Well! Here we are at the very beginning of 2021. Our first year of Lulu Van Travellers comes to and end and a new year starts! After years of Kev trying to persuade me, we finally bought Lulu, our first ever motorhome! Boy did we choose a doozy of a year to dip our toes into vanlife! Little did we know when we paid our deposit in March, the world was about to be turned on it’s head! There has been more than enough discussion on the state of the world. In this post we’re concentrating on some of the positives and negatives of our first year of van ownership.
First forays with Lulu
Having taken ownership of Lulu in May we set about getting her ready for our needs and wants and waited, not that patiently(!), for an opportunity to actually get out on the road.
With some careful planning we were able to get out more than we expected. When we started looking for a van it was our express intention to use it as much as possible. Between lockdowns, and within all the necessary local and national guidelines, we managed to get out eight times. From two nights at Rhandirmwyn, just twenty minutes away from home, to nine nights around Yorkshire and her surrounding counties. We did our best to make the most of the travels we could.
I must say that, during the eight months or so that we have shared with Lulu, there have been more than a few ups and downs. Thankfully, the ups outnumber the downs.
I confess- I was wrong!
Yes, I confess that, during the nineteen years Kev had spent trying to get me to agree to a camper van or motorhome, I had completely missed the point. Whenever you read a new vanlife blog, or watch a vanlife YouTube channel, the recurring theme is ” Freedom”. This just didn’t make sense to me. I had freedom. I could travel anywhere I wanted, any time I liked. There are, it turns out, different levels of freedom!
A van give you so many more options. You can literally go anywhere you like, any time you like! There are virtually no limits to where you can drive. We have seen people drive from the most southern parts of Europe, to the far North, from Eastern Europe to the western coasts of France and Spain. The Med, the Baltics, the Nordics, North Africa, nothing is really off limits.
Although we haven’t been able to leave the UK, we’ve stayed on sites just outside town and in the middle of nowhere, sites with pools, bars, and every conceivable facility to sites with nothing but electricity and water.
The negatives
These great new freedoms don’t come without their problems, mind you!
We have yet to leave on time! How long, I wonder, does it take before you know what and how to pack efficiently?!
So far we have completely failed to make the correct clothing choices! We really should be used to the vagaries of the British weather, and yet somehow we never have enough warm clothes, wet weather clothes, tee shirts and shorts, SOCKS for goodness sake! How hard can it be?
Lulu is just about big enough for us and Marley, our lovely old border collie cross. When the weather is good. When it’s endlessly raining the van suddenly gets very small! Another of our aims was to travel with Marley as much as possible, he’s getting too old for kennels – as much as he loves going! We will persevere obviously, we can’t afford a bigger van yet, but it’s certainly another challenge to overcome.
Every problem we have is a new problem. Never having owned a van before, we don’t really know how a lot of it works!
Maintenance stuff!
When water started pouring out from underneath Lulu, our first instinct was to pack everything up and head for home. We didn’t, and in the end it was an easy fix, just needing a nice fat grommet to make sure the valve closed at the correct point. It didn’t, unfortunately, need the shiny new valve we purchased from the internet, before removing the old one and realising we’d purchased the wrong one :/ !
The heating hadn’t worked from the start, but it hadn’t been that cold, and we’ve always booked pitches with EHU, so we’ve been using our little fan heater. For our planned New Year getaway we needed the Webasto unit. As mentioned in our post, Lulu’s First Christmas, we had this all under control. Except we hadn’t expected to need a new fuel pump. We sent an image of the old one, to check whether it was salvageable. Not only was it basically scrap, it was actually the wrong one in the first place. Good job we didn’t get the same one we’d seen on eBay! See! We are learning!
There is a leak in the roof somewhere we haven’t been able to find. It may be something to do with the fixings for the roof bars. We haven’t attempted to take them off yet, that will be a job for longer, warmer days.
2021- the future is an open book!
So far, we have only been able to travel in the UK. We have had beautiful sunny days, driving rain, and howling gales. Lulu has taken us to beaches, on long country walks, to historic towns. We have visited medieval settlements, and a great cathedral.
France is definitely a big feature of our plans this year, and who knows where else.
There will, no doubt, be many, many more ups and downs to come. We will deal with them as best we can. This year we will make the best we possibly can of our new found, long awaited freedom.
In the meantime Happy New Year to everyone! Enjoy every minute of every trip you can, and make the most of 2021, goodness knows we deserve it!
Mags, Kev, and Marley X