Feature: Van Journey

Vanlife is the only life to live for this family of adventure seekers!

The SEEKR by Caframo team was happy to connect with Martin, Kate, and their entire family including kids, dogs, and a cat! People dabble in #vanlife all the time, but this family is truly living the life - and what a life it is! 

Read all about it below and follow along on their YouTube channel!

Tell us about yourself. How did you and your family decide to hit the road and start travelling full time?

We are Martin and Kate, and our two daughters Shannon and Phoebe, two dogs Milo and Cooper and our daughters’ cat Topsy, we live, work and travel full time from our van.

Before hitting the road, Martin worked as an Engineering Manager and Kate a stay home mum (after leaving practice as a Veterinary Nurse when our daughters came along).  We’ve always loved the outdoors with a passion. From cycling and dog walking, to owning horses and livestock – we love it all!

Kate travelled extensively growing up with family’s work and since meeting in 2001, we have always saved like crazy to get our two-week holiday overseas every year! 

By 2017 our work/life balance was out of balance. We were working crazy hours, home educating our daughters, and had over 1,000 (yes 1k) animals in our daily care! With all the maintenance that goes hand in hand with that, we were lucky if we were able to still get our two-week holiday in. And we had to rely on people we trust to look after our animals.

Each time we returned the yearning for a BIG change got stronger and stronger.  

After returning from Greece in May 2017, it felt like it was the right time. We started clearing our house immediately and by June we had bought our first van (which we couldn’t legally drive at the time + took additional tests to do so).

On December 12th, 2017, we headed off to begin our life full time on the road - it was freezing and snowing! Since then, we’ve adventured in over 24 countries + 4 Greek islands in our vans alone. We’re now on our third van, including one full conversion of a 100% off grid rig. We’ve never looked back and will continue this lifestyle for who knows how long!

Right now, we’re decking our newest rolling home out with our essentials and getting to grips with this epic rig's many features… its a pretty big change for us and a bit of a land yacht!

Once the new wagon is where we want it, we’ll take things as they come - with today’s crazy world and the number of international boarders we are always crossing, this is the closest we can get to having a plan right now.

Longer term ideas (we have a few!): We’ll be heading to Scandinavia in winter and summer (aurora borealis and 24hr daylight respectively), exploring more of Northern Europe, spending more time in Eastern Europe, we’d LOVE to head back to the USA for some epic road trips. We’ve already looked into shipping the van to Canada - the place looks seriously appealing to us. And one day driving to Australia would be our ultimate road trip and then we’d stay to do some laps!

Why did you decide to make the change from VanLife to your new wagon?

Our first van was a 7.3m, six berth coach-built motorhome. Twenty-three months later we moved into our self converted 4x4 7m Sprinter van whilst still building it out.  

Fast forward another 18mths, our daughters had grown like weeds and we’d lived through all the lockdowns in our van… things had changed since we started out in 2017.  

As a family we went shopping for our new home, we all settled on the 7.5 ton Iveco Race Cruiser, the land yacht we have today. When we first saw it, we were all pretty blown away by it; it was something we never thought would ever be in our reach.

We wrote a pros and cons list: 4x4 Sprinter vs Iveco Race cruiser. We looked at all aspects including locations we reckon we could reach in the Iveco. With all the love we have for our conversion, the big rig won hands down.  It’s 100% evident that this was the right move to make for our family. Even the dogs and cat are much happier with the space.

Because we do so many miles and rarely use campgrounds, we love the safety and security the bigger vehicle offers. These wagons are built to go on forever, so we’ll see how we go!

What product(s) of ours do you have onboard? How’s it working out for you? 

The one constant product we’ve had in all 3 of our vans has been the SEEKR by Caframo fans. In our first motorhome, after an immense amount of research, we fitted two Bora fans: one on our bed and one on our girls’ bed.  They were on 24/7 through a long hot summer.  When travelling with no air con and no open-able windows in the back, our daughters were seriously feeling the heat – big time. We wanted to fit another Caframo fan by their travel seats, but we ended up going through three other fans from marine shops.  

The Boras? They’re still going strong after nearly 4 years of rattling around Europe’s roads!

In our 4x4 Sprinter we stuck with the Boras, moving them into this van and got an additional Sirocco II to use with its 360-degree movement, for our bed area and living area. In 2020 we spent 6 months adventuring Greece and these fans got a workout!  

We made use of our van’s 4wd, tackling some unsurfaced off-road mountain passes, rugged rural tracks and wintery snow conditions off road in the Alps, The 18 months in this rig have 100% given the fans a run for their money and we couldn’t be happier.

Building this home 100% off grid, running off solar power and diesel alone, with no facility to hook up to electricity - we run these 3 fans 24/7, totally confident and no worries at all about power use, as their consumption is so low.

We’ve just added three Sirocco II's to our new rig. With this wagon being so much bigger and again without air con, we need a little extra help moving the air about.  We are still fitting these out in the van, with additional electrics being done and are already running one of them 24/7.

We reckon the above speaks for itself… these fans are 100% one of our essentials - with kiddos, dogs and a cat onboard they work hard to keep everyone cool and are an unrivalled bit of kit appreciated by us all.

Are you part of a community with similar family travel plans? What’s the vibe like these days?

This lifestyle is just incredible. We have met so many people in the last 4yrs - of all ages, from all walks of life.  We keep in contact with people all over Europe, living full time in motorhomes, vans, boats, and yachts. Some of them we have helped personally to achieve their lifestyle change.  The common theme right now with everything gong on, is everyone is more restricted and must really think through their next move so much more. Everyone we know is still loving the lifestyle, pulling together and making it work for them. Wherever they are they're making the most of it.  

It’s a weird time for the world. How have you been affected personally or how has your lifestyle changed recently? 

2020 was pretty much our best year yet. We spent time in some of the worlds most incredibly beautiful places, with no tourists or crowds. We made some amazing connections and lifelong friends - more so than ever before.  Some of the wildlife we have seen in the past 18mths has been a huge highlight for us: From dolphins and sea turtles, to fireflies, snakes and protected owls - some only close by due to lack of people.

The one BIG change for us personally, is that being locked down for 3 months on Corfu island (Greece) and really getting to know the local community, has taught us to really slow down and truly soak up our surroundings.

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/VanJourney
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Van_Journey/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Van%20Journey
Website:  https://www.vanjourney.co.uk/