By Saloni Mathur
THIS COUPLE revealed how their dream £60K saving van life turned into such a nightmare, they ditched “scary” Britain for the sunshine of Melbourne.
The UK couple’s worst experiences parked overnight in Britain included suffering attempted break-ins weekly, being threatened with baseball bats by vigilante locals and having their van graffitied and its tyres slashed. Now they live in Australia, they insist their welcome could not be more different.
Math teacher Keely Emerson (26) and her childhood sweetheart and husband Philly Emerson (26) left their 1.5-bedroom apartment in Leytonstone, London, to live in a van, saving themselves £1600 (£1200 rent plus bills) per month.
The couple moved from their original home in Lurgan, Nothern Ireland, and after a spell in Australia, they then settled in London.
After five years of a back-breaking work schedule and the unrelenting burden of growing rent and bills, they made a drastic change and spent £8k to buy and build a Citroen Relay 2011 campervan.
Tired of the growing expenses, they decided to live in a van which they bought for £3,500 in June 2019 and nicknamed “Martha.”
Once their project was completed to avoid disturbing the neighbours or people on the streets, they lived as quietly as possible, which is how their problems started.
“We lived very stealthily on the streets of London. We had no windows while living there and would pull up late at night, no lights, no talking, just sleep and then move on,” Keely said.
“Unfortunately, we were maybe too stealthy because thieves would think we were a work van.
“We would frequently have attempted robberies for people who thought they were going to get tools but instead got two people.
“We had almost weekly robbery attempts, from as simple as checking handles to trying to crowbar the door.
“We also had our van graffitied whilst we were sleeping, our tyres slashed, and one time, in a nice area of London, a group of locals arrived with bats to intimidate us off their street as they had seen us pull in and hop through into the back.
“We know friends who lived in the area who said they (the locals) have a street WhatsApp, and if they see vehicles they don’t like the look of, they would all message about it.
“We meant no harm to anyone, but we still had to drive away to safety before our van got attacked.
“We lived in London for a full year in the van. Even with all the crime we experienced and things we witnessed on the streets, we fell in love with the simple living and decided we wanted to keep doing it long term.”
To break even on the cost of buying their van, they had to sell almost all their possessions to start their life from scratch, living in the back of their campervan.
To pay for everything, the couple continued to work full-time for the year until they fell in love with this minimalistic living.
“After the first year living in the van, we fell in love with the simple lifestyle, enjoyed weekends in Brighton by the sea, and wanted to be close to nature,” Keely said.
“We wanted to live simply and in touch with nature, so we quit our jobs and left London and started life on the road.
“We have lived in this van ‘Martha’ full time for over four years now, and she is our full-time home.
“We have taken her all around Europe and all the way across to Turkey.
“I cannot recall how many miles we had covered in the van, but what I found interesting was that after one year of full-time travel, we did fewer miles than we did the previous year commuting in our car from our flat in London.”
Before living in London, Keely and Philly lived in Australia and absolutely loved it. They explained how they decided to make the move and how they would not look back.
“We always wanted to come back to Australia as it has a special place in our hearts, being the first place we lived away from home,” Philly said.
“We also had a couple of thousand dollars in our bank account left from the last time we lived here that we kept in the hope it would fund a trip in the future or rent deposit if we moved here.
“Australia has been closed for the last few years due to COVID-19, but now that it had reopened it felt like the right time to come explore. We also had been itching for another building project.
“We realised renting a van was extortionate, and we knew we wanted to come as long as possible to get full cost value of the flights out here, so we applied for a six-month visa and decided to buy a van and convert it to enjoy the build process.
“Because we were going to be living and working in the van full time, we knew we would have very specific requirements, and the best way to do that was to build one custom to suit us rather than buy one that was already made.
“The goal was also that when we sell it, we will cover the cost of the build and end up breaking even rather than at a loss, which you would have if you rented a van.
“We put ‘Martha’ in storage and bought a new one for £3,637 ($7000) with its conversion costing us around £2078 ($4000), not including the fridge and power station.”
Living in a van in Melbourne was a completely different experience for them as compared to living in London.
“We had zero experiences of crime or angry locals; everyone was so laid back, and we felt safe at all times,” Keely said.
“It’s a great city and really easy to find parking in. We managed to finish the build within 30 days we had set ourselves and headed off into the outback.”
Although a simpler life, living in a van is not without its own challenges and hardships.
“The long distances and trying to work full time in the small van whilst enduring the extreme weather conditions has not been easy,” Philly said.
“The transition from our van ‘Martha’ to this smaller van was harder than we anticipated.
“As we had travelled in a small van before, we thought it would be fun, but it’s very different being on holiday in your twenties to both working full time in your thirties.
“We spend about 30-40 hours a week working on our videos each week, which means being very cramped up in a small space with 47 degrees of heat, which is not pleasant.
“Combined with long drives and terrible internet, it’s definitely been challenging. But because we knew this weather would only last for a few months, so we persevered to have the trip of a lifetime.”
Keely gives online maths tuition to students in the UK while both of them are working to build their YouTube Channel ‘Philly & Keely’ with an average of around 16k views a video.
They share their challenges and gratifications of travelling in a van through their channel. For two years they did not make any money through YouTube, but they have now started to make some revenue off of their videos.
“We are basically full-time on Youtube now, the first two years, we didn’t make any money, but this is the first year it’s started to create an income, but still nothing compared to our London salary.
“The first year in the van, we earned our London salary, which helped us save.
“For the next two years, we made 1/10th of what we made before, and now it’s probably about 1/6th, but we have minimal outgoings and can choose to travel slower or buy cheaper food if we are having a tight month.
“In the four years of not paying rent in London, we have probably saved over £60,000 on rent and bills.
“But we haven’t earned only a fraction of what we did before, so we probably have the same money at the end of the year, but we get to do all these cool adventures, so we feel like we have lived a lot more than we would before.
“Hopefully, as YouTube continues to grow, we can maybe even end up with more net positive at the end of the year, but that’s not why we make videos. We are happy to live with less and be conscious of our choices.
“One day, we would love to buy a little plot of land and live in a small home and grow our own veggies, the ultimate way to be connected to nature and live a simple life.”
ENDS
