We sold our house to travel Australia and live in a van – it cost £60k to create, but now we have a tiny home for life
WHEN most people go travelling, it involves staying in various hotels or hostels.
But long-term adventures can be expensive, and you never quite know what you’re going to get until you show up.
So one Australian couple have come up with a rather more cost-effective – albeit a little eccentric – way to satisfy their wanderlust.
High-school sweethearts Lydia and Wehan sold their home and used the funds to convert a camper van into a mobile home.
The daring duo then quit their jobs, and set off on a huge lap exploring Australia and documenting their exciting journey along the way.
In a recent clip, Lydia gave viewers a whizz around their tiny portable abode, showing off an impressive array of features they’d managed to squeeze in.
“First, we’ve got a built-in fly screen,” she said, vital for protecting the pair for mozzies in the boiling climate Down Under.
There’s also a sliding full-length mirror which separates the driving area from the living space; a bathroom complete with a shower and a composting toilet; a kitchen with a fridge and a space for the lovebirds to dine; and perhaps most importantly, a huge double bed with a skylight above it.
Their luxe RV is even fitted with fans throughout, and even has air-con to keep the duo cool while they kip.
At the end of the video, Lydia contrasted the kitted out van with the bare vehicle they purchased, showing off the absolutely extraordinary transformation the two had achieved.
The clip racked up a huge 23k likes, with viewers super impressed at the swanky set-up.
“This is one of the most actually functional vans I’ve seen,” one praised.
All of this didn’t come particularly cheap, Lydia explained in another video in which she broke down how much the home had cost to build.
The vehicle itself cost £37k to purchase, with the adventurous nomad revealing that they’d initially looked at much cheaper motorhomes, but the prices shot up during the pandemic as Australians looked for options to holiday nearby because of stringent lockdown laws.
They then decided to do a “luxury, completely off-grid build” so that they’d be able to profit should they decide eventually to resell it.
Plus, with them planning to spend at least two years, they “wanted to be comfortable”.
All that meant the build cost pretty pricey £21.5k – which makes the total cost around £58k.
But as Lydia points out: “Even if we sold the van at a significant loss, we knew this would be cheaper than paying for accommodation around the whole of Australia for two years.”
She also advises people could do a van build for “significantly cheaper”, and still create a totally comfortable space.
The two are now six months into their ambitious lap of Australia, and plan on journeying round the entire continent’s perimeter.
“The majority of people would absolutely hate van life,” Lydia admits.
And she says there are totally gross elements to the unorthodox arrangement: things like emptying the toilet, for example, and an unfortunate mouse infestation they had to deal with.
But she still insists it’s the “best decision we’ve ever made”.
“We’re having so much more fun now,” Lydia gushed.
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