extremely thin, and that it doesn't take very much of an alarm to turn some people pretty feral.

 

[Podney]

Utterly ridiculous idea!! So do it! You’re only here once,and if you don’t do it now,you’ll regret it evermore.

 

[Nanniemate]

Makes me think of Lord of the Flies by William Golding maybe civilisation as we know it is more fragile that we realise

 

[TonyC123]

Makes me think of Lord of the Flies by William Golding maybe civilisation as we know it is more fragile that we realise

I suspect that were they real people, those young lads in the novel who were screaming the most enthusiastically to kill Piggy would be the same sort of people who in early March this year accumulated a king's ransom in pasta and toilet paper, in amounts that were was no possible chance of them using within the next year or so, even if they had suffered from diarrhoea for the entire period.
In some people, a true national crisis brings out selflessness, nobility, and courage.
In so many others, such a crisis exposes the fearful, unreasoning chimp that lies just beneath our surface, who feels his very survival may be threatened unless he immediately secures a year's worth of toilet paper- regardless of how many other people's lives he spoils by what he considers his shrewd forward thinking.
Unfortunately for full time MH or van dwellers, in a global pandemic, it does seem as if they are more or less first in line to be nominated as the next 'Piggy', by the baying local mob.

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[Taran_Las]

To the OP - JFDI ​

 

[JC2001]

Thanks everyone.

I think the early issues with “MH outsiders” was when lockdown was first introduced and those will have changed now; enough to make it safe and reasonable to travel... otherwise I wouldn’t be attempting it. I will aim to stay mostly on campsites unless/until things change.

It sounds like people are saying that existentially the decision is correct but caution is needed when travelling in light of social and health complications due to C19. These I’m mindful of and cautious not to inflame. I will set off to tour the UK in early September and all being well cross to the continent when conditions permit.

So with hearty thanks to you all - I am jumping off the high board and plan to make a splash and get very wet!

 

[JC2001]

I'm a newbie (taking to the road full time in August), and I'm planning to spend my first 6-8 months in the UK to get used to the lifestyle, get my van kitted out with any extra bits for full timing, visit friends and family around England, and stay reasonably handy for finishing off some post-retirement work projects.
My original plan/expectation when in the UK was to spend about a third of my nights wild camping in rural areas of England, the Highlands, Wales. And from next May, to spend the maximum allowed time travelling Europe (which looks like being 3 months out of every 6, very broadly speaking).
I don't have any worries at all about the Europe part, other than finding affordable health insurance (with the EHIC being gone next year), and brushing up my GCSE French and Spanish.
But I do have a few significant concerns about possible issues wild camping in the UK. In March and April there were numerous reports of MH and van dwellers being confronted by groups of local rural vigilantes and asked to return to their home towns, with threats of violence or vandalism to their vehicles.
The locations of any non-local van dwellers were sometimes publicised in local facebook groups, and the locals were exhorted to harass and expel them.
Van dwellers who thought they had found very remote locations and were going to be able to remain in isolation and undisturbed were often disabused of this notion by a local knocking on the door to inform them that their wild camping activity was illegal and dangerous to the local community (we all have to visit a shop at some stage, after all).
A group of 30 or so van dwellers were apparently heading north from England in late March and planning to find a location to ride out the pandemic in the area of Ben Nevis, but were prevented.
This was done with the aim of preventing the incoming travellers from putting the local population (or its very limited healthcare services) at risk, and significant numbers of van dwellers were expelled from the rural areas they had intended to live in during the pandemic - often with the help of local police.
I was watching a youtube video of a group of three campervan tourists on a holiday on Skye in late March, who spoke of being shouted at and waved at by angry-looking locals as they drove through some villages. The fear and the anger in rural communities was, at least for a time, very real and very widespread.
But even closer to towns, the police were keeping an eye on groups of van dwellers, and occasionally trying to move them on.
My suspicion is that solo full timers close to towns may have been mostly ok, but groups were being monitored regularly by police.
We have to bear in mind that this hounding of full-timers was during some extremely unusual circumstances, and it won't reflect the welcome wild campers will get in rural areas next year, but it has left me with an impression that wild camping in the UK is getting more difficult, and for me less appealing, so I am adjusting my budget with the expectation of spending maybe 90% of my nights on cheaper CLs and CSs.

hi Tony. It sounds like you’re on a similar trajectory to me. Let’s hope that by August the world is a safer and kinder place and we can travel with joy and without worries

 

[glenn2926]

Go for it. It’s not a practice.

 

[Ironside]

Do It, we have. My advice would be do Europe first and get the most out of it before the new year where not a single person on the planet knows what’s going to happen.

we have family in Greece and Spain all been there for over 10 years and even they don’t really know after all the town hall get together s if they will be able to stay.

we have been locked down in France and now travelling Spain loving every day.

ENJOY

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[138go]

Please keep in mind that the U.K. government is still advising all but essential travel and travel insurance may be invalidated, I also read last week that according to the Foreign and Commonwealth office the European health card will not cover you. Perhaps worth checking up on this situation again for peace of mind.

Have you got a link about the EHIC card?

 

[maz]

Part of the fulltiming way of life is adapting to situations as they occur. You can never plan for every eventuality - and if you did you’d never go anywhere!

From my experience (9 years fulltiming) wild camping in the UK (certainly England) is not that wonderful, even before the Covid19 dramas. Ok for the odd night if you need to be in a particular location, but otherwise CLs or THSs are much more agreeable.

Go for it - and enjoy the journey!

 

[JC2001]

To the OP - JFDI ​

I love your signature. For us all to have a little less self regard and willingness to be silly sounds like a great idea!

thanks for the comment but I’m a little confused and new here... JFDI?
john

 

[maz]

I love your signature. For us all to have a little less self regard and willingness to be silly sounds like a great idea!

thanks for the comment but I’m a little confused and new here... JFDI?
john

I imagine it means ‘Just Do It’ - but with slightly more emphasis!

 

[JC2001]

I imagine it means ‘Just Do It’ - but with slightly more emphasis!

oh yes, I see! Thank you.

And your signature is pretty terrific too by the way! And that’s from an old man in a van so I should know!

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