The Great Pause: why we’ve stopped travelling in our campervan

It’s been called the ‘Great Pause’.  The lockdown, that is. 

Several weeks into the lockdown and, I don’t know about you but, I’m oscillating between thoughts of ‘I’m getting used to this and quite enjoying the downtime,’ and moments of stir craziness when ‘I want to do something exciting’ – which currently reaches the dizzy heights of going on our fortnightly outing to Tesco to purchase ‘essential’ items like Belgian Chocolate Salted Caramel Cheesecake.

Overall though, we’re making the most of this break from normal life. (Well, if you call ‘normal’ giving all your belongings away to travel in a campervan when you’re in your fifties.)

When the Coronavirus lockdown was imposed, it put a sudden and immediate stop to the way we were all living our lives.  

The Great Pause button was pressed.

We had only recently started our travelling adventure as, on 31 January 2020, Phil and I gave up our bricks and mortar home to set off in our new home on wheels, Tut the campervan.  As my work takes me all over the country and Phil works online, the plan was to drive to wherever I was working, work, then spend some time exploring the area. 

Although we like ‘wild camping’ (which is parking up for the night anywhere we like the look of – as long as it’s allowed – just not on campsites), we decided to stay on campsites the night before I was working so we had easy access to showers, toilets, electric and no chance of being disturbed, which can happen if you’re wild camping.

We tried several different campsite booking websites.  Our favourite so far has been www.pitchup.com because it has customer reviews.

We only chose campsites that had 9/10 ratings.  After staying in several, we found we really liked those run by the Campervan and Motorhome Club as they were generally of a similar standard and always spotlessly clean. I’m fussy like that. We became members and where possible, booked their sites.

When there were rumblings of a lockdown coming, we decided to book a site within an hour’s driving of all our children and stay put. We booked in for 15 days and settled down.

Two days into our stay, we were just driving off the site to meet up with family for coffee, when the campsite manager stopped us.  He’d just had word all their campsites were closing with immediate effect, so we would have to vacate by lunchtime.

What? Now what do we do?

We decided to park the problem for the next couple of hours and just enjoy coffee with the family, then work out what to do later.  Which we did.

Whenever we have a problem and we don’t know what to do, we try to first focus on the outcome we want. What will make us happy? And then we take some practical baby steps, any small actions we can trusting that the Universe will lead us down the best path to reach our destination.

The goal was to be within easy access of family. Somewhere we felt safe. With clean showers, toilets and washing machine facilities and electric to heat the campervan.  We have a gas heater too, but the electric fan heater is more powerful and doesn’t use up leisure battery power.  We also wanted somewhere we could stay without breaking the lockdown rules of not travelling unnecessarily.

The other consideration was Joey, our Bichon Frise dog.  He was only 10 days post surgery for a cruciate ligament repair and we had to go to the vets twice a week for laser treatment, so if possible, we wanted to stay in the same area.

We started taking some baby steps to explore solutions.

We looked online for other campsites, but the news seemed to suggest if they weren’t closed yet, they probably would be soon as the lockdown restrictions took hold.  

We considered staying on the driveway of family, but they were either in the ‘higher risk’ category and going to be in quarantine for 12 weeks or definitely wouldn’t want us on their drive for long; nor want a dog, which comes as part of our package.  Apparently not everyone likes dogs!

We’re great believers in asking ‘the Universe’ (aka whatever you choose to call your Higher Being’) because we know the answer will always come, just maybe not in the way we’re expecting it.  So, we put it out there.  

“Universe, where do we go now?”

We took more baby steps at peace knowing that we just need to take some action, any action, and not worry about the detail of how it’s going to work out.

We looked on Rightmove for properties.  Less rental properties allow pets and very few come fully furnished.  As we have Joey and we gave away every stick of furniture before we moved, it was very slim pickings.

However, we did notice that the house we’d left in January was still vacant though.  Hmmm.  Not what we had in mind when we left, but could we go there?  There was a drive to park on and it was in an area we love and would feel safe in.  It had a clean power shower.  We’d left our washing machine and drier there.  And it was near family.  

It was completely empty of everything, but then our home is on wheels, so we didn’t need to live in the house, did we?  We could live on the drive.  The neighbours would love it.

But would the owners go for it?  We contacted them to sound them out.  We’d built a great relationship of mutual trust whilst living there so hopefully that would help. Within minutes of sending my text, they replied to say yes!  They would take it off the market and we could stay for a few months until we’re able to start travelling again.

So here we are.  On the driveway of our old house, living in ‘Tut’ the campervan much to the bemusement of our neighbours.  My work has all transferred to being done by phone or video conferencing, so we have no need to travel anywhere.

Ok, so we’re not exploring the country, but it’s given us more time to be still.  Unrushed time is one of the photos represented on our dream board.

We’re living in a tiny home on wheels together 24/7, but it’s a home we love. The weather’s getting warmer so we can sit with the van doors open and the roof up and listen to the birds singing.

We go out for our once a day walk – and it’s a beautiful area for a walk. 

We’ve had lots of time to talk.  Plenty of time to talk about our dreams.  We already are living the life we dreamed of. But in this ‘Great Pause’, our dreams have somehow got even bigger.  Bigger than I’d ever been able to believe in before. Perhaps it’s because we’ve had time to be still and space to think and allow our minds to expand.

How about you?

When it comes time to ‘Press Play’ again, will you just pick up where you left off and get back to normal?  Or are you thinking about making a change?  

Has the ‘Great Pause’ given you time to rethink what you’d love your life to look like going forward?

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Comment below or send us a private message.