The Freedom Tour – the planning

The world is a better place when the sun is shining

When the time is right……..

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams” Oprah Winfrey

There is nothing more exciting than planning, it’s something I absolutely relish and it truly doesn’t matter what it’s planning for, I enjoy it, although when it’s for an adventure of some kind it’s the best feeling.

There are of course many things you need to plan for be it where, when, how, what to take etc. But in this case we are planning for #goughadventures, #vanlife #VWcalifornia #bettypoo.   Firstly we  focused on the storage, we don’t have a lot of room in comparison to the house so what we take on the road is important in terms of it taking up space.  So we need to focus on clothing, eating (cooking), sleeping and  living. Clothing wise we are lucky to have a wardrobe in the van so we can hang our clothes but we will also need other storage so we will use a mix of Eagle Creek packing cubes.   The bottom line is we need to travel with  less clothes and the ones we have need to be appropriate for outdoor life so quick dry, warmth and cool and non iron is essential. A mix of long and short trousers,  and layers which work for walking the dogs or popping to pub, we happen to love Rohan as its technical and quick dry, and also Craghoppers too.   The outer  layers are crucial, a good water proof jacket, walking shoes,  trousers as well so goretex is important. A down jacket for the cooler days which also fit under the Gore-Tex jacket.   Then merino wool base layers, light shirts and fleece jumpers to make up the layers.  I will also throw in a lightweight dress a Rohan quick dry shirt dress at that. Shoes include goretex walking shoes, and trail goretex running trainers, teva sandals and of course our  sliders for the shower and  flip flops which live in the van year round. In addition to this will be our sporty clothes for swimming running and cycling, and where would we be without our Dry robe.

We love to cook and we have come a long way from our early camping days which consisted of a hexamine burner and instant mash sausages and beans.   The van has 2 gas hobs in situ but we also have a double electric hob on board too which we can use outside plugged into the electrics. For the past 10 years we  have used  a Cobb  but as good as it is, it’s still limiting and it requires either BBQ coals or coconut to light which are a pain to carry.  So we invested in an Instant pot duo crisp air fryer and our cooking world has been transformed.  Full roast  dinners, with pork crackling and roast potatoes, to grilled cheese topped pasta bakes, air fried potatoes wedges,  porridge down to even baking cakes!  One of the big plus of the pot  is making soups and coupled with a stick blender we can now make soup on our travels keeping it hot in our Sho flask whilst we yomp out with the dogs.  Of course we have other “must have” items including a coffee machine which makes a sublime cup of freshly brewed coffee whilst we watch the goings on around us.  Another Sho mug helps to keep the coffee hot!  And something for the warm days a Fooing ice machine.  This does seem decadent but it actually serves a few purposes, it helps us stock an ice  cooler for items that we can’t keep in the van  fridge but it also comes in handy for ice for a cold drink  on the campsite.  Taking just 7 minutes to make ice cubes it literally is one of the first things we set up on arrival. Again we have a Sho tumbler which keeps the drink cold. Sho have become our favoured as they are so good for travelling and also keep the food and drink hot or cold as needed.

Sleeping mostly takes place in the roof which we get to via a ladder.  We have a  blackout cover so it’s very dark perfect for sleeping and in the summer months you can open the sides to let air into cool it down.   We have purchased duvalay mattresses to ensure a good night’s sleep and along with new duck  down   sleeping bags and proper pillows we are all ready for a good night’s sleep.  A must for us both is ear plugs which stop any unwanted sounds disturbing us.  We originally brought our sleeping bags from REI in America in 2008   when we were touring the North East States of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado and they have done us well but when the temperatures started to drop in October they were not enough to keep us warm and at one time we had to have our dry robe over us too.  So   we treated ourselves to down filled sleeping bags which do the trick!

The next part of the planning process is where to go.  This is the fun bit one thing we have already decided is on a time limit in the fact that there will be no time limit we will just go for as long as want to.  We have an idea for when we are going to set off and then we are just going to follow a line which won’t be set in stone, our first proper travel will be the freedom tour as by then we will have escaped the throws of work and be retired. 

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