Christie and Dom are traveling in their Mercedes 612d. Dom is 6 foot 4, so he needs a big van – and he found one.
We are Christie and Dom, aged 27 from South London. Back in 2011 we traveled Australia in a 1980’s Toyota Hiace and loved the freedom of being in a van.
We then had an idea to do it again in Europe a couple of years ago and so have been saving and searching the internet until we found our dream van, Magnus the Mercedes 612d.
Dom is 6 foot 4 so a high van was important to us so that he could live comfortably inside. Having had a smaller van before, living space was more important for us this time round!
Not exactly a barrier, but we realized once we had fallen in love with the van that you need a HGV licence. Luckily Dom has one of those through his work and Christie plans on taking the test in the future.
The van is originally from Germany which means it’s left hand drive, this can make it difficult driving in the U.K but does mean it’s perfect for Europe.
The van had already been converted when we bought it but with the help of family and friends we made some changes to the interior to make it more our style.
We are very happy with the space in the Mercedes 612d as it doesn’t feel cramped. The only thing we miss is a bath!
We worked on the van for three months before we started our trip.
The things we love the most are always having our own bed everywhere we go, having the freedom to go wherever we want, whenever we want and not being restricted to go via organized tours or public transport.
We have travelled to 17 countries so far (France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro and Albania) Norway has been our favorite, the scenery especially in the Lofoten Islands is like nothing we have seen before.
Yes, we have met lots of lovely fellow vanlifers along the way.
People with all kinds of vehicles and from various countries, having a van in common is a great conversation starter, and we love having a look at other people’s vans.
Occasionally we do get stressed or annoyed if things don’t go to plan, for example, with breakdowns and repairs, however we always try to keep in mind that we are incredibly lucky to be travelling at all.
We would like to add a water filter tap, now we are in less developed countries, drinking water is not as readily available so it would be great if we could drink the water from our tanks.
We’d also love to organise our garage, it’s quite a mess and impossible to find anything!
We would love a 4×4 Mercedes Sprinter campervan so we could get to some amazing remote wild camp spots.
We are currently not working.
