Covid-19 – UK Lockdown number 3
We made the decision to overland during the first lockdown in the UK. So we knew when we made the decision to do this, Covid would impact our ability to travel in the short term. It’s just a case of deciding where we can go and make the best of it. While we wait. it has given us the opportunity to get settled into truck life.
The Original Plan
Our intention was to head to the Americas, the home of four wheel campers who are the pioneers of truck life. We wanted to head to Canada in January 2021, spend time between Canada and North America for about 6-9 months. Then take the Pan American road trip, starting in Alaska all the way to Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world, in Argentina. Unfortunately, Covid had other plans, so we decided to come up with another plan…. Just as well, as we definitely were not ready!
After finishing work on 23rd December 2020, the plan was to see the family over Christmas and see in the New Year with our friends. On the 2nd January 2021, we intended to head to Norway. Yes in the middle of winter but I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights, so I was prepared to face the sub zero temperatures. Once we had seen the Northern Lights, the plan was to head to Morocco for some much needed sun. We wanted to explore the Sahara, to test the truck out after all the modifications Steve has made, which he will do a blog on.
In December 2020, Norway closed its borders to the UK, after a new variant of Covid was found in the UK. This meant that we had to rethink again what we could do. Ultimately, we had to wait until the government announcement on 22nd February 2021, the roadmap for coming out of lockdown in the UK.
Roadmap to coming out of lockdown means we can start to travel around the UK. We will do this until we can get to Canada or Europe.
What to do while we wait for lockdown to be eased….
We moved into our Fourwheel Camper, full time on 24th December 2020, while still in the UK. This is where our truck life really started.
At that point we decided it would likely be March 2021 at the earliest, before we would realistically be able to leave the UK. So we decided to use the time to tune in the camper.
We were lucky enough that we were able to stay on a farm near Hemel Hempstead for as long as we needed, which we are extremely grateful for. We also had the luxury of using Steve’s Dad’s house as a base, we really couldn’t have done this without Steve’s Dad putting up with us taking over his house and drive lol. This gave us the luxury of time. Something we are not used to! So we are getting settled into the camper and truck life; and test all the changes we made to make life comfortable.
Adding cupboards
We’ve been following and learning from other overlanders, what works, what doesn’t, for over 8 months. We hope we have taken some of their experience to get us started. However, within a couple of weeks of living in the camper, we decided our storage wasn’t working! we used packets to keep our clothes neat and tidy (a little hack we picked up from Bound for Nowhere – thank you) but it became a complete pain! We still use the storage packets but not for all our clothes.
The camper is very compact, our options were limited! But again, learning from other overlanders, you can gain a lot of space by removing the back rest of the sofa. Thank you GrizzlyNBear! So we set out to start building cupboards.
Thanks to Steve’s handy work, we now have additional cupboards! He’s done such a great job, we may now need to redo the other side that was already there! Its quit incredible how much can be stored in this space.
Short video of the inside of the truck camper
Upgrading the bed
For anyone that knows me (Tobi), will know I need my sleep! So having a super comfy bed was a priority for me. The mattress it came with is great, but we both like a soft mattress, so it was a little hard for us. We didn’t have a lot of room to play with; when the truck camper top is down, it almost aligns to the top of the mattress when its closed. We had 7cm of height to play with, which reduced our options. I ordered a bespoke thick mattress topper and added it to the mattress that was already there. What an awesome nights sleep, comfortable and loads of room. Happy me 🙂
So far, we are loving living in the truck camper, slowing down a bit and just enjoying our freedom!
Thanks for reading and come back for further updates 🙂
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