In 2022 when my wife and I made our first "big trip" in our camper van, I wrote a couple of long WhatsApp messages home to our grown up children describing our travels, roughly in the style of an Edwardian gentleman. My daughter-in-law seemed to enjoy this and requested more of the same (I have the evidence in my WhatsApp feed) from our journey this year.
Anyone reading this should do so in the knowledge that it is not intended to be serious. These posts are intended as light hearted quick updates on our progress. They include some of the photos I took along the way.
Our route is shown below. It will take in 11 countries and a great variety of landscape, scenery, culture, food and many other things.
I hope you enjoy the words and images!
How are we getting around, I hear you ask!
We are travelling in our 2021 WildAx Europa. This has proven an excellent home away from home on several long trips and many shorter ones. It is designed for two with a large lounge area at the rear (around which we have entertained friends). At night this converts into a longitudinal bed which makes a huge and comfy space to rest.
We spent a long time looking before we selected the vehicle and is has not disappointed since. The 90L fridge means we can carry plenty of food (and chilled wine) and the large fresh and grey water tanks along with two leisure batteries mean we can comfortably go off grid when we need to.
Top tips if you are new to campervanning and/or just thinking about getting one:
1. Make sure you have have a place for everything and everything has its place.
It is surprising how easy it is to lose items even within the confines of a 6.4M van. Having a place agreed saves a lot of time.
2. Make you own routines.
For example, making up the bed at night. I do that while my wife does her ablutions. In the morning the reverse applies. It's a simple thing but it means that we don't miss or have any frustration with the time it takes to assemble the bed. There are many others also - I am sure all experienced camper van users have their own.
Our Journey
Photo Equipment Used
For those of you who are interested the kit used to take all the images in this travelogue is as follows:
Body: Fujifilm X-T4
Lenses: Fujifilm XF16-80 f4; Fujifilm XF23mm f1.4; Fujifilm XF100-400 f4.5-5.6; Sigma 56mm f1.4 Contemporary; 7Artisans 12mm f2.8 Fuji fit.
Phone: iPhone 12 Pro Max, Fairlight camera app.
