When we made the decision to let go of our house, we were faced with the question of what home would look like going forward. We spent hours trawling RightMove, desperately trying to find something that would fit the bill. We knew we wanted to move away from house renovations and to downsize to something much smaller with fewer burdens, nor did we want to consider relocating.

Our family and friends were mostly living close by, so to uproot ourselves more than was necessary seemed too uncomfortable to consider. We did find it difficult being on the doorstep of the school we had left, with lots of parents and teachers living locally and often fearing bumping into them and having to explain our decision-making. But we loved where we lived, and we didn’t want to be marginalised due to the challenging emotions that removing the kids from school had forced us to face.

The Financial Reality of Downsizing

UK property prices had risen so much in the five years since we bought our house that to downsize meant we would have a similar-sized mortgage to the one we were trying to escape, but with less house to show for it. Our equity had increased a little, but not enough to offset the amount of money we had spent on home renovations and repairs.

Looking around the smaller properties on the market was disheartening. We found that they would often need repairs or redecoration, and were pitched at a similar price to what we had bought our much larger current house for five years prior. We had no desire to do any further DIY, and it felt like we were in a financial trap. We wanted to reduce our mortgage, to take the pressure off the business and spend more time enjoying life with the kids. But to do so didn’t feel viable without making significant compromises on location.

We were burned out. The effort it was taking to deal with the solicitors and estate agents in the selling process of our current house, plus the amount of possessions we were having to sort through and sell to make downsizing possible, was immense.

After seeing enough uninspiring properties, we decided that we did not have the energy or emotional strength to deal with both buying and selling at the same time. It was draining enough letting go of our beloved home without finding the emotional clarity needed to choose a new one. Purchasing a house is always a huge financial commitment, and we were so scarred from what turned out to be a bad decision on the last house that we didn’t want to make the same mistake again.

Creating a New Adventure for Our Children

We did not have a new house to move into, and we had nowhere else to go. We could have rented somewhere, shipped all of our possessions into a new place for a while, but this felt like a costly and tedious exercise. We knew we needed a reset and a change of perspective, and renting an overpriced property in Dorset did not feel like the way to get it.

We also didn’t want to sell that story to the kids. We wanted them to have it all, to have something exciting to turn to when they bravely let go of their toys. The prospect of moving from their childhood home was upsetting for them, so we wanted to make it the start of a new adventure. The end of one chapter, and the start of a new one. One that was about us as a family, our love for each other and the time we got to spend together, on a new home educating journey and learning about life together.

We swapped a life measured by material success for a life of freedom, travelling wherever the wind took us.

Discovering the Van Life Solution

The day that we detoured past the motorhome showroom in Poole, a seed was planted. We found ourselves just having a “browse”, but the more we looked, the more it felt like the answer we had been looking for. The saleswoman, Vicky, clearly saw us coming a mile off, did her job and sold us the perfect van for our needs. Life suddenly made sense again.

We had spent the previous two summers touring Austria, and then France, guided by the wild swimming spots and loving the outdoor lifestyle and freedom that comes with van life. We had borrowed Jimmy’s mum’s VW T6 van, which had been perfect for a first taste but too small for our needs long-term. Despite the van not being quite right, we instantly fell in love with the freedom of travel and the ability to move our home with us.

At the time, we felt extremely fortunate to be given the opportunity to try van life. We could never see how it would be possible to pay the bills for our own house, let alone own a camper van of our own, too. It felt like a dream that would never be ours. We couldn’t see that in order to change our circumstances for the better, to stop complaining about what wasn’t working and turn our dreams into a reality, we needed to make other sacrifices.

We were too invested in the idea that if you work hard, then you can do it all and have it all. We believed that accepting less is to sell yourself short. But with finite time, energy and resources in this one beautiful life we have, we will never achieve our dreams if we do not make uncomfortable decisions to shift our efforts in the right direction. For us, the thing to let go was the so-called conventional “American Dream”. We gave up the ideals of the big house, the two cars, the business success and social standing, for life on the open road.

