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)
It is the middle of June and we are still in the middle of Scotland. Our vague plan to hit the Northern wilderness of the Highlands was derailed by something not so common around here in the Backwards Van, something called ‘sense’. As we rolled away from Falkirk the lines on the map parted and… Continue reading Surveying Scotlands Back Pocket (A week in East Neuk of Fife)
Hungry? Run out of bread? Feeling a little... exasperated after spending £95 on the most expensive fuel stop of your life to date? Parked up indefinitely in a tiny town with not a single shop open even if you had any money to spend? We did, and we were, all of those things at once.… Continue reading The Unconventional Oven: Williams Pear-fectly Light & Fruity Soda Bread
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?)
Decisions. Admittedly, we at The Backwards Van are not great with them. So if someone else wants to make them for us, a local person, a complete stranger, an online review, a dream I had or even fate itself, that is absolutely fine by us. Somewhere along the winding backroads between Falkirk and the Trossachs… Continue reading Barradise Lost (Island Hopping in the Outer Hebrides)
Usually here in the Backwards Van we are all about taking Dixie out of society to the most remote and rural destinations when we explore any region or country and Scotland is no exception, more time has been spent pouring over maps of the majestic snow-capped mountains, isolated valleys and the rugged Northern coast of… Continue reading Bridges, Dreams and the Weirdest of Scenes (Strange Days in Falkirk)
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)
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)
Anyone remember the year 1999? Mambo Number 5 had hijacked the airwaves, the internet was still a relatively new and exciting invention and the whole world was gripped in Y2K panic, fearing the end of life as we know it was nigh because computer programs might not understand or be capable of interpreting the number… Continue reading In Search of the Family Tree
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