Wild Living ... No Renting, No Buying, No Selling ...

fc123

DeeDeeinDooDoo wrote: »

Hi PN,

Have just found and am loving this thread.

We used to have a VW 1971 camper which was cute but uncomfortable. We now have a Mazda Bongo which is a great van. Very comfy, insulated, flexible in that it can be a mpv etc. Very cheap japanese imports considering a similar VW would be £20K. We got ours for £7K and you can get them for £5K off ebay if you are very lucky.

We do also have a boat sitting in France waiting for us to retire and go and live on, just counting the days, minutes, seconds...

Oh meant to say we went around Portugal, Spain last winter in the Bongo, great fun, I loved being a gypsy but some of the photos of me and my hair are a bit scary to look at!!

There are bongo owners clubs and honestly cant rate them enough but they are perhaps small for what youwant. They are the length of a car so park anywhere. Some problems with height, ours is 2.05m I think but we get it on as an mpv for the eurotunnel and ferry and can squeeze into tesco car park!

Am looking forward to hearing how you get on.

PN may end up just parking outside ours, borrowing the shower and washing machine...and stay forever.:rotfl: The London thing......just a 6 month let somewhere just to try out the job market.????

PasturesNew

fc123 wrote: »

That's the stuff....our lovely webman is not answering my Q's as he has worked out I am trying to work out stuff myself first. It's not just about saving a few £££...it's trying things out to see whether they are actually worth doing. No point in attaching or whatever it's called to affiliates when we don't need to.

We are going onto a big e-tail site in a few weeks and I need to sort out our google search and things too. I will PM you in a couple of days.. I have a long train journey on Thurs so will list out the main points then.
Cheers

Good-o. It's Thursday now ... 4.40am ... I'm in the wide awake club!

PasturesNew

OK, I'm back here for an update.

You might have noticed I've been a bit quiet for awhile across the boards in general ... because I have been spending 15 hours/day every day just googling .... reading ....

I thought about medium-sized campers, I researched. Ultimately I don't think I have the confidence to be "responsible for" a vehicle of that size on a long-term basis. As has been mentioned, my budget won't stretch to much and I didn't have the confidence that it'd be a great idea.

So ... what next. Well, next I researched teardrop trailers. These are teardrop shaped, are just the size of a double bed and can even be towed by a motorbike. All excited I was, for about 4 days. By then I had the specs, photos, details, links, etc of every type known to mankind that was available in the UK. Here's a VERY odd one that's available in Aus (in case Generali wants to go walkabout maybe) http://www.avan.com.au/products_campers.html

With the teardrop, I then realised that I really wanted something with a bit more height, then found there are 2-3 caravans that can be pulled by my small car (1200cc engine) ... so I was off again, researching ... found one 60 miles away on ebay and was going to see it, but then slept on it and decided I was mad. I don't have the confidence to tow anything from scratch, without practice .... and it'd always need parking somewhere.

So there I was... stuck. Camper ideal but too big, smaller campers were too small; both were pricey, both had a bit of long-term commitment. Teardrops were a great idea but impractical. Towing a small caravan was genius, but not going to happen ..... so ... in all seriousness, I've now decided a van is the way forward.

Currently investigating MPVs, even went to see a couple today. Got a list of models. But, I'm finding that oop north I can get a selection (of different colours, rather than white that's available here), with 20-30,000 less miles on the clock and £2-3k cheaper. So I might have to pop off oop north.

It's driving me nuts really!

Today in two showrooms I said to the bloke: "open the back door ... OK, fold the seats down ... brilliant"... then I got in and curled up in the boot area, under the parcel shelf, and said "lovely, I could sleep here". Second one was gobsmacked and said he'd never ever seen anybody ever use that as a criteria to choose a vehicle before

Right now I am having one sent down from 100 miles away to see if I can reach the pedals (don't ask) ... and another little man is looking nationwide for me to see what's out there.

But ... I feel confident the MPV solution is best. We're talking Doblo, Berlingo, Kangoo here.

As a van, it'll also be handy in the future when I am moving my stuff in/out of storage (possibly between towns) as I can take it all in one go .... and when I eventually buy a house it'll be good for getting stuff home in. So it's a vehicle I can keep for 7+ years I figure.

elona

Pastures

When we were looking for our retirement car a few months ago, we contacted loads of garages to get the best deal on a Bipper Tepee.

We ended up with a better deal for a brand new one with extras than we had for a demo model. Think it's because the garage is up North (drive 20 miles and you would be in the sea) and is not in a place where people go past regularly. If you want to know the name p.m. me.

Have you read the Alan Bennett (true) story "The lady in the van?"

Triker

Mazda Bongo's are good as they have the elevating roof.

Inspired by yourself and my nostalgic musings I've bought myself a rough and ready camper/van....its a Renault trafic and I can stand up in it which is blissful.....sleeps 2 so will get a drive away awning for the teens for when they want to come along, has a 2 ring cooker with grill and some storage. It'll do for what I want it for.:D

Only issue so far is no power steering which isn't an issue on a journey but a bit heavy when just starting off....another 'something' to consider when buying a van.

I really wanted either a mazda bongo or a VW transporter but they were well out of my meagre price range.

Continued good luck with your search.

fc123

All sounds like it's coming together.
Well...we have got 4 new neighbours parked up nearby. One is a real swishy number but the other 2 are ancient vans that have been adapted.
One is parked right in front of a strip of very expensive houses and has a great view of the sea and marina.

I will try to remember to take a pic and post it up. I haven't seen the occupants sitting outside with a cuppa yet.

Triker

fc123 wrote: »

All sounds like it's coming together.
Well...we have got 4 new neighbours parked up nearby. One is a real swishy number but the other 2 are ancient vans that have been adapted.
One is parked right in front of a strip of very expensive houses and has a great view of the sea and marina.

I will try to remember to take a pic and post it up. I haven't seen the occupants sitting outside with a cuppa yet.

Love your siggy FC....very solution focussed...love it.:D

fc123

Triker wrote: »

Love your siggy FC....very solution focussed...love it.:D

I try to live it every day now and am at an age where I have a nice full manual of hindsight and mistakes to refer back to.:o

It has been really useful recently as a big opportunity came up and we started dealing with it like we would have done before...with a small business mind...and then went...whoah... let's do this one differently.


I love the camper van idea and would love one when I am retired....not sure about living in it F/T but then we have teens and cats and stuff so doesn't really fit in to our life.

Jowo_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

I feel confident the MPV solution is best. We're talking Doblo, Berlingo, Kangoo here.

As a van, it'll also be handy in the future when I am moving my stuff in/out of storage (possibly between towns) as I can take it all in one go .

Buy one of those vans with a good spec.

Buy a removal camping conversion, like one of these from 950 to 1790 euros.

http://www.ludospace.com/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=10

DKLS

I love the camper idea, but personally would need the budget for the Winnebago that I hired with friends to do Glasto in, queen sized bed, full size bath tub etc etc. Was amazing if a tad pricey.

I did go onto the Winnebago website where you can spec up your own van, when I reached half a million dollars, I decided to stick with bricks and mortar.