Travel around Europe in a van
- Days : 262
- Kilometers: 26879
- Liters Diesel : 2834
- Visited Countries : 37
- Money :10136€
- Motorhome : Fiat Ducato 2.5 D 1988
The beginning
This trip start to be planned in the beginning of 2015, when we decided that we will buy a caravan and travel Europe for 9 months.
At the beginning this idea was little more than a dream, we had no savings so at that moment we just had that, the dream and a lot of desire to achieve it.From then on it was a lot of effort, sweat and a few tears in the middle, until finally we were ready to leave, 1 year and 8 months and 20000€ after.
In a trip of this kind, there is not much that can be done before the departure, you only have to do three things: collect the money, buy the vehicle and organize your lives so that you can be away during the months that you will stay on the road.
And that’s what we did, until November 13 we hit the road to the greatest adventure of our lives!
the journey
In total we traveled 262 days, visited 37 countries and drove 26879 kilometers.
This trip was a unique experience, and it’s difficult to explain how it feels when you’re driving with a sunset on one side, our love on the other, our house on wheels behind us and months of travel in the front of us, with a open book, that would give us experiences and experiences unique and that showed us so much.
We recomend that anyone should try it, even if it is not such a long trip, but just get out of this routine that imprisons us so many times and go to the unknown, to meet other people, to feel and see other places, and to see what happens in the rest of the world by our own eyes and not by what we see on television or on the computer.
Our trip started in November so we were traveling for about 6 months in the winter and 3 in the summer.
We left Portugal towards Scotland, then we went to Switzerland, then to Norway, and then everything to South in Greece, we have returned to Portugal, this was sayed very briefly to give an overview of our route.
We traveled through almost every country in Europe, in some of them probably almost none portuguese car have crossed, such as the Ukraine, or Estonia.
Sometimes some people doesn’t even know where our plate come from . But one thing is certain Cristiano Ronaldo even the old man from that mountain village in Albania knows.
It was undoubtedly the best months of our life … yet, because something that this trip left us was the desire to continue to know the world, one trip at a time!
the arrive
We arrived in August, a month earlier than planned due to a family problem (we were supposed to travel for 10 months at the beginning), with a caravan full of memories and memories that will keep forever engraved in our hearts and in our thoughts.
Getting back from a trip like this is not easy, and the first few weeks are a bit complicated, because we have come from a totally different life, and after having spent 9 months traveling, every day, seeing different places, get back to our ‘ ‘ancient life’ ” is not easy. The first night we could not even sleep.
As soon as we started to raise money for the trip, we thought we were going to sell our motorhome when we arrived.
We made this decision becouse of two main reasons, the first is that we could not have all our money invested in a motorhome that we would not be able to use as we would like.
Second is that after seeing almost all of Europe we would not be able to travel to many more countries with our house on wheels, beside Morocco and one or other.
This in addition to the fact that we wanted to make other types of trips, such as backpacking, jeep trips, walking routes… made us sell our house on wheels two months after we arrived. If life does not change our lives, our next big trip will be 6 months in Asia, to be held in the next few years ..
Until then, we’re going to do smaller trips and we’re going to make our own house on wheels, turning a freight wagon into a caravan.
I find your article really wonderful and informative keep writing such amazing blogs and share the knowledge, I and my friends planning to go to a Europe trip so I am actually a beginner so was going through some article I find your article most interesting and very informative thank you! keep posting such blog keep it up
Thank you so much ! we hope you enjoy your trip. All the best for you.
Miguel e Rita
My husband and I quit our jobs for a year. We left the US September 10-December 18 to Europe. To date we visited 14 countries. We’re heading to SE Asia until September 2020. The biggest expense we have is accommodation in Europe and your plan of staying in motor home is a great idea. Is crossing waters/ship is expensive fee for motor home? I like to come back in Europe maybe after a year to buy motor home in Spain and go from there. Have you experience motor problems?
Hey Sidim, sounds like a very nice trip !
The ferrie crossings aren’t to expensive, you can see our expenses in this link ( https://worldonmyway.com/en/the-money-stuff/ )
You can see in this link our mechanical problems, the biggest one was a broken cluntch, but in the end we resolved everything.