"Doorgewinterde avonturiers": Met een 35 jaar oud VW T3-busje door Europa

You often hear about this special “camper lifestyle”. What does travelling mean to you?

We’re adventurers through and through. For us, travelling means discovering places we haven't been to yet and seeing things that we aren’t familiar with. That's why we’re always on the road quite quickly and usually don't stay anywhere longer than 3 days. Therefore, a camper is the perfect solution for us. It allows us to come and go as we please, to be independent and to get from A to B relatively quickly. When we see a nice beach, we can stop and jump in the sea. If we feel like it, we can drive off road and wake up to a mountain panorama – that's just priceless!

How detailed are your plans for your trips? Or do you sometimes just drive off and see where you end up?

When we have a big holiday coming up, we usually plan a rough itinerary or decide on places we absolutely want to see, but we never book campsites in advance. Often we just drive in the right direction and then look at where we want to spend the night when we get there. If there’s a campsite nearby, we check it out and book a night if we want to. If there isn’t one there, we move on. In principle, it’s possible for us to get by for one or two days without a campsite, which we definitely take advantage of. Then we enjoy being completely alone somewhere in nature. Roughly speaking, we probably spend 60% of our nights at campsites and 40% as wild campers.

Where have your trips taken you so far and how often are you on the road?

As we don’t have a permanent heating system, we rely on it being 10-30 degrees outside and therefore mainly travel with the camper from April to October. Every year, we go on at least one longer camping holiday, which we decide on relatively early in the year. However, we always go on smaller trips in between and we also use the weekends as much as possible.

So far we have travelled to the following places with our Smurf: •    Southern France (Camargue - Cote d'Azur) •    Northern France (Normandy and Brittany) •    Fehmarn (“Midsummer Bulli Festival”) •    Croatia (from Rijeka to Dubrovnik) •    Czech Republic (Prague) •    Belgium (“Le Bug Show”, Spa) •    Italy (Lake Maggiore, Lake Garda, Adriatic Coast, Riviera Coast, Rome, Amalfi Coast, Tuscany) •    Austria (Salzburg state)