Over 40 Years of Adventuring!

Hi, and welcome to my first ever blog.  This one is more of a scene setting story, where I’ll be giving you an overview of how I’ve come to have over 40 years of adventures; where did the time go and how am I now 50!

At the age of 4 years old my parents took me on my first touring caravan holiday.  Little did I know that this would ignite my wanderlust flame, and provide me with so many opportunities to travel the world throughout my life.  They borrowed a very small 4-berth tourer from a work colleague and off we went to Cornwall, which in those days pulling a caravan was a mammoth 10+ hour journey as it was the dreaded A30 all the way from 'up North'!

(Photo taken in 2020 of me watching the sun go down over the bay from Gwithian dunes looking towards St Ives)

We travelled overnight which seemed to be the done thing, with me and my sister tucked up in our sleeping bags, fast asleep in the boot of our estate car, I’m sure many of you have those memories too.  Seatbelts were not an item required to be worn in the 70’s so we had freedom of movement between back seat and boot.  I can’t imagine moving one inch in a car without my seatbelt on now, but times have changed, and roads are much busier and faster so there’s no sleeping in the boot these days!

We arrived at Porth Beach Touring Park in Newquay, straight opposite the sandiest beach I had ever seen and there we stayed for 2 weeks.  It became our regular haunt in the summer holidays for 13 years, minus the summer we spent in Scotland which we are not allowed to talk about as my sister still won’t return due to the rainfall encountered in that 3 weeks when she was 14 (she is now 55 and remains traumatised by the lack of sun worshipping she missed). Personally, I really like Scotland and we are planning a trip when we can fit one in.  Porth Beach is still there, much the same but with revamped toilet block, not that you need anything more on site with the beautiful surf beach right over the road.  We returned a few years ago and enjoyed a scorching week on the beach which brought back some fabulous memories of my childhood.

My only real lasting memory of that first holiday was having to trek over the cliff tops for the first 5 evenings into Newquay to the caravan hardware store to buy a new glass cover for the gas lamp that was above the front dinette, because every time my Dad stood up from his seat he smashed his head on it.  On night 5 the latest glass shade was kept in the cupboard until we left for home, no more trips to the hardware store were required.  Isn’t it strange the things you remember, after all I was only 4, but you’d think I’d remember the beach more than a continually broken gas lamp cover! (stock photo obtained from the internet)

On arrival home my parents were so smitten with camp life that they purchased their own tourer, with electric lights rather than glass gas lamps, and the next 13 years of my life were spent touring most of the UK on every school holiday and many weekends.  I know I was very lucky to spend so much time on holidays when most of my friends were lucky to have a 2-week break, and it has defined my love of travel, and camping, throughout the rest of my life.

As a young adult, I decided camping was way too much like roughing it for my liking and set my sights on European package tours in all-inclusive hotels with my friends for a few years.  I still joined my family for UK jaunts but by then the tourer was sold and we stayed in lovely holiday house rentals.  I really did not appreciate at the time how much I would miss camping until it arrived back in my life a number of years later.

I met my husband in 1998 and, along with his two teenage children, we shared many happy holidays in the UK, Europe and beyond with my sister and her family (fondly referred to as the neighbours on the next pitch by my husband).  We stayed in hotels, villas, house rentals, static caravans (yes there was once 4 adults and 5 children aged 6 months to 14 years old in one caravan in Blackpool for a wet and windy October half-term), and we even hired a large narrow boat on the Norfolk Broads one summer which had 4 ensuite bedrooms!  I still to this day do not know how my brother-in-law parked that boat at every pub stop along the broads, although I’m guessing the call of the beer pumps had something to do with his expert tillering. We always had fun no matter where we stayed, after all its about the people you spend it with, not where you are.

When our kids went to university, money became much tighter than it had ever been, and my husband jokingly said maybe we should get a tent now we’re only going to be having one holiday a year.  He did not realise the opening of the flood gates had begun with that one sentence.  A week later we were in GoOutdoors buying our first tent along with the neighbours on the next pitch. 

