A Campsite Life
Over the past few years there’s been a huge hype around ‘van life’, and in particular, the type of van life that involves living on the road, travelling to a new destination every day and waking up to a brand new view every morning. I’ve done a bit of that, although I did just stick to Scotland, I moved to a new park up every day and wandered the highlands while working from the van.
However, I’ve also lived a different type of ‘van life’…. One that I don’t think is deemed quite as cool, but in my opinion has a massive amount of benefits.
While living on the road, I always noticed a sort of pride in folk who didn’t use campsites. Which I understand to a degree… you’ve kitted out your van to be off grid, and you’re proud of its capabilities, but I do think that attitude can be quite harmful too. A lot of campsites are just the same as any other small business, they need custom to survive, and they provide safe, welcoming bases for people to utilise when visiting new areas. I’d love to make it my mission to make campsite van life a little cooler, but I’ll settle for letting you know of a few of my favourite parts to this lifestyle, and in particular, doing it with a caravan rather than a van.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved my time on the road, and the joy of having everything I own with me at all times, but I can’t deny that this slower, more static version just appeals to me a little more. So here we go, here’s my favourite parts…
Not having to pack up your entire existence every time you need to drive somewhere. The small joy of being able to leave things out on a table, go out in a car and come back to things where you left them is pretty great.
The access to facilities. When you live on the road, it can get tiring having to constantly find water, showers, bins, waste disposal. I’ve felt so civilised being back on a pitch, being able to do my laundry and jump into the shower whenever I fancy.
Exploring in a car rather than a large van… what a dream. The vans I’ve lived in have always been pretty big, and although they got us to the majority of places we wanted to visit, it’s without a doubt easier (and cheaper on fuel) to get out and about in the car. Height barriers? Don’t care. ‘No overnight parking’ signs? No bitchy looks from people who think we’re sleeping there.
The sense of community. This is something you can lose when living on the road. But being on pitch for a longer amount of time means you can get to know folk in the area. Suddenly the people at the local post office know your name, and you start chatting with the campsite staff. I’m actually quite introverted, but I do enjoy having snippets of interaction here and there, and find they can lift my mood greatly when I’ve been alone for too long. To be fair, we took this a huge step further and opened a coffee shop at the last campsite we were at! That’s probably the biggest way to become part of a community you could ever think of. Cabin Coffee was a joy to own and maybe one day we’ll find a way to bring it to another site.
Having the chance to explore an area over a longer period of time… slow travel. I’ve seen people treat Scotland like a checklist to get done in a few days, and they miss all the little hidden gems of certain areas. There’s more to it than the NC500 and the typical tourist spots. I love exploring villages day after day, taking new paths, slowly getting to know every corner of it.
There’s plenty more benefits, and obviously a few cons too, but I think it’s nice to be able to show people that there’s lots of different ways to live in vans, caravans and vehicles in general. Seasonal pitches aren’t always super expensive, and we’ve actually saved money sometimes as the monthly cost was cheaper than the amount we were spending on fuel for the van, and we’ve been able to live in areas that we’d never be able to afford a house in. However, we still get the sense of being a ‘nomad’ and being able to move on whenever we feel like it. I really do think it’s a great balance.
