Hi! We are Roxy and Charlie, and we live in our van, William the Wagon.
Why have we decided to start a blog? We wanted to share our experience of ‘van life’ and hopefully inspire others to start their adventures! If anything, it’s a great way for us to document the memories we have made, and maybe give a few of you a bit of a laugh when we ultimately make some ridiculous mistakes.
As this is our first blog we thought we might tell you a little bit about ourselves and how our adventure all started.
The idea travelling Europe came out of nowhere when Roxy returned from a not-so-great day at the office, sat on the living room floor to finish off a puzzle and out of nowhere simply said “why don’t we just quit work and go travelling”. Without even a moment for the statement to sink in Charlie said, “why not”.
By March 2020 we had decided on van life and were on our way to purchase William, our Citroen Relay van. After watching countless YouTube videos, reading books and blogs by other vanlifers, Charlie confidently said that he could convert the van by September 2020. Obviously Covid had different plans, which was actually a blessing in disguise, as apparently that timeframe was a bit ambitious for an Accountant and a Learning and Development Consultant with limited DIY skills!
After months of hard work, lots of swearing, and numerous plasters,
the van was ‘liveable’ by the time we got married in May 2021 (it’s only fair to say that all credit here goes to Charlie. Roxy took on the role of supervisor/drill holder/tea maker). Our maiden voyage was our honeymoon to Scotland to do the NC500. We were so scared that something would go wrong that we actually spent the first night on a family member’s driveway! However, we needn’t have been so worried as our first trip was a success! The trip helped us to identify the things that we wanted to change/add/remove for us to be able to live in the van full time. It
also made us SO excited for the European adventures to come!
Later that year we finally decided that the pandemic wasn’t going to delay us any longer, so we took the plunge and sold our house, packed up the van and moved into William full time. We started travelling in November 2021 and plan on having as many adventures as we can in 2022.
We’re both new to blogging, but we’re hoping to share our trip so you can see our wins and fails of van life, as well as a bit about the build and what it’s like to travel in a pandemic.
If you don’t already, you can also follow us on Instagram @wrighthanddrive.
Ciao!
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