10th anniversary as a motorhome owner
In 2014 I bought my first motorhome, a 1998 Mercedes with Dethleffs' living. The point was to have accommodation while working 150 km from home. I thought there was no point in having an apartment and pay the rent as I would anyway sleep there for only 2-3 night per week. It made more sense to by a motorhome, pay the loan and end up as a camper. I had my trustee German shepherd Kara with me and we enjoyed the odd solution very much for the 10 months period though many eyebrows rose when people heard where I lived. Aren't motorhomes for retirees..?
For many years Mersu was used on small trips with our small family and small ponies - we had Shetland ponies at the time and off we went on shows and competitions. Our kid especially liked the alcove where he had his own space. Then for about two years we didn't basically travel at all, mostly due finances. Not until 2021 when I got a new job - again 150 km from home - and started looking for a newer car with more modern interior.
In July 2021 I bought Fiiu, a beautiful red Fiat Adria Sport from 2009. It is funny that I had seen a red Adria Sport a few years earlier and thought that that is my dream car. Suddenly I had one! Again the car was mostly used for travelling to work and it also helped driving our son to his studies as we live a bit remote and he had no other ways to get to school. We would take him, work in the car for the day, and drive back home. Due several circumstances we still did not travel that much but Fiiu made one dream come true - we took our son to Norway.
In January 2023 we saw an ad of an motorhome show at a caravan shop in Oulu, so we went, mainly to buy some stuff we needed for the car, enjoy the free grilled sausages and dream of new cars. We then walked into a Dreamer campervan and noticed it was quite spacious. Suddenly we understood that in fact, the two of us (our son has outgrown the company of his parents...) would easily fit in a van and it would be a more practical car to use in everyday life. Fiiu was already occasionally the only car we used and we also drove it all year around. So the search for a suitable van begun and in the end it was a short search. In February we drove home with a 2019 Hobby Vantana called Ernie and I can tell you I was the happiest person in the world!
Again (!) - I had found a job 150 km from home and off I went with Ernie to work. Then the water came in. It poured from a hole in the ceiling in one of the cabinets. Condensation water - the seller told us. A long story short - in June, only a few days before our next trip to Norway would start, water came pouring from the roof window in the back. Then we also noticed the front roof window had already been fixed - in a car from 2019! and they had not told us. I have no interest in having a LOT of money in a car which had water problems and mold around the roof window. Of course the shop offered to fix the problem. Their fix was to "dry" the roof window area for two days and put the same window up again. They did not agree to cancel the deal but then I came up the idea of simply offer the seller to buy the car back. Luckily they did. We drove the car back to the shop, took the money, jumped in the train and travelled to Lahti to pick a new car I had found a few days earlier. This is how Baggins ended up with us and we haven't regretted a day though it was an expensive buy.
So now I drive a 2022 Weinsberg Carabus 540 - and I love it. More of the car later.
This was the short story of 10 years of owning a motorhome or a camper van - maybe in a more unusual way. For us it is just as much a tool that enables work possibilities and daily moving from place A to place B as a car that takes us on adventures. Hopefully in the future we are able to travel more and enjoy the camper van in the traditional way, too, coddiwampling around.