It's Happening! - T minus 5 weeks

[NoFixedAbode]

In life, you just never know what is round the corner.

In mid-December I was still dreaming of my plan to travel all over Europe with car & caravan (travel trailer), using a mobile internet connection for work and leisure, and new roads to explore every week (I'm a lifelong mad-keen road cyclist who loves mountains). Still dreaming, but still not really getting closer to doing it, which was frustrating. I had set a 3-mth goal to mid-Jan of increasing my income to "x", that I reckoned would solve any problems and pave the way. But I found myself coming closer to the deadline with no real progress.

Then, out of the blue, a work email announced that our Manager was moving into a new role and his job was becoming available. Anyway, I got the job and after some initial butterflies I find that I love it. But best of all it is truly a flexi-time role, unlike my previous ball & chain job, where I can work when I like for as long as I like, and so long as I get my work done no-one cares how long I spend "at my desk" (I work remotely from home anyway). It's providing new creative opportunities that I find really satisfying. Oh, and more money :)

Then, in early January, after literally years of searching the classifieds for the "dream" caravan that matched my wish-list spec, "it" came up, and at a great price and from a really nice seller. So I'm just having the towbar fitted to the car and I'll pick up my new home up next week.

Meantime I'm doing some 80/20 by systematically going through everything I possess and sorting stuff into essential (need a spare one for backup)/keep/try to sell/replace with new model/donate/recycle bin/rubbish, and it's a wonderful feeling. Everything I need has to fit into/onto the caravan and I need to keep the weight down. I find I need less sleep these days as I'm so excited about doing anything that takes me closer to lift-off date at end of Feb. It's perfect as that's really the start of Spring round here.

It seems my purely-monetary goal wasn't emotive enough and so "the powers that be" (a là "The Secret") granted my true desires which were the tools to turn my dream into reality.

Well, whatever happened I'm grateful to the Universe and I'll keep you posted on my new life of freedom & mobility on the "other side"! I still plan to set up a least one internet-based "muse" that I control, but I'm postponing work on my various ideas until I settle into the new job and lifestyle. Good luck everyone!

Ed
Southern Spain

[kamakiri]

Congratulations! Way to go out there and make things happen. You mentioned a muse, I think you have the beginnings of one right in front of you. Take that RV and search out every unknown RV park in Europe, and write about them. Blogging is actually making some people enough money to survive on, so that might be the place to start.

Keep us posted.

[NoFixedAbode]

Thanks, and that's actually quite a nifty idea. Much obliged :)

[Sven]

Thanks for sharing and congrats!

Sometimes if things don't seem to develop the way you want you just have to wait instead of work hard at it! That is also a way of 20-80...

[FreeDeez]

Congratulations! Enjoy life on the road. It's a trip!

Kamakiri, do you have any sources about earning money as a blogger? I've googled and found stuff about PPC ads. Do you know something more? Thanks.

[silkyslim]

Congratulations! Enjoy life on the road. It's a trip!

Kamakiri, do you have any sources about earning money as a blogger? I've googled and found stuff about PPC ads. Do you know something more? Thanks.

Besides PPC, bloggers weave product recommendations into their posts with a link to an affiliate. I believe 4HWW does this. In one of the posts the author says something like "and I don't even get any affiliate revenue from this" as in the exception.

[intrepidtraveler]

Have you checked out the book, "Take Your RV To Europe" by Milavsky? A great soup-to-nuts how-to guide.

[MariaG]

@FreeDeez - There are *lots* of ways to make money blogging. A good place to start learning about them is called the Blog Profits Blueprint (http://www.blogmastermind.com/blueprint), which is free to download. Just off the top of my head, if you created a blog about RV parks, I could see you promoting RV associations, travel agencies, RV products, and books.

Congratulations on being so close to your dream!

[NoFixedAbode]

Thanks, well-wishers! Just an update from my "dwelling on wheels", as I use my laptop running from stored solar energy...

Remember McPherson's Law (well that's what we Scots call it) - everything that can go wrong, will. Especially when you are changing so many things in your life at once. But I'm battling on and hoping it's just a "phase" :)

Here's a non-exhaustive list of some of the things I've had to deal with so far:

* Car breaking down, 20 mins AFTER having a "peace of mind" service. Off road 2 weeks due to delay with spare part. Thankful that I chose the car + caravan option rather than self-contained autocaravan (RV) or I would've been living & sleeping at the workshop!

* Backup generator (in case of lack of solar energy) arrived damaged, but worked fine (choke control broken, just awkward to move it). Spare choke unit sent for me to install. Installed it, now generator won't work at all...Backup-backup is using the car engine & alternator to charge the caravan battery, but that seems like overkill. 300 days a year of sun here, but this week it's grey and rainy...

* Leak in caravan wash hand basin. For some reason original plastic pipe fittings wouldn't re-seal, so eventually had to replace with new mixer tap and a custom-made adaptor onto plastic pipes of a type unknown in Spain. (4 days without pumped water).

* Mobile internet service played up one day and had to work (incl a conference call meeting) from a noisy wi-fi bar :eek:

* 20 mins before work one day the inverter (to run laptop) decided to light up its red "Fault" light. The manual didn't say what this could mean. Panicked and ran to a nearby (lucky) marina boat shop and bought another one -distress purchase. Decided next day to test the faulty one before returning under guarantee. It worked. Manual for new one suggested overheating can set off the fault light... Oh well, have a spare now.

* Chemical toilet cassette leak. I'll spare you the details, but now fixed with the help of some DIY and olive oil. And don't these toilets fill up quickly? New strategies in place to "make deposits" elsewhere where feasible.

* New gas regulator leaked - Easter weekend holiday so had to do emergency DIY repair until shops re-opened.

*Lost a filling on moving day, followed by a separate broken tooth, another lost filling and another broken tooth. It's years since any of those things have happened, and I have four dental things in a few weeks. All fixed after 3 visits (and mucho dinero).

I could go on (and on) but I think you'll get the idea. Just have to keep thinking of the "glass half full", i.e. all the things that haven't gone wrong (yet!). There have been times when I have wondered what was wrong with the "old" life, but the adventure hasn't really begun yet as I'm still in the same general location tying up loose ends.

Odd thing is I've made a lot of new friends around here since going mobile and so it's making it harder to really get going. :)

[NoFixedAbode]

Forgot to say, turned on British Forces radio the other day (pick it up from Gibraltar) and guess who was being interviewed - our man Tim! The book was given a shameless plug (4hr work week soldiers?) but it beats working :)