autocaravaner
Free Member
- Mar 19, 2021
- 52
- 166
- Funster No
- 79,888
- MH
- small van
Hi everyone!
We are a spaniard-argentinian couple living in UK and looking to start this exciting lifestyle soon, we are looking forward to join this big "family" and learn and enjoy with you.
Wife and myself are both technologist and we work as consultants for companies to help them deliver digital products. We love nature and long walks with our little Tibetan Spaniel dog. I'm 36 and the wife is 41 although she doesn't look a day older than 30 ;-) We have been together 10 years and we are happy chappies.
After 10 years in London and Brighton working hard to payoff the mortgage for our Spanish house (which we accomplished in 2019, yeyyy!), we are ready to start spending 6 months in UK (summer time) and the rest of the time (from October to April) traveling around Europe and visiting family down in Andalucía and Ibiza. We will stay at family and friend houses in winter and we plan to stay in camps as well as stealth camping when we go in adventures. It will be something like going full timers but with the option to stay in some friend's apartments for a month (yeah, we are very lucky and have awesome friends and family that have second homes they use very little!). We are planning to start slowing down work a little bit although we both enjoy what we do and we plan to keep our clients and work from the van 3-4 days a week. We have no kids (and we don't plan to have) and no ties.
We are very easy going and we love simple life (very simple for many!). We have moved 7 times in 10 years because we have found that if we rent a place we quickly became bored of being always in the same surroundings. We have kept our materialistic stuff to a minimum to be able to easily move every year. We are both in the minimalistic lifestyle (without going to an extreme!) so hopefully that should help us on this new adventure!
We already own a small van (Renault Kangoo) and we really enjoy going out on short adventures with it, sometimes staying overnight and doing some stealth camping. We love to wander around and we both become happier when we are out and about discovering new places and meeting new people. We will keep this van for my mum as she love to drive it.
So... enough about us! We know that we will need a lot of help to get the van life right. Below are our thoughts, I'll love if you can tell us what you think about our plans and whether they sound realistic to you our we are kidding ourselves
So... our fist assumption is that we will be able to work from the van. I am the one that mostly do office hours (with some flexibility) and I essentially need a comfy chair and a table to put a powerful laptop and a large screen. I'm small (5'6" and 11 stones) so I don't think I'll find challenging to find MH comfortable to work. My plan is to fit a 24 or 27 inches monitor in the TV rack and work most of the day standing although I'll need to fit something to support the keyboard and mouse. I like working standing as it helps to keep my back fit (I have used standing desk in the last few years). My wife have very very flexible hours and quite often enjoys the day and sit to work when I have finished. It will be rare that we are both working at the same time.
One of our main concern is around Internet connectivity quality. This plan will not be feasible if we can't get reliable connectivity so I can participate in videoconferences with normality and work with engineers. We are happy to pay top dollars to achieve this as we don't want to bother our clients with bad connectivity problems and this is a fundamental infrastructure that we need to keep our income.
The second concern is about layout. I'll love if we can find a layout where I can be working during office hours without disturbing the wife too much and she can go with her life as independent as possible. She needs to have a place to sit and enjoy music or a podcast while I'm talking to clients via Zoom. I don't need a massive space but it will be good if I can get a place that is isolated and quiet. Do you think than an A-class motorhome can fit the bill? I have look at things of the style of a Pilote G690C but I'm worried that it might be too open plan for us although I really appreciate the fixed double bed and a little bit of garage space (we will be traveling with an inflatable Kayak [13kg], two Brompton folding bikes and, if possible, a surf board although that's not essential. In terms of layout I believe that maybe something like the Buerstner Lyseo TD Harmony Line 644 or the McLouis 330 MC4 could be more adequate but I'll love to heard what you think.
We hope that £30k-40k could give us a decent starting van although we are prepared to go higher if that's unrealistic. I think £65k - £70k is my mental barrier that I'll not be prepared to go over. We don't need any luxuries, we are not fuzzy at all on interiors or colours and we are very happy buying second hand with a few years and a few miles on it but we want a reliable and well built van that can make us enjoy life and not being fixing stuff all the day long although I do like a bit of DYI and I have engineering background. We prefer to go as unnoticed as possible and we certainly don't want something too flashy that can attract the wrong attention. We don't discard buying a new motorhome but we will try to avoid it if possible to avoid some of the financial impact of this decision. We have even thought about a big camper van to be able to do a bit of stealth camping and move around more freely but we think they are probably going to be too small to spend a few months on it. We prefer to be a bit short on space rather than having a huge motorhome. I'll be lovely to be able to park in normal car parks and have access to lots of adventures!
Our plan is to find a second hand high quality A class or coach built motorhome. Reading around the forums I believe Rapido's or Hymmer's are an option as well as maybe Frankia and Buerstner. We are in no rush and we can wait until a good opportunity arises.
Your thoughts and feedback will be invaluable to us.
Pura Vida!
We are a spaniard-argentinian couple living in UK and looking to start this exciting lifestyle soon, we are looking forward to join this big "family" and learn and enjoy with you.
