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My name is Momchil , I am musician , born in Bulgaria, 22 years old and seriously considering getting a van to live in it after a year ot two to live in it with my girlfriend.In few sentenses the story is:
I play piano since I am 4 years old ,I finished classical piano in the muscal highschool in Sofia,took a year break and went to the Netherlads to study jazz piano and lived there for two years. After that I canceled my conservatory studying due to multiple reasons as not being happy there,being tired of living without money and so on.During that time I met my girlfriend in facebook, (sounds stupid for me but life gives you what you need not what you want , right ?) afterwords I went to BG for two months or so , and now I'm Living in Belek,Turkey,working in big hotels plaing piano in lobby bars.
So,now to the point of my question :) In general , I am planing to go to Brussels,Belgium in 2014 or 2015 (depends on money) to study there with my girlfriend,so now I'm generally working to cover my debt(few months for that … ) from the Netherlands and than to earn enough for a camper and living for some time.
My plan is , getting one (cargo?) van and converting it to a camper.reasons – several :
I want to avoid campings , so don't want to be abvious that this is my apprtment.
I love nature,I'm hiking,climbing , biking , swimming,photographing and so on so I want it to be durable and compact for mountain roads.
Also- fuel efficiency,in general I want to spend as less as I can in order to think less about the kilometers i'm form that nice climbing crag and can I afford to go there to climb, etc.
Another reason – in general, my experience shows me that studying in conservatory gives you a small amount of free time and most of this time I anyway tend to spend either cooking or laying if i'm inside.
Also a reason for converting a van – my father is really good in plumbing , heating and all kinds of
other stuff ( he is making a living doing local heating sistems for houses, solar panel sistems and so on) and also knows other specialists who can make the wood work and so on if something can not be made by us.I found a great video of a british guy who converted a mercedes van in a really similar way of what I imagin as perfect,so it gave me a more clear image of how the conversion looks as a process.
I would like to make the van independent – batteries , power generator, no solar power for now because sun and belgium are quite in the oposite side of the coin :) but later on can be add-ed of course :)
Since I am 16 I play all over Bulgaria , when I was 17 I lived in Belek for 3 months , I was traveling a lot and I don't feel as I have a home base anyway.My family apparments are nice place to stay for few days , but not a home for me, al though the old folks are nice people who I really respect :)
So what I ask for is your oppinion as people rving for long or not so long time?
I'm believing in Tao and the way of the water- if doesn't work for us , we can always sell the ready camper and live in apartament or a tent or whatsoever we decide :) The main thing I'm trying to acomplish is the feel of home whereever I go – what I need with me is my sinthesizer , a laptop , camera , bike climbing gear some clothes few books,some cd's. Basically that's it . I'm trying to minimize the matterial things in my life to be able to have time with my girlfriend, travel,play , compose,climb,make photos and so on.
Sorry for the long post , I just wanted to trully represent what is in my mind , I'll be verry glad to have responces from you :)
Health, Ballance and Best of Luck to All of You :)
This is going to be a tough one for anybody here in the US to answer. We, or most of us, probably do not know what vehicles are even available in Bulgaria, The Netherlands, or Turkey. I have been to Switzerland twice in the last three years and saw several brands of service type vans. Mercedes Benz, Ford, Opel, Volvo, Fiat, Iveco, and on and on. I guess the age and brand depends on your budget. I think all the European vehicles are fairly sturdy.
My observation of RVing in Swiss was small travel trailers, or wohnwagens, pulled by cars with V-6 engines.
Momchil, sounds like a plan, welcome to the forum, your a young guy with plenty of time to figure out the details. Sounds to me like you have the right idea, go for it.......take your time, define and design a plan, then do it.....
