1. The weekend hire that gave us certainty
A hired campervan, the last weekend of summer and the trip that made us certain.
We're Kate and Charlie — mid-50s, one anxious dog called Huffle, one fifteen-year-old campervan called Brigitte, and absolutely learning as we go. Whether you have a campervan or a motorhome, if you're new to this or just thinking about it, come with us. New here? Start with our About page.
Having talked for ages about getting a van and researching a lot, we had test driven a few vans, fallen in love with the idea, put a deposit down on one and then had a serious word with ourselves. We knew we needed to try out how it felt to travel and exist in a campervan. We decided renting one for a weekend was a good start. We used Goboony which is a really good camper van rental app. It was August bank holiday we by some amazing bit of luck found a Peugeot Boxer campervan available to hire close to where we live in Cornwall. Available on a bank holiday weekend - the odds were not in our favour, but there it was.
We picked it up and it felt enormous. We drove it slowly and carefully down classic Cornish lanes - the narrow, high-hedged, wing-mirror-threatening kind that require a particular combination of confidence and fingers crossed - to a campsite overlooking Prussia Cove on the west Cornish coast. We had been given the best pitch on a small site, overlooking the sea. We still don't quite know how we got so lucky.
It was the last weekend of summer. The sky was blue and cloudless, the sun shone brightly both days. The sea was a perfect temperature - we walked and swam to cool off and came back to snooze with the barn doors flung open, and did very little else. The sunsets were extraordinary. The kind you photograph endlessly and then put your phone away because you know the photograph will never do it justice.
We cooked outside on a little barbecue - veggie skewers with couscous and a harissa dressing and a couple of cold beers. After dinner we put some logs on the bbq and sat round the fire with mugs of Pukka Night Time tea, and felt something that is difficult to name precisely but felt very much like the opposite of everything we had been carrying. I guess it was peaceful.
I had lost my mum only a month before. I was exhausted in a way that goes deeper than tired. Being somewhere so beautiful, moving at a lovely slow pace, spending the days in the sun - dozing after lunch with the barn doors open and nowhere to be - did something that nothing else had managed to do. It didn't fix anything. But it made space for something that felt like calm.
This is what we had been looking for without quite knowing we were looking for it. Not an adventure. Not an achievement. Just the feeling of of slowing down and stopping somewhere worth stopping.
We got out a notebook - naturally - and wrote down everything we would want in our own campervan, and everything we would do differently with this particular conversion if it were ours. That list became the brief for our search. We drove home and ramped up the research considerably.
What we learned:
Hire before you buy. One weekend in someone else's van will tell you more than six months of YouTube research. You will know immediately whether this is for you, what layout works, what you cannot live without and what you thought you needed but don't.
Daydream vs reality
Daydream: A perfect sun-drenched Cornish weekend in a van that feels immediately like home.
Reality: A sun-drenched Cornish weekend in a van that felt enormous for approximately 10 minutes and then felt exactly right. The daydream was accurate. That almost never happens.
Daydream: We would hire a van, enjoy it, and go home sensibly resolved to buy one at some point.
Reality: We came home, opened a notebook, made a list, and began researching vans with a focus that can only be described as slightly unhinged.
Things from this trip
These are the things that made the weekend what it was:
The campfire evening
Pukka Night Time tea Our campfire drink. We drink it on every trip now. [affiliate]
Cast iron griddle pan for the barbecue For those veggie skewers. Works on a van hob too. [affiliate]
Autotrader campervan search Where our serious search began the morning after we got home. [affiliate ]
Park4Night app How to find spots like Prussia Cove in Cornwall — and everything that followed. [affiliate ]
Kate, Charlie, Huffle & Brigitte
Kettle & Keys — comfort, wherever you park up.
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