A couple of months ago, I came across a post online seeking a winter caretaker for a small plot of land. The tiny caravan and shed, refered to by the owner as a farm, was completely offgrid (and probably completely lacking the planning permission necessary for its very existence) and conveniently located miles from nowhere,… Continue reading The Backwards Van meets The Sometimes Shed
We found ourselves one Sunday, late February in County Donegal, cruising the deserted country roads in search of a refill for our empty 6kg bottle of butane. Time was of the essence, the radio man predicted a yellow warning, a cold weather spell coming our way in the form of Winter Storm Emma and dealing… Continue reading Beds, Breads and the Beast from the East (Moville Boutique Hostel, Feb 2018)
This is Ireland, and this long grey inland chunk in the middle? This is County Cavan. Dixie the Backwards Van rolled into Cavan with little expectation really, just full tanks of both diesel and fresh water (and thankfully empty tanks of everything else), we were looking for a week off. A week off what, I… Continue reading This Is Cavan! (Vanning, Planning & Shelter from the Storm)
Wow. In July The Backwards Van.com turned a year old and in late August we celebrated our vanniversary- a whole year of living in Dixie the 1997 Ducato. To mark the occasions we entered our page into the 2018 Irish Blog Awards. We are proud to announce we made it through three rounds of judging… Continue reading The Backwards Van- 2018 Blog Awards Ireland Finalists!
As our first full year of vanlife drew to an end, we celebrated the waning summer with family in Dublin, dawdling on the driveway until the time came for Dixie to make the many airport runs required to dispatch my family for the usual winter diaspora. When the opportunity arose to escape the city (for… Continue reading Louth: A Week in the Wee County (and Where We’ve Been Since)
In 12 months on the road, we have yet to use the services of any kind of campsite for any kind of reason. Slightly reluctant to have Dixie The Backwards Van herded into a flat field and parked regimentally alongside so many other vehicles, unsure that we want the associated rules and regulations but whats… Continue reading Hook Head Revisited (Vans, Clans and The House People)
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)
I'm from Dublin. I was born, bred and buttered here as they say, raised on the north side just a couple of miles from the city centre so being in Dublin is just... being home. You'll have to forgive my romantic, soppy and sometimes rose tinted view of our nations capital for most of my… Continue reading Dixie Does Dublin (Daytrips Down Memory Lane)
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)
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