One of my most memorable vanlife moments occurred in late September 2017, about a month after we had moved into Dixie the Backwards Van. We had just dropped my only daughter off at university, understandably an extremely happy/sad moment for any parent. We had spent two nights very nearby 'just in case' (actually, we slept… Continue reading Dixie Says Relax! (How we found the Horse on the Hill)
Vanlife is the epitome of freedom, we live wherever we want to, go wherever we like, we explore when we feel like it and we sleep when we're tired, there are no rules but the ones we set for ourselves and there is no giant thumb we are toiling under. Choosing to live in a… Continue reading How To Own Less Stuff (Minimalism, Vanlife and Living Lightly)
We in the Backwards Van don't have jobs. After almost 11 months living in our van Dixie and travelling over 25,000 miles, we may have forgotten entirely how to even have a job at all as the very idea of work, of a structured daily routine and the stuffy, serious cubicle life all disappear in… Continue reading The Unfortunate Cost of Living (or, The Four ‘F’s of Vanlife)
We've all been there. Hot sun beating in the van windows all day, temperatures predicted to reach the high twenties again, for another week in a row, the rivers dry and parched and.... wait, no. No we haven't all 'been there'. We're Irish, remember? Rain is usually the order of the day, regardless of the… Continue reading Made In The Shade : Dixies Guide To Surviving A Vanlife Heatwave
With recent temperatures hitting 28° daily (and much higher we're sure, inside this insulated tin can) we're spending more and more time outdoors here in Yorkshire and I have not been writing much as a result, the long warm evenings are designed for strolling, by tree lined canals and in dark forests, creating our own… Continue reading Houseless is not Homeless (or, Why We Won’t Work for Google)
Nine months on the road is a long time. As I often say, if I was cooking up a baby it would be ready by now. But thankfully I'm not, I'm much closer to wanting a little puppy to live with us than another baby (my baby is almost 19 now), and we're not done… Continue reading The Worst Place We’ve Ever Been (or, Can We Get A Dog?)
Dixie the Fiat Ducato has driven us on and off umpteen ferries in the last 10 months, from the little 4 vehicle roll-on-roll-off type across a tiny inlet in County Waterford to the bigger car ferries from the Ards Peninsula in Northern Ireland and she has even thrice sailed across the Irish Sea onboard massive… Continue reading When Your Ship Comes In : Dixies DOs and DON’T DOs of Sailing the Seas
Since the Backwards Van published a post about money last month in an effort to disspell the many myths about the true price of vanlife, we have been inundated with even more questions about cash (you can read that post here, it's been our most popular yet, read in 36 countries worldwide! https://wp.me/p8WlP3-ln ) It… Continue reading 28 Days Later (Notes from a Budget Meeting)
We got lucky when we decided to buy a van to live in, as it happened Dixie the Ducato was only the second vehicle we saw and we happily parted ways with our savings as soon as our eyes met her headlamps. But we had done our homework on the subject and knew what we… Continue reading Stand By Your Van (A Rough Guide to Choosing a Van For Life)
There is only so much planning one can do in life. Planning means carefully considering and thoughtfully predicting and then preparing for any and all things that might happen in the future....that sounds exhausting to me. Planning a nomadic life like this would be virtually impossible anyway, the very act of making plans seems to… Continue reading Money Makes The Wheels Go Around (Budgeting in the Backwards Van)
the backwards van 