A WOMAN claims that her bosses rejected her annual leave request, so she quit to travel the world in a campervan.
Kate and Steve Kennedy, 30 and 45, fell in love with their campervan lifestyle after their first driving holiday – a one-week trip from London to Rome.
Quit work, buy campervan, go travel the worldSWNS
Six years on, the couple have visited Turkey, Greece, Italy and Slovenia and love living on their own termsSWNS
Renting the vehicle for just £1, they took in sights such as Lake Garda, the Stelvio Pass and Lake Annecy.
The pair knew pretty quickly that they wanted to buy a campervan of their own, and invested £5k so they could travel around Europe while on annual leave.
But when Kate’s two-week annual holiday request from her events management job was denied for unknown reasons – it was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.
Kate, from Leeds, revealed: “I already wasn’t living the life I wanted. 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 twenties.
“I didn’t want that. I wanted to live my life in the here and now.”
Steve, the founder of Roamer Batteries, said: “We couldn’t wait – we went straight to Inverness and bought our first campervan for £5,000.
“We definitely didn’t play our cards close to our chest or try to haggle – we bought it straight away, and we’ve been on the road ever since.”
Steve and Kate eventually upgraded their campervan, splashing out £25,000 on a new model – but after some renovations, the pair estimate their van is now worth around £60,000.
Covid put the brakes on their travel plans in 2021, but the couple hit on the clever idea of renting out their van to UK staycationers,
They weren’t able to hit the road again until December 2021 – when they went to Tarifa, Spain.
Six years on, they have visited Turkey, Greece, Italy and Slovenia and love living on their own terms – often starting work at 4am and working their own hours.
Kate added: “We love living in the van – it’s small, so incredibly easy to tidy, cheap to heat, and we can go wherever we want.
“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.
Now, the couple are currently planning on touring North Africa in the van – visiting places like Morocco.
Plus, a woman converted a Land Rover into a luxury off-road motorhome with an indoor shower.
They bought a £5k camper and went on dozens of holidays during annual leaveSWNS Read More