August 5, 2021 – We haven’t talked about ourselves for a while, and it’s curious how this blog has slowly transformed. We started more than 2 years ago with the idea of sharing and explaining our life choice, of telling about our journey (which, as such, has never really started), but then the circumstances led us to talk more about current events and – sometimes – about products. This experience is teaching us many things (as always happens with any self-respecting experience), the most important of which is that you can make all the plans in the world, but if fate puts a hand in it, you can only sketch and adapt.
Today we are in the period in which we finally wanted to tell you which of the beautiful dreams we had had were turning into reality, but the reality (the real one) is different: we are still standing. Even if it doesn’t stop our mind, projected once again to when we can really put the wheels on the road without defining an end. All this did not prevent us from living in a van, and therefore from considering ourselves full-timers in all respects. Despite, once again, circumstances have led us in recent weeks to prefer a flat. But the situation is temporary.
Summary to understand what we are talking about: in June 2019 we decide to go live in a van. We have ties that are difficult to sever (a bar where, while limiting the effort, we have to work two days a week) and therefore our journey begins with a few short trips not far from Milan and Lombardy and with the classic summer holidays. Autumn sees us busy looking for a better solution, not easy to find, and then… the first lockdown arrives. You know the story from March 2020 to February 2021: it is more time that you are forced to stand still than that in which you can move freely.
In the meantime, we find a solution for the bar, sell our shares, and finally prepare to leave. Knowing that our journey will still be short-term because Paolo’s parents require more and more attention and assistance. But at least we’re off. In April we have our Falkor do some updating work and in May we start shooting. But fate is always there: this time we get a health hitch, which forces us to a long period of patience. Nature and the human body have their times, so we just have to wait. We have done it for a long time, we will do it for a while longer.
Over the past two years we have learned one thing: always seize the moment. If you have the idea of taking your things and leaving, for such a radical lifestyle choice, do it without thinking too much: there is always time to go back and often it is not you who decide the duration of your trip. On the other hand, there is also another lesson: life as a full-timer is not easy. It can be very rewarding if it is a perennial journey, much less if you are forced to stop. Obviously, even in this case it depends on where you stop and whether or not it is the result of your own conscious choice. We have never complained, even if spending weeks in a row in the same place is not the best. But there is no doubt that when standing still you would want to have a little more space: in the summer you take advantage of the outside, but when it’s cold, everyday life is less pleasant.
And then there are the unexpected. Our Falkor is of a certain age (2005), and therefore some ailments are foreseeable. But this 2021 has put him to the test: change of a bearing, detachment of a brake system hose (with related risks), replacement of the radiator (pierced by rust), brake caliper partially locked in release (awaiting replacement), suspensions gone both front and rear (works to be done in September). A significant financial outlay, not yet fully quantified, which raises the cost of living in a motorhome considerably. This is extraordinary maintenance that we would have liked to deal with a little at a time, but which instead turned out to be necessary in a very short time.
All this to tell you that being full-timers has positive (sometimes priceless) and other negative (and not always predictable) aspects. Life runs its course and doesn’t care about your plans. Something can happen every day. Dealing with everything with serenity helps to overcome any problem. Have a nice and pleasant trip!
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