He could not believe how excited I was to be getting a tent, however, that was short lived as on our maiden voyage it was a miracle we were still married after erecting said tent, as it appeared that my pegging skills did not meet his exacting standards!  Then it rained in via the groundsheet and we shared a night with creepy crawlies as we didn’t put the inner bedroom section up thinking we’d save ourselves a bit of time.

Not to be deterred, we did a bit more research and tent number two was purchased a month later, complete with sewn in groundsheet, carpet, portable electric kit and plug in cool box.  Oh yes, we were going for this in a big way!  What started out as an idea for cheap weekends away soon became a fortnight in St Ives 2 years later, by which time we were on tent number three, having put away tent two in the rain which we hadn’t realised was growing its own penicillin and had become very mouldy.  In my defence, and not wanting you to think we just threw money down the drain, I tried cleaning it with vinegar and bleach as per internet google instructions (with a tea towel turban on my head to stop the solution dripping on my hair turning my highlights green), but it didn’t survive and an exact replica was purchased to fit with the porch and carpet that were still in excellent condition. We learned from our mistakes and tent number three lasted us for the rest of our tenting experience, which was another 3 years.

After 5 years of camping in a tent, the British weather was taking its toll on us, and we’d just about had enough of packing away a soggy tent then having to re-erect it at home to dry it out, when a VW T5 arrived on the next pitch, and we had a nosy in it.  We’d been contemplating getting a van of some sort and we were sold on the idea; well I was but with the hubby being 6’2 he was hankering after a motorhome he could stand up in, but I wanted it to also be my everyday vehicle.  So along with the neighbours on the next pitch, we hotfooted to the Malvern Camping Show in August 2013 and met an amazing conversion company where we agreed a deal for two T5 campervans.

Obviously, I have some influence over my browbeaten husband when required, because I was determined we were having a T5 and he was dead set against it.  Leading up to that point, when we’d been trudging round the show for 5 hours and not seen anything remotely palatable, he was saying we were putting a mattress in the back of the car rather than spending our money on the rubbish being produced.  I knew he just had to find the right man to talk to, and that turned out to be Ed from Celtic Motorhomes (now Voyage Adventure Vans).

Fast forward to February 2014 and we were on site for our first overnight trip to test everything out.  Oh my goodness, what an upgrade from the tents; to say we fell in love with camping all over again was an understatement, and our first adventure touring in France was booked for the summer on that very first night away in the new vans.

We had some fantastic trips across Europe and in the UK in Tallulah, our T5, for 7 years, covering around 50,000 miles, but after deciding we would start to take longer periods away, we also thought we’d upsize to a bigger van. 

We went back to the same converter in 2020 and purchased a brand-new Peugeot Boxer XL, with every gadget imaginable for off-grid camping, and a huge 5ft wide comfy fixed bed complete with toilet and shower room!  We named him Frank and he was the perfect holiday companion for the following three years. 

With another change in our circumstances, we were now going to work 6 months and take 6 months off to travel each year, we decided to sell Frank and upgrade to a bigger more traditional motorhome as the off-grid camping style never really did it for us, we prefer campsites or good aires.  Frank departed in June 2023, and we are now searching for our new motorhome.  In the meantime, we spent a lovely 4 weeks touring in Europe with our car, utilising chalets on campsites whilst our neighbours on the next pitch stayed in their T5 just a few pitches away from us, we even managed to get next door on one of the campsites.  It was a bit faffy having to unpack and re-pack suitcases, but it was still a memorable experience.

So, I’ve sort of done all forms of camping over the years, and lots of fancy and not-so fancy accommodation along the way when our 4 wheels just couldn’t get us to the far-reaching destinations we desired.  I don’t really like flying but I love driving, so for me having a motorhome is absolutely the best way of going on holiday, and I can please myself when I eat, drink and dress up.  In my opinion nothing beats a BBQ by the van in your shorts after a day at the beach, followed by a shower when the sun’s gone down!

I hope you enjoyed the insight into why I love to travel and have adventures, and if you'd like to share what sparked your love of travel or if you’ve got any anecdotes from past adventures, I'd love to hear them on here.

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Wishing you all safe and happy travels in 2024!