Explore europe in a campervan

In no particular order here is a list of things that need to be considered before embarking on such an adventure…

Van! Get one - the right one - that we can afford - that hopefully won’t let us down - make sure it’s suitable for temperatures down to -5 degrees - insulated, water tanks, snow chains…And of course sell the frivolous, fast, shiny car to buy the van.

Work. Done. Count down the days until we stop going there. Tell everyone and make them terribly sad.

Insurance - van, breakdown, house, mortgage, limbs etc. EHIC european health card - get two of them, national - don’t jeopardise that great pension!

House - find someone to live in it and pay the bills. make it presentable first. and make landlady sad by telling her to look for a new tenant

Getting there - where to get ferry from/to, where to visit on the way (Paris?), where to head for?! Costs of fuel and consumption

Where to stay? - costs of camping and facilities, cost of lodgings when it’s all too much or we need some space!

Shoes - how many pairs is it reasonable to take? how much ‘garage’ space to allocate

Passports - for the old amongst us we will need a new one before travelling

Driving licence - valid in EU countries? need an international one? a new style one?

Post - need to redirect it….but to where?!

Money! Get as much as possible, get cards that are accepted in Europe (not Visa we learned in Holland), get credit cards with great deals! make sure we can bank online. Oh, and calculate how much we’ll be spending - that’s another story.

Health. See doc and dentist for clean bill, get eyes tested (old people only), buy lots of contact lenses

Money. again. Explore all ways to make some. And sell everything surplus to requirements.

Phones - can we stop contract phones? no, of course not. but will tariff be reasonable enough to use them? of course not. how will we keep in contact? find campsites with wi-fi, make everybody get Skype phones, buy French sim cards so we can text each other from the top of the mountain to the bottom

Sounds simple when I list it, but I had to get a notebook to keep by the bed for the random thoughts that occur in the middle of the night.

And then friends and family - realise that there are many people you take for granted, who you’ll miss having to hand whenever you need them. Feel a bit lucky, a bit sad, then a bit more excited…

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.