Wife and myself are both technologist and we work as consultants for companies to help them deliver digital products. We love nature and long walks with our little Tibetan Spaniel dog. I'm 36 and the wife is 41 although she doesn't look a day older than 30 ;-) We have been together 10 years and we are happy chappies.
After 10 years in London and Brighton working hard to payoff the mortgage for our Spanish house (which we accomplished in 2019, yeyyy!), we are ready to start spending 6 months in UK (summer time) and the rest of the time (from October to April) traveling around Europe and visiting family down in Andalucía and Ibiza. We will stay at family and friend houses in winter and we plan to stay in camps as well as stealth camping when we go in adventures. It will be something like going full timers but with the option to stay in some friend's apartments for a month (yeah, we are very lucky and have awesome friends and family that have second homes they use very little!). We are planning to start slowing down work a little bit although we both enjoy what we do and we plan to keep our clients and work from the van 3-4 days a week. We have no kids (and we don't plan to have) and no ties.
We are very easy going and we love simple life (very simple for many!). We have moved 7 times in 10 years because we have found that if we rent a place we quickly became bored of being always in the same surroundings. We have kept our materialistic stuff to a minimum to be able to easily move every year. We are both in the minimalistic lifestyle (without going to an extreme!) so hopefully that should help us on this new adventure!
We already own a small van (Renault Kangoo) and we really enjoy going out on short adventures with it, sometimes staying overnight and doing some stealth camping. We love to wander around and we both become happier when we are out and about discovering new places and meeting new people. We will keep this van for my mum as she love to drive it.
So... enough about us! We know that we will need a lot of help to get the van life right. Below are our thoughts, I'll love if you can tell us what you think about our plans and whether they sound realistic to you our we are kidding ourselves
So... our fist assumption is that we will be able to work from the van. I am the one that mostly do office hours (with some flexibility) and I essentially need a comfy chair and a table to put a powerful laptop and a large screen. I'm small (5'6" and 11 stones) so I don't think I'll find challenging to find MH comfortable to work. My plan is to fit a 24 or 27 inches monitor in the TV rack and work most of the day standing although I'll need to fit something to support the keyboard and mouse. I like working standing as it helps to keep my back fit (I have used standing desk in the last few years). My wife have very very flexible hours and quite often enjoys the day and sit to work when I have finished. It will be rare that we are both working at the same time.
One of our main concern is around Internet connectivity quality. This plan will not be feasible if we can't get reliable connectivity so I can participate in videoconferences with normality and work with engineers. We are happy to pay top dollars to achieve this as we don't want to bother our clients with bad connectivity problems and this is a fundamental infrastructure that we need to keep our income.
The second concern is about layout. I'll love if we can find a layout where I can be working during office hours without disturbing the wife too much and she can go with her life as independent as possible. She needs to have a place to sit and enjoy music or a podcast while I'm talking to clients via Zoom. I don't need a massive space but it will be good if I can get a place that is isolated and quiet. Do you think than an A-class motorhome can fit the bill? I have look at things of the style of a Pilote G690C but I'm worried that it might be too open plan for us although I really appreciate the fixed double bed and a little bit of garage space (we will be traveling with an inflatable Kayak [13kg], two Brompton folding bikes and, if possible, a surf board although that's not essential. In terms of layout I believe that maybe something like the Buerstner Lyseo TD Harmony Line 644 or the McLouis 330 MC4 could be more adequate but I'll love to heard what you think.
We hope that £30k-40k could give us a decent starting van although we are prepared to go higher if that's unrealistic. I think £65k - £70k is my mental barrier that I'll not be prepared to go over. We don't need any luxuries, we are not fuzzy at all on interiors or colours and we are very happy buying second hand with a few years and a few miles on it but we want a reliable and well built van that can make us enjoy life and not being fixing stuff all the day long although I do like a bit of DYI and I have engineering background. We prefer to go as unnoticed as possible and we certainly don't want something too flashy that can attract the wrong attention. We don't discard buying a new motorhome but we will try to avoid it if possible to avoid some of the financial impact of this decision. We have even thought about a big camper van to be able to do a bit of stealth camping and move around more freely but we think they are probably going to be too small to spend a few months on it. We prefer to be a bit short on space rather than having a huge motorhome. I'll be lovely to be able to park in normal car parks and have access to lots of adventures!
Our plan is to find a second hand high quality A class or coach built motorhome. Reading around the forums I believe Rapido's or Hymmer's are an option as well as maybe Frankia and Buerstner. We are in no rush and we can wait until a good opportunity arises.
Your thoughts and feedback will be invaluable to us.
Pura Vida!
Please do not belive the payloads makers quote . If you are interested in a van get it on a weighbridge to see what payload you have.
. I have a Dell UltraSharp U2719D, I believe power consumption is 30W. Hopefully I can use that one and I don't need to buy a new one. Do you think I can make it work with this one or are there way more efficient ones that I should look at?