We are Jeff & Hazel and our passion for travel began with caravanning 30 years ago as a way for us and our two daughters to enjoy affordable regular getaways and the annual holiday abroad.

We first purchased a Sprite Musketeer but we soon caught the bug, a Swift soon followed giving way to over 20 years of Bailey of Bristol ownership amounting to 7 Caravans & 2 Motorhomes all purchased from Lowdhams in Nottingham. Fast forward to 2017 and with early retirement on the horizon we decided to plan our dream to travel Europe in a Motorhome. We visited Lowdhams with a list of the layout, kit level and suitability for European touring we felt we needed and with some expert knowledge and advice from our sales rep, we decided the Bailey Autograph 2 fitted the requirement. For the next year we planned and researched for our departure starting with house insurance, full Europe cover for both driving and breakdown, medical insurance and much more.

BELGIUM

May 2018 arrived and we said farewell to family and friends with no real plan of where our next stop would be, only it would be somewhere in Europe. We arrived by Eurotunnel and headed to Belgium and spent the first night at Messines, there are many free overnight stops in Europe which are typically referred to as Aires or Stellplatz. We then toured the war graves and military sites before heading to Antwerp to explore the vibrant city and sample Belgium’s finest offers of beer and chocolates!
The beauty of Motor homing is there’s no itinerary, you decide how far you’d like to travel and where you want to visit –  for our trip which lasted 3 years (including two lockdowns), our route resembled a Spaghetti map .

NETHERLANDS

After a couple of weeks in Belgium we arrived in the Netherlands, since we were in the South we decided the northern tip would be our first destination, but first a great Motorhome stop-over called Alblasserdam; which is a good base to explore by water bus. You can also visit the famous windmills of Kinderdijk or the cultural city port of Rotterdam, we found traveling by public transport easy and affordable.

GERMANY | DENMARK

The journey continued with us crossing from the naval base of Den Helder into northern Germany, followed by Flensburg – this is the border town for Denmark.A must-see is the 700 year old town of Ribe which is not only the oldest town in Denmark, but in the whole of Scandinavia. The coastline of Ribe is long with many lagoons ,gulfs and inlets which makes it perfect for all kinds of water sports and adventures, as we headed North to the cruise port of Skagen we stopped off at the original Legoland where the town of ‘Billund‘ is built like a massive Lego block!

SWEDEN

After visiting Copenhagen we took the vast bridge to Malmö Sweden, we headed to the Volvo museum in Gothenburg and many other museums/places of interest allow free overnight parking which meant our Motorhome was set up perfectly for wild camping.

NORWAY

Our next stop was Norway. With Oslo first on our list, we found it to be a vibrant city with an incredible sculpture museum which is free and open air. Since our Motorhome is registered for tolls & bridges we then followed the E06 all the way to the North Cape via a small detour to the Lofoten Islands to go whale watching.The North Cape felt like being on top of the world, we stayed up to see the midnight sun and on the way down we saw fjords, glaciers and the most amazing scenery.

FINLAND | ESTONIA

From Norway we entered Finland, this was a slightly tricky drive due to all types of road surfaces so be sure to have plenty of fuel before entering, as LPG is not available from the pumps. We had a great few days on the Arctic Circle – home to Santa Claus with it’s magical theme park before travelling down to Helsinki which is the Capital of Finland. We found Helsinki to be very busy with cruise ships and thoroughly enjoyed the magnificent cathedral it has to offer. From here we caught a ferry to Tallinn, the Capital of Estonia and the journey of a lifetime continues…

Click here to keep up with Jeff and Hazel’s travels.