Finding Our Perfect Mobile Home

When Vicky introduced us to the Auto-Trail Adventure 65, a converted Fiat Ducato van, we instantly fell in love. It was high-topped, so the days of crawling around in the T6 with sore knees and a crooked neck were a thing of the past. It had the luxury of an onboard toilet and shower, a pop-top to create the kids their very own sleeping cave, and space in the back for a dining area that could be turned into a full-sized bed for us.

The seats in the front were sculpted and cushioned, making long drives significantly more comfortable than with the hard bench seats we were used to. It felt like the van had been designed with us in mind, answering all of the niggling issues that we had experienced with the T6. Having sold our house, we suddenly had the release of equity required to buy a van of our very own, without debt.

It may seem highly illogical to anyone that does not share our love of camping and the great outdoors—to trade a house for a van—but for us it suddenly made perfect sense.

Nature as Our Foundation

Tents and camping have always featured in our relationship. Jimmy and I have shared our love for the outdoors from a young age. Our old Vango tent was put through its paces at festivals, during camping trips with friends and trips to France. We have always liked being outdoors, and my long journey with my own health challenges has often had me experimenting with a multitude of outdoor remedies in an attempt to ease symptoms.

I find cold water exposure, barefoot walking, tree hugging, outdoor yoga and meditation to be highly therapeutic, likewise just enjoying the calming effect of being outside. I have slowly learned to gain trust in my body again, to strengthen my love for what I am in any given moment, and to understand that my illness only defines me if I let it. Nature doesn’t care how I show up, whether I am sick or not, and it does not ask anything of me. It just quietly listens, sits with me and carries on its beautiful existence irrespective of what I do.

Experimenting with health hacks has fuelled my healing journey, but more importantly it has also created a platform on which we can spend more meaningful time together as a family. Integrating these into our lives over the last three years, we have found more moments of presence and contentment together than any of the material possessions in our lives ever gave us.

For the kids existing in our modern-day culture, the benefits of living an outdoor lifestyle have never been more necessary or apparent. We have observed time and again the calming effects on them when they are immersed in nature, disconnected from the world and present in the simple pleasure of playing with sticks and mud, or picking flowers. In town or the supermarket, they become quickly overwhelmed with the high volume of sensory overload. But on the beach or in the woods they transform into imaginative, curious and playful creatures.

They exist purely as themselves and what they were put here on this Earth to do, rather than performing, judging, comparing or worrying about the external world and how it shapes or defines them.

Following the Sun to Southern Spain

When you commit to an outdoor lifestyle, to a life lived from a camper van, you are suddenly presented with unlimited options of where you can go and park your home. It was spring in the UK when we signed the contract to purchase the van, so we knew we were coming into the warmer months of the year. The house sale was proceeding at a snail’s pace, but we predicted it would complete by August at the latest.

Therefore, we knew by the end of the summer we would be living in the van full-time. Faced with the option of autumn and winter in the UK, or spending it abroad in sunnier climes (making outdoor living more of a practical option), we realised where this road had been leading us all along. Several people, including my neurologist who had seen success with other patients, suggested that living in a warmer, less damp climate, with longer daylight hours over the winter, would help with the inflammation in my body.

We knew that this was our opportunity to try this out, without having anything to lose. The van would take us wherever we wanted to go, without needing to make any permanent decisions about where to settle. We did a climate comparison and decided that southern Spain was our best bet for mild temperatures, longer daylight hours, but also a lower cost of living over the winter months.

Breaking Free from Traditional Expectations

The beauty of living in a camper van is having the freedom to travel and sleep in a different place each night, observing the same starry sky from a multitude of angles. Family members on both my maternal and paternal sides have made careers out of travelling, exploring the far-reaching corners of the world, and perhaps that is why I found the idea so appealing. But it has always been the men who have been the explorers, either those with no children to consider and so free to roam at will, or those doing so for the purpose of work and bringing money home for the family.

The female role models in my life have been homemakers, caretakers of their families’ daily lives, taking on the burden of parental responsibility whilst the men dedicated time to the family business. There was never any space, from what I could see, for the girls to do the travelling, the exploring, the business making, outside of the family holidays we enjoyed together each year.

