People often wonder what we get up to every day, so here is a little snippet of our lives as full time van lifers exploring the world in our campervan. Now not every day is the same and it really does depend on what we have planned for the day so I’ll break it down into three blogs. 1) Stationary days- days we are staying in one location for more than just a day. 2) Moving on days- we will often only stay at a spot for one night and leave the next day for various different reasons, this is how we pack up and move on. 3) Adventure days- just what it says on the tin. A day we have something exciting planned whether it be a day in the city or a hike in nature.
We always love being able to stay stationary for at least a few days at a time, for one thing it slows down our travels which makes it more affordable but its also good to relax “at home” for a while. It gives us chance to catch up on work like writing and video editing when on days we are rushing around to supermarkets and driving to another destination these things get put on the back burner.
As full time van lifers, we have to work to support our travel. Starting our day depending on Will’s teaching schedule can vary between 8am and 10am. If the weather is good and we are around a body of water this is a great time for us to do some laundry. Yes we do our washing using water from a river or lake you gotta do what you gotta do, water is very valuable when you live with a 25 litre tank. It also saves us a great deal of money with laundromats costing around $20-$30 bucks for washing and drying.
Stopping for lunch around one-ish we usually have something light like a sandwich or toasty or what ever leftovers we might have from the day before.
In the afternoon is when we would then crack on with any other work that needs doing. I’ll work on the blog, Will edits the youtube videos or we will film a vlog for youtube. In summer we will be in and out of any body of water are parked next to through the day.
Its also a great time for any van maintenance for example; today we added more silicone to the roof of the van as we noticed a new leak last night. Or it could be a shelf needs fixing or a bolt added to the solar panel, there is always something that needs doing.
We might also spend some time reading in the afternoon, though we haven’t done much reading recently as we have run out of books and finding English books in South America is either difficult or expensive.
Being full time van lifers means we miss our family and friends so from time to time we catch up with them through messaging or Face-times in the afternoons. It’s something that we have struggled with in the past as it takes a lot of power on phones and laptops and the little power we had was precious and saved for work. Now however we have a new larger solar panel and a whole new electric set up, so we hope to be be able to catch up with people more often.
Having the extra time means we can take our time to do something a little more exciting for dinner. We both enjoy cooking and especially enjoy eating delicious food! We choose a more elaborate dinner that we wouldn’t have time or energy to if had other things planned that day. It’s a great way for us to spend quality time together doing something we both enjoy. Often using the bbq to cook which we use as often as we can which gives us more exciting menu options other than one pot wonders on our single hob.
Our evenings are often spent watching something on the laptop, either a movie or tv series (any recommendations are always welcome). But we do also like to make sure we have time away from the screen and like to play games in the evening. We travel with a variety of different games, Sequence and Rummikub being among the favourites. Cracking open a beer or pouring a glass of wine we sit down to a friendly game in the late afternoon. If we have to be up early the next day we try to get to bed around 9:30pm.
So that’s what we get up to as full time van lifers when we are able to stay a few days in one place, there are different variations of this as every day is different but I’ve done my best to sum it up for you. Keep tuned to hear about what else we get up to in our traveling life.
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