3. The day we said yes: buying our first campervan
The phone call on the morning of a memorial service, a forecourt visit in our best clothes, a first night that involved clowns in boxing gloves, and where are we actually going to keep the van?
We're Kate and Charlie — mid-fifties, one anxious dog called Huffle, one fifteen-year-old Peugeot Boxer campervan called Brigitte, and absolutely learning as we go. Whether you have a campervan or a motorhome, if you're new to this or thinking about it, come with us.
IN A HURRY? THE SHORT VERSION | Key things to know before you collect your first campervan or motorhome:
(1) Video every single moment of the handover — you will not remember it all and you will need it later.
(2) Take the simplest food possible for your first night.
(3) Sort your van storage before you collect it, not after.
(4) Buy from a dealer who makes you feel like a person, not an inconvenience.
(5) The bed will be bigger than you expect and making it the first time will be chaotic. You will be fine.
The phone call - on the morning of my mum's memorial
Two months after our hired van weekend in Cornwall, Charlie's phone rang. It was the team at Somerset Motorhomes. A Peugeot Boxer Autocruise had come in that morning — brand new to them, twenty-seven thousand miles on the clock, pristine condition. The layout we had been looking for. The right price. Would we like a video before they listed it? Absolutely!
We watched the video and smiled.
It was the morning of my mum's memorial service. The day ended up being everything a memorial should be — full of love and laughter and the particular bittersweet quality of celebrating someone extraordinary while missing them completely. We were feeling devastated and, somehow, uplifted. The kind of day that makes you want to do something that matters.
We took a slight detour to Somerset on the way home to Cornwall.
Standing in that forecourt, still in our memorial clothes, still full of the day's emotions, we made what felt like a slightly reckless, definitely exciting, entirely correct decision. Life felt short and precious. We said yes to the van.
Running your own business for seven years does not leave you flush. But some decisions do not wait for the sensible moment. This was one of them.
The team at Somerset Motorhomes could not have been more different from the folded-arms dealer we had encountered earlier in our search. They were warm, knowledgeable and genuinely interested in matching us with the right van. They understood what we wanted. They were, in the best sense, human.
What we learned: Buy from a dealer who treats you like a person. The attitude you encounter before the sale tells you everything about how they will treat you afterwards. Somerset Motorhomes booked us into a nearby campsite for our first night so we could try everything with support close by, and invited us back the next day with any questions. That kind of service matters enormously when you are brand new to campervanning or motorhoming.
The handover - video everything
A month later we collected the van. We arrived at Taunton station on the train from Truro - Huffle the dog on a lap, three enormous bags of bedding, food and camping kit between us. We must have been quite a sight. One of the Somerset Motorhomes team came to collect us from the station, which was a kindness we had not expected.
The handover was thorough. Genuinely, impressively thorough. Every system explained, every switch demonstrated, every quirk pointed out. How to get the water heater working. How to switch between mains and battery power. Where the stopcock is. How the heating works. What the error codes mean. It was an enormous amount of information delivered in a relatively short time to two people who were trying to absorb it all while simultaneously trying not to look as clueless as they felt.
We nodded a great deal. We understood perhaps half of it.
This is the single most important piece of advice we can give anyone collecting their first campervan or motorhome: video the handover. Every single part of it. Not because you will watch it all back immediately - but because at 10pm on your second night somewhere without a signal, when the heating has done something unexpected, you will be profoundly grateful that you pressed record.
Put the videos in a folder on your phone labelled with the van model. Refer back to them constantly for the first few months. We still do.
What we learned: Video the handover. All of it. Your future self, in a field somewhere in the dark, will thank you.
Night one - nervous, proud, alive
Somerset Motorhomes booked us into a campsite a few miles from their site for our first night - part of their brilliant service for new buyers. Close enough that someone was on the phone if we needed them. Far enough that it felt real.
We took simple food. Fresh pasta, a jar of sauce, a bottle of beer each. The kind of dinner that requires almost no cooking and leaves almost no washing up, which was exactly right for a night when we were still discovering which switch did what.
It was October and getting dark by six. There was a definite chill in the air. Making the bed took a considerable amount of time and produced a considerable amount of comedy. Two people in a small space, neither of whom had made this particular bed before, bumping into each other, apologising, figuring out which way the cushions went and where the pillows lived. How on earth you put a fitted sheet on the sofa cushions. We felt like uncoordinated clowns wearing boxing gloves.
The bed, when we finally made it, was genuinely big. Superking size - bigger than the one at home. We slept well. We woke up alive, the gas hadn’t leaked over night and we felt, disproportionately, like heroes. We drove Brigitte home to Cornwall the next morning feeling utterly delighted with ourselves (she didn’t have a name at this point. Just ‘the van’)
What we learned: Take the simplest food possible for your first van night - whether you are in a campervan or a motorhome. This is not the moment for ambitious cooking. Save that for when you know where everything is and the novelty of flicking lights on and off has worn off. Pasta and a jar of sauce felt like the correct first van dinner.
Hang on…where will we store the van?
We do not have off-street parking. Parking a large campervan on a residential street in Cornwall is not something our neighbours would have welcomed. It had not crossed our minds to think about this before we bought the van. It crossed our minds urgently afterwards.
We found a secure local storage facility charging fifty pounds a month. Alarmed, gated, CCTV. It gave us complete peace of mind and we have used it ever since. If you are buying a campervan or motorhome and do not have an obvious place to keep it, it’s wise to research where you can store it before you commit to buying.
There are more options than you might think — dedicated storage facilities, people who rent out their driveways, farm storage. We have written a full guide to van storage options, costs and what to look for. [LINK — click here for our full guide to van storage]
What we learned: Research van storage before you collect the van. Fifty pounds a month for a secure facility is genuinely worth it. But there are also people who rent out their drives — this is worth investigating as a cheaper alternative.
What's next
This was our second experience of van life — the first being the magical hired weekend at Prussia Cove that started all of this. After collecting our lovely van we did several local trips through the autumn and winter, discovering what we actually needed, what we could live without, and how to make the bed in under five minutes. That story — including the 47mph winds, the Christmas with tractors, and the leisure battery situation — is in the next couple of posts.
Kate, Charlie, Huffle & Brigitte
Kettle & Keys
comfort, wherever you park up.