Traveling by motorhome in Europe. 5 tips for Sergio and Ana

Today we want to share the story of Sergio (a photographer, 41 years old), Ana (a psychologist, 42 years old), and Ferran (almost 2 years old). They've become a nomadic family for a year. Europe is their destination. Their thing is traveling around Europe in a campervan . The most curious thing? They make paella along the way!

His route so far has been through southern Spain and Portugal (Algarve, Costa Vicentina, Lisbon and Alentejo). Then they crossed the peninsula to San Sebastián and toured France (Bayonne, Dordogne, Brittany, Normandy, Alsace, Burgundy, Provence, and Occitania).

There, they spent a few days at home to visit relatives and continued on the Costa Brava, Costa Bermeja, Costa Azul, Italy to San Remo. Next, they set course for Mont Blanc, Switzerland, Germany, the Black Forest, Luxembourg, Belgium (Ghent and Bruges and the coast).

You are already in England. Where have you been before?

Yes, we're currently in England looking for work to get back on our feet financially. After that, we'll be staying with a family for a Workaway (work in exchange for room and board). It's our way of traveling around Europe in a campervan.

When and why do you hit the road?

We had both talked many times about the absurdity of living in a cycle of consumption, work and bills with very little time for what is important.

Added to this was exhaustion in my profession, turning 40 and just being a parent. A whole cocktail that prompted us to seek a fuller life.

You have left your work ...

We were both self-employed . I closed my photography studio with a large client base and a reputation built over more than 12 years. Ana left her job as a psychologist at a health center to dedicate herself to raising Ferran, feeling that it was incompatible to raise children and balance work and family life.

Ana wants to find that balance, to see how it's done in other countries… she believes it's becoming normalized to leave children for many hours in daycare or with grandparents , and what children need, especially in their early years, is their mother and father. A society that forces us to miss out on our children's childhood cannot be a good place to live happily.

What did you do with the house you lived in?

It was a rental house. We emptied it, sold what we could in a second-hand market and, the rest, we have stored in the photography studio.

This step made us reflect on the amount of things we accumulate that we don't really need. These days we manage with what fits in the caravan, about 10% of what we had at home, and we even have things left over!

What is the most difficult part of your route?

In our experience traveling through Europe in a motorhome, the most difficult thing is the financial uncertainty. Europe is an expensive continent and it has decimated our budget. Not knowing what will happen when the money runs out is always a concern. We can't really enjoy the local cuisine.

Restaurants are out of our budget. We eat almost always in the caravan. We resort very rarely to the tourist offer, concerts, boat trips, adventure sports, everything that is paying, go ...

How do you manage the family finances during the trip?

For now, we're still living off our savings . Our main expenses are food and fuel, which account for 85% of our budget. We have two projects to finance ourselves. The first one we thought of was "Paella Mundi . "

The idea was to cook and teach how to make paellas along the route and we trained for it. We have not been able to start it yet because each country works with a different gas cooking system and we do not stay long enough to pay off the investment. In England we would like to try.

We also handcraft notebooks and postcards with Sergio's photographs. We sell them online, in a stationery shop in our hometown, and in the areas where we stay.

We set up our stand with the material. It must be said that, at the moment, we are not having much success despite how wonderful the product is. Handmade and 100% recycled.