When I looked through my YouTube history for this article, I clearly saw the shift in my interests from smart home, home office set-up, man cave to content about alternative ways of life such as tiny houses, off-grid living, emigration and van life. This made me start to doubt my previous lifestyle. At that time, it consisted mainly of gainful employment in order to exist and consume.
Our daily routine was always the same: get up, work, then switch off on the sofa with series or other TV shows, eat and sleep. Of course, at the time this was also due to the big C, but the thought also manifested itself more and more: why am I actually doing this? I only work to consume, because my collecting and technology hobbies were nothing else.
Of course, we were not doing badly, and we could easily continue living like this. But the whole thing just under 20 years until retirement? With the best will in the world, I just couldn’t imagine it anymore. And who knows if we would even be physically able to take such a trip then? Or whether many of our dream destinations could still be travelled at all? Besides, I was drawn more and more to distant places, certainly also pushed by my YouTube consumption. And with 30 days of holiday a year, you just don’t get very far with your own vehicle – the way of travelling that appeals to me the most – even if you have a lot of holidays. Besides, at least I needed this holiday spread over the year to be able to switch off from my job every now and then, to relax and recharge my batteries.
Then I stumbled across the first room tour of a world travel motorhome at @4x4passion and then across a documentary about overlanders travelling the Silk Road. My wanderlust was unstoppable, it was so strong that I had to fight back a few tears when I saw the beautiful landscape pictures of the Silk Road, South America or the Northern Lights, and I knew more and more that I wanted to experience all of that too.
Then one day, I had a brainwave. Heike and I were able to go on such a journey because of earlier life decisions we made and earlier gifts our parents gave us! So a few days later, as we were sitting cuddled up together, I suggested selling everything, getting a vehicle, and breaking everything off in Fürth at the end of 2024 and setting off. I don’t need to mention how she felt about the suggestion, because here we are now…
From then on, we watched travel videos of overlanders and vanlifers, but also documentaries about all kinds of places in the world.
We were particularly taken with the YouTube channels of @dinoadventure and @diewelterleben. Steffi and Karsten set off in their truck from C. to travel the Pan-American Highway. And their claim at the end of each video was: ‘Stop Dreaming, Start Planning!’ That encouraged us even more.
Rita & Hans-Peter from diewelterleben.de decided at the time to travel through Europe for a sabbatical year in a vehicle from the manufacturer that we ultimately chose as well. Their mantra is: ‘It’s worth starting,’ so just do it. This also repeatedly confirmed our decision, most recently when we had a long chat with them at the Abenteuer & Allrad 2024 and listened to their presentation about their sabbatical year trip. If you are reading this, Rita and Hans-Peter, you also played a part in helping us to realise this dream, and we look forward to meeting you again sometime, somewhere.
After watching many YouTube videos about a wide range of vehicles and manufacturers, we finally decided on the company bimobil von Liebe GmbH from Oberpframmern. The company has been building such vehicles for 40 years, and we both liked the timeless design of the interior. In addition, the many insights into the production process that the company granted a YouTuber also encouraged us. It gave us a good feeling that they know what they are doing. We placed the order in June 2021, and the targeted delivery date would have been in spring 2024, which it ultimately became, although we got an advance a few building sites further on shortly after placing the order. But due to various delays, it took until May 2024 before we could pick up Mando, as our vehicle is called, in Oberpframmern.
Unfortunately, like many other Daily 4x4s, our vehicle also had a defective transfer case, so Mando had to go to the Iveco garage for 7 weeks after the transfer. But since then it has been running without problems.
The next six months were quite stressful. It takes time to clear out a flat after living there for 20 years, and a lot of stuff accumulates.
But on 20 December 2024, we finally set off.