Couples Discovered Living In A Van For Six Years

A couple identified as Kate and Steve Kennedy have disclosed that they quit their jobs and bought a £5,000 camper van that they decided to live in.

In 2017, they quit their jobs and left their rented apartment  in Leeds, West Yorkshire, to travel the world in their new van.

Kate had  worked as a  wedding planner and Steve as a small business owner.

In six years, they  visited Turkey, Greece, Italy and Slovenia.

Kate said: “Ever since I was little, I hated the idea of doing work full-time and only taking a couple of weeks a year to travel.

“Being able to travel was a key part of growing up for me – friends joked that I was always on holiday.

“I knew I wanted more than just an office job, so when I found myself working in the confines of four walls, at a desk, I hated it.”

She says the “straw that broke the camel’s back” came in February 2017, when her request for two weeks’ annual leave was denied.

She added,  “I already wasn’t living the life that I wanted. But not being able to go on holiday was the tipping point for me.

“I saw myself working in a boring office job until I was 60 – before retiring and spending the last few decades of my life seeing everything I’d wanted to see since I was in my twenties.

“I didn’t want that. I wanted to live my life in the here and now.

“From there, I knew I had to take charge of my own time and my own life. I wanted to start a wedding planning business, work flexible hours and, most importantly, spend my time travelling.”

Before they bought their van, they had rented their vehicle for  just £1 and  they drove the distance from Rome to London, seeing sights like Lake Garda, the Stelvio Pass and Lake Annecy along the way.

After returning home, Kate and Steve immediately decided they wanted to buy a campervan of their own so they could travel around Europe while on annual leave.

Steve said, “We couldn’t wait – we went straight to Inverness and bought our first campervan for £5,000.

“We definitely didn’t play our cards close to our chest or try to haggle – we bought it straight away, and we’ve been on the road ever since.”

Steve, who’s owned his own business since December 2020, already worked flexible hours.

But Kate, who worked as an events manager at the time, found her job “rigid, boring” and said she was “on the grind constantly.”

They spent summer and winter holidays in their £5,000 campervan – travelling to countries like Italy, Slovenia and Turkey.

Steve noted: “We were still only travelling in the campervan for holidays. Pre-pandemic, remote working was practically unheard of.

“We’d do six-to-eight weeks at a time, and the only thing we’d need to pay for is food, leisure – and the occasional ferry ride.”

During the covid 19 wave,  the couple decided to rent out their campervan to staycationers in the UK.

They weren’t able to travel in it at all throughout the pandemic until December 2021 – when they went to Tarifa, Spain.

They purchased a new, larger campervan for £25,000, and after renovations, the pair estimate their van is now worth £60,000.

The couple now work entirely remotely from their campervan and work eight-hour days in “irregular blocks” throughout the day.

Kate said,  “We love living in the van – it’s small so incredibly easy to tidy, cheap to heat and we can go wherever we want.

“We tend to go to tiny, off-grid resorts in places like Kos, Santorini and St Mauritz – and we love our snow sports in the winter.