Vanlife dreams

Our trips out in the van always inspire dreams of far-flung travels, living the vanlife full-time, or just completely giving our lives a different focus. And the same is true again this week, following another lovely weekend on the Dorset coast.

We dream of having a bigger van, maybe a converter Crafter or a VW motorhome, or even a non-VW motorhome, to live in full-time and follow the sun around Europe, maybe even Africa, seeing so many wondrous things, sleeping by the beach, sunsets and sunrises.

We dream of moving to a tiny property somewhere near the sea, with beautiful views and maybe some land to hold some chickens, sheep and maybe some bees, grow our own food. We would be free to go out in the van as much as we like and our jobs would be flexible enough to let us be out as much as we want.

We dream of being free of bills, no rent, no mortgage, little for utilities, enough money to live on, and somehow still saving for a pension. We dream of winning the lottery…

So far, these are just dreams… I’m not sure the reality of any of these options would live up to the image I have created in my mind.

Living in a van full-time might become claustrophobic, with little space even from each other, and limited things. Let’s face it, we’re used to our materialistic lives and I’m not sure that would be easy to give up long term. Also, I’m a creature of habit, I thrive on routine in many ways, so is it possible that the constant travelling would turn out to be a source of stress?

Or living the simple life in a little cottage. We have no skills in keeping sheep or bees. I doubt we have enough skills to grow veg all year round. I think we would enjoy working for ourselves, but it’s easy to underestimate how much hard work it takes to build up any type of business for it to be profitable, and certainly within our current skill-sets, there would still be tight deadlines and pressures etc.

Winning the lottery, well, most of the time we don’t buy tickets. At least that’s money we can save towards our dreams, but it certainly doesn’t put us in a great position to actually win the jackpot.

So for now, we will keep on dreaming, and thinking of ways we could change our lives until we stumble on a strategy that will work for us long-term.