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NOMAD'S LAND

PETE BULL | THE AIRSTREAM DIARIES (1) | January 13th 2008

Tracey and Pete decide to sell their London flat, quit their jobs and take to the roads of Britain in search of a new life. The decision was the easy bit, as Pete explains in this first part of an occasional diary ...

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When you've stopped enjoying your job and when you don't really like where you're living, then the only option is to find something else to do and somewhere else to do it.

We'd spent our last few holidays trying to visit as many places as we could, with a view to settling there and running a business for ourselves. But that meant that we didn't really get a chance to have a holiday. It was a kind of vicious circle--no holiday made our work harder to enjoy, which made the need for a holiday greater etc, etc.

I don't remember how long I'd been thinking of this idea, or if it just came out of the blue, but one day while we were driving to the next town, I suggested the plan: What if we were to sell our home (in London), spend some of the proceeds on a nice, big motor home or caravan, quit our jobs and head off on a trip around the country looking for the right place to settle down and set up our business? I was expecting at best a stunned silence, at worst an incredulous laugh. The funny thing is that, when we asked ourselves "why not?", we couldn't come up with a reason.

That decision was by far the easiest bit of the whole adventure. But acting on it meant opening a jumbo, catering-pack sized can of worms.

First we had to decide what sort of "mobile home" we would get: caravan, or motor home? Both have their pros and cons. It's a big decision and worthy of some research.

A big motor home can be very luxurious, but unless you tow a small car around with you, it's a lot of hassle every time you need to drive to the nearest town to get a pint of milk and a loaf of bread. Everything has to be carefully stowed away before setting off. Caravans can also be quite luxurious, but to us the white boxes all look bland and uninspiring inside and out. This was to be our home after all, and the problem was that we didn't really like the look of most caravans. We would be living full-time in our mobile home, so it was important to us that it was something we would look forward to coming home to, not just a utilitarian box on wheels.

And we've never towed anything before! What would we do? We used to own a charmingly rusty old VW camper van and had some great holidays in it, but it was certainly too small for any trip longer than a couple of weeks. It did, however, give us first hand experience of what life in a motor home could be like, so we decided, after looking at models varying in size from a small car to a large bus, that motor-homing was not for us.

We discussed the project with our friend Wayne who happened to be visiting a few days later. He's always been very sensible (at least in this regard) and keen that we never sell our flat in London, but keep it as an investment--a sort of retirement fund. He was our first "sounding board" and I've always (well, mostly...ok, sometimes) trusted his wisdom. Initially he was somewhat hesitant. The idea sounded good, but the possibility of selling our "nest-egg" put him off.

Luckily, by a strange quirk of fate, Airstream (the American company which makes the streamlined, shiny aluminium movie-star trailers) set up its European branch a couple of years ago a mere 40 minute drive away in Tebay, South Cumbria. Wayne came with us to have a look at the new range built specially for the European market (narrower bodies, lower nose-weight, different braking system etc). Our favourite was the International 684, with its contemporary interior and all mod cons. Wayne was in his element (he lives on a boat, so he completely "gets" the compact lifestyle) and his immediate (and repeated) response was "Go on, buy an Airstream!"

We spent a busy few days looking into our finances, visiting caravan and motor-home showrooms, and we re-visited Tebay three times before making the decision to go for the trailer.

A few phone calls were followed by a quick trip to London and within a matter of days we'd put our flat on the market, accepted an offer on it, paid a deposit on an Airstream and were back home, anxiously waiting for the sale of the flat to go through.

That was back at the beginning of September.

Like I said, the decision to do it was the easy bit.