2020 sees many of us rethinking how we travel or in fact, how we live. And we are no exception. During our weeks of lock down we grappled with the reality of saying goodbye to international travel, notably our long awaited month-long trip through Central America. In the grand scheme of things not being able to travel as we have in the past pales in comparison to feeling safe and secure in our community. But for two kiwis with itchy feet and wanderlust running through our veins, we had to come up with a different plan.
Thanks to two of our favourite YouTube travelling couples Allison and Eric from The Endless Adventure and Kara and Nate, our YouTube algorithm flooded us with endless scenes of vans and van life. And a crazy idea was hatched.
We hit up TradeMe. We visited car yards. We googled. We researched. We watched a lot of YouTube. We were so inspired by two van lifers out of the UK, Dan and Abi, that we had pretty much convinced ourselves that we were going to replicate their design, with a few minors tweaks.
We were sold (or at least I was) on a 2020 Mercedes Sprinter LWB as it seemed to give us all of the floor space we desired. Alack! The cost of customising the cab was getting a little steep so we opted for our second choice. Yip. We’ve bought a van (or at least have ordered it). A 2020 Volkswagon Crafter is currently (hopefully) being assembled for us in Germany to make its way here sometime in the next five or six months.
Our plan: to create a dream small cabin/house on wheels that we can use to travel around Aotearoa and eventually, take it off-shore and traverse the globe.
How are we going to do it, you ask? The answer is short: slowly, together, and led by us. Darryl and I are planning on treating this van build as both a product we know we will love and enjoy and as a project for us to do together. We know next to nothing about building, solar electricity, and plumbing. But, we are sure we will figure it out!
We’ll be blogging and maybe even vlogging about what we are up to over the next year or so and would love you to follow along with us.
The Peterson Odyssey 