Working as an IT consultant and an accountant, respectively, Kieran Field, 27, and Alice Ballard, 26, were getting increasingly fed up of their traditional nine to five lifestyles.
So they decided to take a major gamble.
The couple quit their jobs, bought a van for £7,000, and moved aboard, renting out their two-bedroom house in Oxford to fund their new lifestyle.
After transforming the van into the perfect home on wheels – complete with a double bed, a compostable toilet beneath the sofa, a one-square-metre kitchen, and an outdoor shower – in August 2020 the pair toom their two dogs and set off on a grand adventure, starting with heading to the north of France.
In the two years since, they’ve had a joyful nomadic lifestyle of wild swimming, sufring, and hiking, covering 25,000 miles across 16 European countries.
Alice said: ‘Living in a van has given us the freedom to be where we want to be and do whatever we want to do.
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‘I am a strong believer that life is very short and you never know what is around the next corner.
‘We have never once regretted moving to a van – it was the best decision we ever made.’
After meeting aged 16, while both studying BTec music at college in their hometown of Oxford, Kieran and Alice quickly began saving for their first home together after they started working.
In 2014, they bought their two-bed house in Oxford, and set about renovating it into what they thought would be their forever home.
But after a few years, they wanted something more.
Alice said: ‘We have always been really travel-orientated so we would try to squeeze in road trips around America in between work.
‘We would go camping in Europe or take two weeks off work to visit places like Indonesia and Thailand.
‘But it was never long enough and we would use all our savings.
‘You leave school and you think, “Great, we have this nice house”, but there are all these monthly outgoings and no money at the end of the month.
‘We were meant to be living the dream but we were just missing something.’
It was in July 2019 that the pair took a leap of faith and bought a three-year-old Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van for £7,000 on eBay.
Naming it Puff the Magic Wagon, they spent nine months and £1,000 stripping, insulating, and converting their van on their weekends.
‘We knew if we had the shower inside, it would take up a lot of space for something we use only once a day, so it made sense to have it outside, and we made it with a £20 garden hose,’ Alice said.
‘We created the toilet using the seat with a small bin underneath, filled with sawdust mixed into compost, with a separate urine tank at the front – you literally lift off the sofa cushion and it’s there.
‘We spent the first few months using cafe loos and we quickly realised we needed our own toilet so having the toilet in the van was actually really glorious.’
The van has some luxuries along with the bare essentials, such as a coffee machine, an air fryer, chargers for phones, and a surround sound stereo, all powered by solar panels on the van roof and three high-performance batteries.
By February 2020, they were ready to head off with their four-year-old Golden Retriever, Freddie, only to be delayed by lockdown.
‘We were locked in until the summer but it gave us the perfect chance to rent out our house and then in August, we could finally go,’ Alice said.
‘We had put so much blood, sweat and tears into making the van with our own hands and we were so proud.
‘Heading off, we felt this massive, satisfying sense of freedom.’
After travelling through France, the pair moved on to Picos de Europa in Spain for two months, then England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France (again), Spain, Andorra, Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium, Gibraltar, Bosnia and Austria.
In March 2022, they added a second dog to their little family: rescue puppy, Sookie, an eight-month-old mongrel they found in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The squad are now loving their unusual lifestyle, and have zero regrets about ditching the rat race.
‘For the first time, we had time to explore our hobbies and find out what really made us happy,’ Alice said.
‘I started running everywhere across these beautiful landscapes and Kieran learnt to surf.
‘You have moments like swimming in a beautiful loch around Ireland, with no one else around you, and you just feel so lucky.
‘We look around us and appreciate life every single day.’
Alice and Kieran now earn around £1,000 a month from renting out their home, a far cry from their previous salaries, but the duo say it’s plenty to live the life that they want.
Alice explained: ‘We are not rich people, but it is enough.
‘We are really careful to track every penny every month and make sure we don’t overspend.’
Currently in County Mayo, Ireland, next the couple hope to head further afield – including Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Serbia and Turkey.
Kieran said: ‘I always knew there was a bigger world out there we had yet to discover, and now, we get to do it every day.
‘It sounds a cliche, saying you find yourself doing something like this, but we have learnt so much about ourselves.
‘This has completely changed our lives.
‘Who knows what the future holds – but for now, we are just enjoying living in the moment and taking every day as it comes.’
You can follow along with the pair’s adventures on their YouTube channel, KieranAndAlice.
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