Nice to meet you!
… and welcome to our website!
We are a Polish-French family of 4 (2 adults, 1 baby, 1 cat) that loves travelling, hiking, discovering places, different cultures and food. We are based in the UK currently and progressively becoming aliens to the classic sedentary lifestyle. So we have decided to move towards a more nomadic lifestyle, buying a 4×4 van to give us the opportunity to adventure everywhere our heart leads us.
We met in 2018 and have been travelling together since then. We bought our van, a 1994 Mitsubishi Delica in February 2020 to extend our range of possibilities… Just a month before the COVID pandemic really kicked off… For about a year, we still managed to go around when possible and tested our rig. We have identified what we really need and plan to turn it into an off-road off-grid all-terrain camper van starting spring 2021.
Why this website?
We want to live our life to the fullest every day with our daughter while walking the world. It is priceless. Vanellylife has come up as a way for us to share with you not only our experience but also useful guides, tips and accurate information about our main drivers:
- travelling (macro/ global): discovering the world, hiking and spending as much time as possible outdoors,
- travelling (micro/ local): ideas and inspirations for weekends and days out,
- building an awesome 4×4 camper van for a 3 members (+1!) family home and how to keep it in a good shape,
- everyday challenges and struggles of a multicultural family, and treats!
We are not British, not journalists and not professional bloggers. But we write about what we love doing and how we enjoy the best thing that this world offers for free and that we need to preserve: its amazing nature.
Meet the team!
Nelly
She is the CEO of our project and adventure. Despite her (very) young age, she’s born a real inspirational leader. She is making us surpassing ourselves every day to move towards our common goal!
Anna
Currently a happy full-time mummy. At some point would like to find a little place with big land and become a beekeeper, currently trying to figure out how to incorporate/ install a few beehives on the van. England is the 8th country she lives in. She has worked for many years in the travel industry and although visited lots of countries, feels still unsettled and longs for more. Constantly planning new adventures, looking for amazing walking routes, cheap flights or theatre tickets. Anna likes good food, wine and honey.
Thierry
He is a man with a lot of interests, your typical one-man orchestra. He is a chartered mechanical engineer with already long experience in the aerospace industry in project, quality and program management, and as a lead auditor. In his spare time, he likes to strip classic cars to bare metal and rebuild them to a concourse condition, including designing missing parts, welding, painting, reworking electrics. He is also at ease with masonry, stone dressing, home electrics, plumbing, drywall, insulation,… Yep… Currently converting our sturdy Mitsubishi Delica into a perfect home on wheels. As a Frenchman from Brittany, he loves good food, bread, butter and can prepare the best crêpes on Earth.
Merlin
He is our mascot. He has been travelling a fair bit already and is pretty easy-going as long as there is some food at the end of the journey 😉
Our story
The love of being outdoors, walking and discovering countries connected us in 2018. Encouraged by some work colleagues and friends to sign for a charity event called The Cateran Yomp – a military term for a long-distance march. It is the biggest, toughest event of its kind, taking place in the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland.
Could you imagine more romantic scenery than walking 54 miles in 24 hours together?
Since then we have been walking over a thousand miles enjoying breathtaking views along the Fishermen’s Trail in Portugal, unique levadas in Madeira, stunning scenery of the Accursed Mountains of Albania. We have been backpacking and hiking in the Georgian Caucasus and through exotic paths and trails in Brasil. And between our big trips, while dreaming about all possible destinations, we were touring England in a 1975 MGB GT full of camping gear.
In 2020, we have met our Mitsubishi Delica 4×4 van and planned to explore the UK first and then mainland Europe. With the pandemic, we had no choice but to really slow down on planning. Instead, we have focused on local activities (we still managed to explore Wales, England and travel to France when possible!).
And finally, life decided to give us the best gift ever: our beloved daughter.
Being trapped during the lockdown, working from home, staying at home, made us fully aware of what really matters in life. That’s what we want to focus on. We aim to move out of the classic 9 to 5 scheme, gain more flexibility, reduce our footprint and enjoy time as a family, travelling in our van and showing the world to our daughter.