A CAMPER van-loving couple from Wokingham have turned their dream into a reality during lockdown.
At the start of lockdown, George Douglas and Chloe Moore, who will get married this autumn, decided to buy a Citroen Relay delivery van and turn it into a camper van.
They’ve been thinking about launching the project for around six years but didn’t get into gear until last September.
The couple had hoped to use the van for a honeymoon adventure, but their original wedding date was postponed due to covid. A second date was set for Saturday, May 8, but this too has been delayed – all being well they will now tie the knot in October.
“There are so many nice places which are on our doorstep which we’ve never been to or thought about, and with covid that has shifted our perspective on how nice the areas are around us,” George says.
“In doing this project, it gives us the freedom to be able to say on a Friday night, let’s pack our bags, get on the road and see where we end up.”
To log their progress the couple created Living Slow n’ Wild, which features on Instagram and YouTube.
And it’s helped them find others who are doing the same, or can offer support.
George and Chloe’s dads have also helped them, along with a neighbour who completed a similar project a year before, giving them lots of advice.
“It’s going to be nice to look back on it all and be able to remember the things that we might have forgotten if we hadn’t been filming it all,” she explains.
Although George and Chloe work full-time, when the whistle blows they down tools and start work on the motorhome.
“We want to do this in order to be close to nature and be able to have the freedom to escape to the wilder parts that you may not be able to go to if you were staying in a hotel,” Chloe says.
And others looking to follow in their tyre tracks are advised that they need to have patience and an expectation that the project will overrun.
Chloe adds: “Working on it together has been really fun, we’ve learnt a lot and it’s been much harder than we thought.
“We’ve spoken about this for so long and now we’re actually making it happen and I think so many people see it and think, that looks too hard, but if you take it step by step it’s completely possible.”
