My Mobile Office Plan - Chasing the sun!

In between my calls on Skype (I'm a homeopath) I spend my time fantasising about living in a van (something that other people might use an an insult!). As my practice has evolved over the past few years, I have found myself able to do it from anywhere... all I need is a laptop & an internet connection.

In 2013 I was in London, 2014 in Ireland, then since the start of 2015 I've been in Birmingham. I get some people that come to see me in person, but 95% + are on Skype or other video calling software. I love sunny weather, but I never seem to get very much. It's also a bit lonely sitting in a room all week talking to my laptop. So, the plan was - buy or build a campervan & practice on the road for a few days or weeks at a time. I could see 3 or 4 patients a day, & have the rest of the time for exploring. I started looking, Obviously the VW camper would be my first choice, but they are massively over-priced now, and a bit old & fragile (i.e I couldn't just hop in & blast off to the South of France...I'd spend most of the journey on a tow-truck!)

I even test drove one of these:

Advantages: Massive interior, cheap, reliable mechanically
Disadvantages: Massive, ugly-as-hell, rusty body, noisy & crude, they'd not have the spare parts if I broke down outside the UK

My next plan was one of these:

Smart, reliable, fixable outside the UK, not too big.
I was planning an interior something like this:

What stopped me this time was...cost. The van alone was £6-8000, then probably another £4000+ for the interior. It seemed too much.

Then I had a brainwave .... I bought one of these:

In this exact colour (!), for £1200. 5 seats, massive amounts of space (you can fit a pallet in the back with the back seats folded), 60 mpg from the diesel engine. I was in love!

Then I bought one of these for the back (£1700):

It was genius. It folds away in the boot when not in use so I can still carry 5 passengers. Then you stop, set it up & you have a mini camper in 5 minutes! So I had myself a fantastic little camper for around £3000. I've enjoyed getting out & about in it this year, but it doesn't really meet my needs as a mobile office (dammit). It's not exactly 'stealthy' - you have to spend time when you park-up turning it from a car to a camper/office, it's not very private...you're in plain view - you couldn't exactly pull over for a little siesta in the back if you were on a long journey. It has no heater, so it can be quite cold (my last camp was in October & it wasn't very comfortable!). Finally, it's a bit small when you're sitting at the table. It's usable for a meal, to read a book etc...but you wouldn't want to sit there for 3 or 4 hours. So....I think I need to plan a bigger van!

I'll talk about my plans for 2017 in the next post.