I wake to the wind howling around the house, a struggle to get up on a Tuesday morning. The first thing I do is peek through the curtain to check our new van is still there, and that the nearby tree hasn’t blown over onto it. It’s on the other side of the street, on the corner that doesn’t need a parking permit between 11:45 and 12:30, lest we forget. A strange twist, due to the restrictions on our side, I’ve taken a commuter’s space whilst we sort the paperwork. The registration is so new that it isn’t showing up on the council register yet.

I have one of those moments of doubt. Why would anyone want to read about a new van? Why would anyone care? Why am I trying to squeeze a Substack post into my day?

Something drives me to mark the moment anyway. Like all moments feel precious now. A slow, inevitable countdown is happening, and I feel the need to point at it, even if it’s just for one like-minded soul who doesn’t mind my rambles. The last van we had, we said we'd keep for three years as an experiment. That was a good twelve years ago. The adventures and the beauty of having a pseudo-home on our backs are too hard to relinquish. A number of iPhones have come and gone in that time, and our children have grown into young adults. We talked about a different model, something a little bigger, perhaps with a toilet, but instead stayed true to a similar style. Timing-wise, a new chapter just for the two of us rather than the four. We are still in the mindset that it might only be for the next five years as we edge towards the end of the working world and drive off into the sunset.

These vans don't come cheap, and this is where the lifestyle choice comes in. There was a time when you could at least argue the economics, camping in a van versus other forms of travel, breaking even on the outlay over the years. In a post-COVID era, I'm not sure that case holds anymore. The cost has doubled, and so has the number of camper vans on the road. A sign that perhaps we are not that crazy. That the freedom to roam makes sense.

This isn’t a post about a shiny new purchase, the material side doesn’t fit well with me, and so I’m not here to say look what I’ve got. But I do want to say this: invest in your lifestyle choice, whatever that looks like for you.

A lifestyle vote? A foundation piece for the life we want to choose. The ability to drive beyond the central belt on a Thursday evening, wake up somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and head into the hills. To escape the screens and the corporate machine, another PowerPoint slide explaining where a project is and replace it, even briefly, with two hobs going and eating outside with the breeze on our faces. The French Alps in summer. The lochs in autumn. Swivelling the front chairs and making a home for a few days.

In what might sound morbid, but feels more like clarity: in twelve years, I’ll be as old as my dad was when he died. It dawns on me as I come full circle on my thinking that twelve years is exactly how long we had the last van for, a blink of an eye and that old cliché that life is short rings in my ears.

That’s the clock I’m listening to. That’s why we bought it. The days are getting longer. The open road is calling, and I hope to bring you along on the adventures.

Share