Once Jimmy and I settled down, got married, had children and got serious about our lives, I found myself also slotting into the role of a good wife, mother, daughter and sister. I was weighed down by fulfilling stereotypes and concerning myself with analysing outside perceptions of how I “should” behave. I felt ashamed that I was not completely fulfilled by homemaking and full-time parenting.

Selling the house and purchasing the van suddenly opened up space for the self-acknowledgement that travel is in my blood, and it’s an important value to me.

It felt as though my desires were selfish and that my wish to travel more should come secondary to everyone else’s needs. The financial model that we were worshipping did not allow for long trips to far-reaching exotic places, and I had been left feeling that it would be selfish, perhaps even negligent, to spend our money on those experiences rather than on a larger house.

Most importantly, I do not need to feel shame in that. Travelling to new places has always given me a new sense of perspective, exposure to new ideas and ways of thinking, and I have always revelled in the personal growth that has come from that. For me that is priceless, and forms an essential part of what makes me who I am. It allows me to show up as a better person in this world, to be stronger for those that I care about.

Van Life as Education

We could suddenly see a future open up to us, beyond the pain of letting go of the house and the exciting new adventure that we had been looking for. It made all the difficult decisions worthwhile. This was an easy way to make a clean exit from the house, whilst reframing it for the kids as a magical new adventure.

Despite concerns raised to us that we only chose to home educate our children so that we could selfishly travel the world, putting our needs before theirs and dragging them wherever we wished to go, we knew this not to be true. Having only considered the benefits of being able to move freely at will, taking excursions and holidays outside of the extortionate school holiday prices, living in a van and travelling was never on the pros and cons list when we took the kids out of school.

But the more we considered it, the more we realised we couldn’t imagine a better education for them whilst they were young. A chance to see the world first-hand and not just read about it in a textbook. To have a go at speaking new languages with native speakers, not just sit in a classroom repeating French phrases in the hope that one day they would come in useful. The chance to learn about different cultures, religions and ways of life through immersion and experience.

We felt that by showing the children that people are actually the same the world over, we could inspire them, as the next generation, to unify and work towards a shared goal for the betterment of everybody.

Travel creates the opportunity for more organic learning and growth, inspiring meaningful questions and conversations about the things that they observe. Fear is what is driving division and all the current problems we face in the world. Humans have the same basic needs and desires wherever they live, whatever they look like, and whatever God they choose to worship, and this for me is the greatest lesson our children need to learn.

A Complete Life Reset

It felt like all our experimentation with floor-sitting, yoga rituals, chanting, barefoot walks and cold plunges had all been leading us somewhere. We just needed to open our minds to work out where. By letting go and releasing our grip on one reality, we opened up the possibility of a different kind of living. With loss comes space, and in that void becomes a glimmer of new growth and possibility.

The campervan felt like that for us in that moment. The opportunity we sorely needed to combine all of the practices, to reconnect with a simple way of living and each other, and prioritise the things that had already helped our collective wellbeing. It felt like the gift we needed to allow a complete reset. To rid ourselves of the material problems weighing us down, and create time to evaluate how we wanted to choose to live our lives going forwards.

Stepping away from the school system, giving up home ownership, choosing a life of minimalism and travel that came from vanlife, were all decisions which we took independent of each other, but they have all meshed together to create a life of meaning and contentment for us all. For the first time in forever, it has driven us to live more intentionally, to continually question our values and try hard to align ourselves with them.

We packed up the house, kept whatever essential belongings we could fit into a small campervan and 3×7m storage unit, and left the UK in August 2024. The van did not answer all of our problems, because as the saying goes, “wherever you go, there you are”. But it went a long way towards helping us to feel lighter, less burdened and gave us all a renewed sense of adventure and fun—a year of following the weather, moving whenever the mood took us, and the start of a new love affair with Spain and Andalusia. For that, and the opportunity to spend that precious, quality time with our children, I will always be grateful.