By Rebecca Drew
MEET the couple who sold both their businesses to travel the road and spent £8,500 transforming their Renault van into a glamper van called Lucy.
The series of envy-inducing pictures and video show how Juliet (35) and Frank (39) from Melbourne, Australia spent three-months working on their rolling home which they are now living in as they travel around the country with their beloved pet dogs, Arnie and Wolly.
Other images show the couple relaxing inside the stunning van, preparing dinner in their self-contained kitchen area and embracing the great outdoors by cooking a steak on an open fire.
Before embracing life on the road, Juliet owned her own wedding florist business and Frank had his own café.
“On a twelve-and-a-half-mile day off Monday walk, we were chatting about converted vans that Frank had seen on Instagram,” said Juliet.
“As we were already hooked on watching tiny houses on TV, Frank said that we should do this and I loved the idea, so we started brainstorming, researching and falling in love with the idea of building our very own tiny house on wheels.
“We later sold both businesses, worked on converting our van full time for three-months, said goodbye to our home, sold or gave away eighty-percent of our belongings and starting living in a van, travelling around Australia.
“We started with van sleep overs in our own driveway, then migrated from friends to families for three weeks before taking the plunge.
“The whole conversion was incredibly challenging yet a rewarding experience. Neither of us had ever done anything like this before.
“Even though we checked and double checked things, it was a frequent occurrence that things didn’t fit, or we had to undo and redo, as it was really difficult figuring out what to do first, before moving onto something else.”
The couple have been living on the road for four-and-a-half-months and have already visited 82-beaches along the way and were even forced to stay inside their van for 36-hours when Cyclone Debbie hit. They are currently working on a new book about their journey but according to Juliet, they have learnt to deal with more than just the weather.
“We are constantly challenged by the Australian elements and visitors of the crawling and flying type,” she explained.
“We were recently eating dinner, when I thought, ‘gee… I haven’t noticed that knot in the cedar wood panelling, oh wait, Frank… is that an enormous Huntsman spider the size of my hand?’ and yes it was.
“Every day really is a new adventure and we often ask ourselves two questions – where are we sleeping tonight and what day is it.
“We’re currently working on our Kickstarter campaign for our book, which will be a photographic biography, journal and how to guide, with all the ups and downs from this incredible personal journey, which we aim to publish later in the year.”
Juliet and Frank are currently discovering Cairns, Queensland, Australia but are planning to head as far north as they can before exploring the northern territory, Darwin and the West Coast. They could end up travelling up to almost 25,000-miles.
“We love making a plan on where we are going and where we’ll be staying, only to find ourselves passing through a tiny town somewhere that just feels right and having the flexibility to stop and stay a while,” she added.
“Sometimes the best plan is not having one at all, Cobargo in New South Wales was a definite favourite for us, we stopped to purchase a bottle of water and ended up staying almost a week as the locals were just so gorgeous and we felt so welcome.
“There is no perfect timing for anything in life, if travel or a change in lifestyle is something you want to do – do it now.
“Put your mind to it, take a calculated risk and go for it. Think about what’s really important to you. For us, it wasn’t money or material possessions, it was experience. Being rich in the right kind of way.”
For more information see www.instagram.com/glampervanlucy and https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1469531613/tiny-house-on-wheels-the-book?ref=discovery
