…or how we got our tiny home on wheels

There it goes, all the talk about traveling, the dream of our very own tiny house. Bye bye dream, hello reality! We went ahead and bought an RV. It’s old, rusty, slow and the interior was probably cool sometime 30 years ago. So it’s everything we wanted – hello vanlife!

We spent 12 hours on trains, traveling all the way up to northern Germany to the city of Greifswald, to get the RV of our dreams, the corner piece to all our future adventures. At about 2 months old, this was Michel’s first big trip. The train rides went a lot smoother than we thought they would, only the elimination communication was a little difficult. It’s a lot harder to hold a baby over a toilet to do her/his business while you’re on a shaky running train.

When we arrived in Greifswald, we were picked up at the train station by the last living Viking, or at least the guy appeared to be. Heavy set, tattooed all over, a beard as long as a fox’s tale, wearing wooden shoes and a piece of wood pierced through his earlobe. People called him Beddong, which translates to concrete and he was the ex-boyfriend of Nadja, the girl who owned the RV.

After we managed to cramp all our stuff, which was a lot, considering that we brought a newborn as well as basic van life supplies for the RV ride back home, into Beddong’s little station wagon, we drove off to their house where the RV was parked. During the 20 minute car ride, Beddong turned out to not only have his own tattoo shop but also to be a very nice guy. So we also agreed on a quick appointment the next day, to get our first tattoo done.

After a short hello to Nadja, we could take a first look at what we came for. First impression: small, at least smaller than the measurements would suggest. Second impression: ungly! Compared to the all the vans, RVs, school busses and other tiny houses that we had seen on the Internet and that formed the basis of what we wanted to make out of this old thing, reality was brutal. Nonetheless, what we wanted was a solid engine and a rigid frame and to the inexperienced eye all that seemed to be there.

Sophie and I had already agreed before that we would buy the RV if we wouldn’t find any major damages and so we did! Later on, we discovered that, fortunately enough, we had bought a solid engine but a malicious gearbox and a really f*#$d up RV framework! So if you’re also planning to buy a mobile home and start your vanlife, check this out first.

We stayed there for the night, sleeping in our new home for the first time, got our tattoos done the next day and went on the 3-day ride home! Off to a new start, the art of turning this thing into what we had imagined, throwing away our ideas, rethinking everything and to eventually be happy with how it turned out. Continue here, to see what we had gotten into