From Barcelona with love – After 3 months of work on the truck Cris, Rita and their dog Tahir are finally on the road with no end in sight.
We are Cris, Rita and our dog Tahïr. We are from Barcelona and we’ve been sharing adventures for the past 7 years.
Rita is 30 years old, child teacher and pedagogue. She loves to read and write stories and her dream is having a travelling bookstore.
Cris is 31 years old, graduated in graphic design and windsurf instructor. She loves drawing and her passion is the sea.
A year ago we decided to take some time off to travel. We chose this way to travel because of the freedom to go wherever we want and have our house anywhere. After a year of planning we left our house and our jobs in the city to start this new adventure.
We spent 6 months looking for our new house on wheels, we sold the van that we had, a small Mercedes Benz Vito, and finally we found La Lata. Although it cost more money than expected and required a new driving license, it had the enough space to feel home and also comfortable for our dog. Even though it has its limitations such as fuel consumption and size, it is the perfect home.
We bought it ready by its previous owner who works doing camper conversions. We love its unique design that we have adapted and completed.
We would like to improve the shower space to avoid some water leaks. We would also like to communicate the cabin with the living space.
3 months.
Everyone is very happy for us, some of them are planning to visit us during the trip and others are waiting for us to come back to buy the truck. As usual, they care about us but they support us in all the decisions.
It’s only been a month since we’ve been on the road, although we’ve seen very nice places in Spain, for sure the best is yet to come. We want to travel around Europe and we are especially excited about Scandinavia and the Balkans. Our next stop is Portugal.
You need a truck license (more than 3.5 T). It’s not difficult to drive it but we have to bear in mind the restrictions for trucks and the speed limitation. That’s why we have a special GPS for trucks and motorhomes. On mountain roads we have to slow down but we have no problems in general,we have always reached the location! Another challenge is driving on windy days but we just have to do it with caution.
We have a fairly large fridge, and a good gas stove. We don’t have many utensils, but we haveeverything we need to make delicious meals. We love cooking with the pressure cooker so we cansave gas at the same time that the truck is getting heated.
We can discover new places and wake up facing the most beautiful views. But also it makes you realise what we really need for living, saving resources (water, gas, electricity) and then value the comforts we have. The most valuable thing is to get to enjoy time.
At the moment we are living from saved money from years of work. Cris is a graphic designer and can do design and illustration work with the computer as a freelance. Also, if we would need, we could look for temporary jobs somewhere
We don’t recommend this kind of vehicle if you only want to go out on weekends or short holidays. But it’s ideal to live and travel comfortably for long periods. The fuel consumption is high but in the end its price is similar to a cheap flat rent in the city. We would recommend not to be afraid of the dimensions (in the end it is like a motorhome), to carry a special gps for big vehicles, and above all to travel without hurry.
We do everything we would do at home (sleep, clean, cook …). We also visit the places where we are and take long walks with the dog. During the spare time (especially at night) everyone has their hobbies: reading, playing the guitar, drawing, dancing, playing cards.. We are also preparing a blog with stories inspired by our trip.
At the moment we have a year for our first trip. Then we will probably go back to work in Barcelona and start planning our next trip.