Couple quit jobs to live and work in £25k campervan: 'It's easy to tidy, cheap to heat and we can go wherever we want'
A woman who was denied her annual leave request quit her job and bought a £25,000 campervan to travel the world with her husband.
Kate Kennedy, 30, first fell in love with campervanning when she and her husband Steve Kennedy, 45, went on a one-week trip from London to Rome.
They then bought a £5,000 campervan and went on dozens of driving holidays during their annual leave.
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“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,” Kate says.
“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.”
In 2017, when Kate requested two weeks of annual leave and it was denied without a reason, she says this was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and subsequently quit her job.
“I already wasn’t living the life that I wanted,” Kate adds. “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 20s.
“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.”
Read more: Couple quit rat race to live in a motorhome and save £1000 a month
Steve followed suit and also quit his job in 2017 and, in the six years since, the pair saved for their upgraded £25,000 campervan and have travelled to Turkey, Greece, Italy and Slovenia, among other places.
As Kate is a wedding planner and Steve runs small business Roamer Batteries, they can both work remotely and flexible hours, sometimes starting work as early as 4am.
“We love living in the van – it’s small so incredibly easy to tidy, cheap to heat and we can go wherever we want,” Kate says, adding that they estimate the van is now worth more than £60,000 after renovations.
“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.
Read more: Turning a camper van into a roaming office transformed this man's mental health
“Our van isn’t just a vehicle to get from one place to the next - it’s our home. We’ve invested in it just like anyone would invest in a house. Our lives are here.”
Kate and Steve are planning a tour of North Africa in the van next, with Morocco first on their list.
Watch: The ultimate bucket list destinations, according to a blogger who travels for a living
