Europe Roadtrip Week One
And we are off! So excited to be back in Betsy our campervan and back on the road!
We have put together a youtube video (of which we will try to keep up to date throughout our roadtrip) of Week one on the road.
Already we are having a ball and have met some AMAZING new friends. We worldschool our Miss 10 on the road and ensure there are both workbooks, online resources and real life experiences. Social interaction with all age groups is aslo important. We totally exceeded this on Week One!
Before we got going, we had Betsy tuned, new batteries (winter is harsh here), tyres checked and purchased some new toys (more on that later). Got our Data sorted for laptops phone ect, see our blog post here.
Where did we go
Left Rochford, Essex, England on 15th May and headed North West over the top of the M25 (the dreaded M25! Ring road around London, both traffic volume and don’t go inside it with older diesel vehicles or it’s 100 pound a day.
May 15 – 16
We arrived at our Worldschooling friends, Sarah and her daughter T (also known as VeedubAdventures) who currently live on a Narrowboat in the 
Oxford area. 
Lots of laughter, maybe a few (?) drinks and tales of travels, there is no surprise we all had a ball here.
These worldschooling relationships are very special to us. We always go out of our way to see as many other travelling families as possible.
Leaving Oxford later in the day we headed to Malvern, a beautiful town where we stayed at Cowleigh Road Wild Camp. For all our overnight stays with GPS locations see our page UK & Europe 2018 – Where we Stayed.
May 17 – 19
Another worldschooling family, this time in Wales, The Wheelers on the Bus, a beautiful family who have 
settled in Mid Wales in a Yurt! We really
enjoyed our time with The Wheelers family and was lucky enough to 
experience and assist with taking a hen from farm to dinner table. Being sustainable living lovers this was a wonderful opportunity. To show Miss B (animal lover +) everyone and thing plays a part on a working farm.
The mums went for a magical 7.8km run up in the hills which truly felt like we were totally alone with only the hills, birds, lake and sunshine (and my huffing and puffing lol) Great preparation for Ben Nevis coming up soon!
Conversations about travel, climbing trees, holding chooks, a horse riding lesson for Miss B, running around with kids and breathing fresh Welsh mountain air we all felt sad to leave! The best bit about Worldschoolers is you never know where you will meet next!
Onward we go…
Leaving Mid Wales and passing through some of the most beautiful Welsh countryside, no words can even explain. So glad we picked May which is apparently the best chance of great weather.
We headed to the Llyn Peninsula where we stopped on the water at Penmon. Met some lovely new friends and a chin wag to late in the evening (hard to imagine I know!) tales of travels, life and how fantastic wild camping is, was flowing.
May 20
A quick stop in at an antique fair in Beaumaris, we were on the road again and headed to the loonnngggest name town 
in the world, LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH. No, I am not kidding, that is the name! These photos were at the train station which is real and in operation.
Arriving at Llandudno, famous for the traditional Punch & Judy puppet show, which unfortunately was not on that day. A quick walk out on the longest pier in Wales which was full of weekend activity.
May 21
Stayed at Paddock Way, Eccleston very close to Chester. What a great wild camp, on the river. Very popular with locals and dogs being walked. People training for the upcoming triathlon, brrrrr, take my hat off to them!
Looked forward to stopping in Chester and have a look around. Arriving in Chester parking was a nightmare. A couple of loops around town and we were off towards Windermere, the Lakes District.
On the Road
Wales is equally as expensive as England. Water and toilets are hard to come by and all Wild Camping spots have 
literally minimal to no facilities. Very different on the mainland. Camp sites are ridiculous in price and not sustainable every night. Especially, when doing a trip as long as we are doing. Some people prefer them, its just not our thing. We are working on a every fourth night in a camp ground with facilities.
It is important to be self contained when long term roadtripping. To have a toilet and shower and the old FAB as backup (Baby wipe shower – Face, underArms and Bum quick shower in between) makes roadtripping easier.
We also have a portable pressure solar shower (see our list of items taken). If the weather is warm this is fantastic. It is so good we took one home to Australia with us last year and love it! On arriving this year we bought another one.
What did we take
If you are interested in what we took, electronics, kitchen and all things we needed for the duration of our roadtrip click here.
We did a three and half month roadtrip in 2017 in South Europe and 5 months 2018 in Northern Europe we were pretty confident in what we would need. Also, what worked and what we would not bother taking again.
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More to follow next week as we continue our travels towards Scotland and new adventures….
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