Let's go wild and explore the world!

David and I have been planning to buy a bigger van, convert it and then live and travel in it. Why?? Well we are rock climbers and for some time we had been feeling frustrated at not having as much time as we would want to do this sport that we love. Work was feeling pretty monotonous, a constant cycle of earning just enough to pay for rent and other boring life admin with a small bit left over to just about have a good time at the weekends. David and I are rock climbers. We met climbing, go climbing on holidays, go climbing on weekends, and any spare time we have in the week, you guessed it, we go climbing... We are what the spanish call Fantáticos (fanticals doesn't quite have the same ring to it but I suppose you translate it to addicted or obsessed). Ever since we met we spoke about doing a big rock trip, but it wasn't until a few months ago in June 2023 that we finally took the plunge. We left our jobs, sold David's VW T5 and most of our possessions and with an empty Citroen Jumper L3 H3 we turned up at my parents house with several boxes and a cat!

We had been saving up for a while with the idea to live and travel in a van kitted out by us for as long as our money lasted, fairly simple! 10 months down the line and we still haven't left yet but we are almost there! Just the other day we finally filed the paperwork for the van and to our great relief it passed it's inspection and MOT first time without any problems!! We took a bit longer than expected mainy due to mechanical problems with the van, we had to get some work done on it that we were not expecting and so we got set back quite a bit. A little word of advice if you are thinking about buying a van to covert it or buying any important vehicle, GET IT CHECKED OUT FIRST. And not just by your mate who's a mechanic but by actual paid professionals... this would have saved us A LOT of stress and money. 

I qualified as a Physiotherapist in 2017 and David and I had been living together in Catalonia but despite my efforts I was unable to find a solid job working as a Physio. David is a qualified electrician, plumber, aircon installer... they call them Lampistas here in Spain and they basically build or repair all of the fittings and installations that you can think of in a home or building. A pretty useful person to keep around really! Especially if you dream of building a van! Anyway I decided to have one last crack at making a decent living out of being a Physio by becoming freelance and opening up a clinic in a climbing gym. In doing so I also became a Route Setter and the two jobs although hectic, complemented themselves quite well. (If I was low on work I would just set some really injury inducive boulder problems..... JOKE!) Being freelance in Spain is not something I would recommend, the taxes are pretty bad and then there's a monthly fee that you have to pay just to be freelance even if you don't earn anything and so bascially it boils boils down to making enough to get by. I had a great time treating many an injured climber but I still wasn't really getting anywhere. That being said I did learn the amazing trade that is routesetting and I really enjoyed that! 

Our original goal was to save up until our rental contract ran out in Girona but in the end we just couldn't wait and left our jobs a year earlier. We were nervous about telling our bosses but in the end they were really supportive of our plans and we left on good terms. 

We have since spent 10months working on the build whilst living at my parents, although we have gone on the odd holiday too. BUT NOW it is ready and Sunday we begin our trip! Everything is ready in the van and we plan to not move too much at the start mainly because we are bringing our cat Nami with us and we want to make sure that she fully understands that the van is her new home before moving on to the next location! This is my first of hopefully many blogposts and I shall try and keep you updated as the trip goes on. We currently have no end date but our general plan is to begin visiting areas in Spain that we have not yet seen, maybe spend the warmer months in the North of Spain, but who knows! 

Anything could happen so let's go wild and explore the world!