We sold everything for full time overland

(First published in Issue 9, June 2023) We are Kerry and Craig, both from the United Kingdom. Kerry is originally from the suburbs of Manchester and Craig is from Bristol. We met several years ago atop a mountain in Wales, a story for another time. We both share a passion for nature, being outdoors and enjoying adventures and it turns out we were both living locally to each other in Essex at the time.

Fast forward almost 8 years and we are currently traveling in our self built, with a little help, 4x4 overland truck. We were both busy people, often working two jobs, sometimes even three. Craig worked at a brewery and ran his own business, while Kerry was a yoga teacher, project manager and virtual assistant. Life was becoming more and more stressful and beginning to impact our mental and physical health. Craig developed a heart condition along with regular migraines and Kerry was losing her hair. We needed to get off the train.

In 2019 we found the vanlife movement and that was when we decided to build Penelope, converted from an ex Army Leyland DAF T244 into the expedition truck and home we have today.

With zero experience of mechanics, electrics, carpentry, gas, or plumbing, we set ourselves a budget and started to get to work, completing about 70 percent of the build ourselves while continuing our two or three jobs.

It is actually crazy when we look back and see what we achieved in the space of two years.

To enable us to break free, we sold our house, all our possessions, settled our debts and in 2022 we hit the road. This was an easy task for Kerry but not so much for me, Craig. I struggled with breaking free and not having the security of a house to fall back on if something were to go wrong. It was a big leap, but one that I am so glad we made the decision to take, as it has been life changing.

A rough plan was made and a vague time schedule. First was to get the truck out of the UK and into Europe. First stop was the Netherlands.

Our journey through most of Europe would be pretty swift, as due to Brexit we are restricted to 90 days. So we hopped through Germany, Austria and Italy and caught the ferry to Greece, where we spent a good month traveling the coastline all the way around to Turkey.

We had originally planned to get a 1 year temporary residency for Turkey, the Ikamet, as it is such a big country and there is so much to do and see.

Sadly this fell through and our application was rejected owing to where and when we applied, so our plans went back to the drawing board and we headed to Cyprus for a few months to allow Turkey to warm up. Cyprus has been a great place to come and rest for a while. We have been here almost two months and have traversed most of the island. We then traveled back up through Turkey, spending a week in the incredible Cappadocia, witnessing two glorious mornings of the famous hot air balloons over Love Valley before the snow set in. It is a truly magical place.

We traveled along the Black Sea coast before crossing into Georgia, which we almost immediately fell in love with. After spending a few days in Batumi to reset we ventured out into the remote villages of rural Georgia which is just something else, with pigs, cows and chickens roaming free in the streets, warm smiles and friendly faces everywhere. It is just a whole different vibe and way of life and the landscape is simply stunning. Now in Armenia, which feels like everything we loved about Georgia amplified.

This is the furthest east we will go in the truck. We intend to travel to Azerbaijan by plane, then we will return to the truck and head west again via the south of Turkey to northern Iraq. After that we will make another stop in Cyprus and then head over to Tunisia before returning to the UK next year to prepare for our next adventure.

People always ask us how we are funding such a trip. It is not easy as we are not rich and we do not have trust funds. We had some money left from the sale of our house, but we have not needed to touch it yet. Kerry is very resourceful and has found a way to make money as we travel, which means our emergency fund remains intact. She manages a few social media accounts for corporate clients and does some virtual assistant work for various clients in the UK, spending a few hours a day completing her work.

Me, Craig, I plan all the routes, maintain the truck, keep our Polarsteps and Patreon updated and also make sure Kerry has all the data, power and entertainment she needs.

We are environmentally minded, always leaving the beautiful places we stop cleaner than when we arrived. We have been doing a lot of beach cleans since Italy and the further east we traveled the worse they got.

Some places we could not even scratch the surface and it breaks our hearts to see so much litter on the land, coast and in the sea. Our mission going forward is to try and highlight this problem and get on board with some charities.

Living in a space measuring roughly 2.4 x 5.5 meters (about 8 x 18 feet) has its challenges. This is actually a pretty big rig compared to some, but it has taught us that we really need very little in terms of stuff. What truly makes us happy is being together and exploring.

We are pleased to report that Craig’s heart condition has gone and Kerry is no longer losing her hair. There are no more migraines and we sleep better than we ever have.

We have met some incredible people along the way, young and old, solo travelers and whole families, all of whom have enriched our journey. It remains the best decision we have ever made in our lives together.