A COUPLE decided to quit their jobs and rent out their hoe to travel the world in a tiny van.
Chris and Marianne Fisher ditched their lucrative NHS jobs and six-bed house as they got the travel itch.
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To make sure they could afford their new adventure sold everything they owned and rented out their property and bought a 20-year-old Fiat Ducato campervan called Trudy for £18,500 in 2018.
They started their journey in 2020 and have since travelled to 29 countries in their tiny home on wheels.
Chris, 54, and Marianne, 56, decided they needed to ‘live for now’ and became online sensations by documenting their trip with their Youtube videos attracting 28 million views and 180,000 subscribers.
When the couple purchased their van, it had approximately 40,000 miles on the clock.
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Before leaving, Marianne revealed people constantly told the couple there was no way they could travel the world in the two-wheel drive, but they proved them all wrong.
But, now after their trip around the world, the pair say the campervan has racked up more than 137,000 miles, not including 24,000 at sea.
Around the world
After leaving Telford, the pair crossed Europe before arriving in Turkey, but that’s when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Chris and Marianne became Turkish residents for 18 months before making the decision to ship the van to South Carolina to drive across the United States.
Arriving in San Francisco, the couple headed to Vancouver in Canada ahead of a ‘loop’ around Alaska.
They swam in the Arctic Ocean after driving a 1,000-mile trip along a ‘dirt road’ called the Demster Highway leading to the most northerly road point of Canada.
The pair then crossed back into the USA, driving part of Route 66 into California and then Mexico.
And after a few months of exploring the pair shipped the campervan from LA to Asia as they began a three-month tour of Japan.
Touring Tokyo and Japan, the pair then jumped on a car ferry to South Korea but were then stuck thinking “where do we go now”.
Refused a visa for China, Chris and Marianne toured Malaysia and Thailand before visiting India and Pakistan.
Is it legal to live in a van?
IF you are looking to live in a van to save money or travel, you’ll be pleased to know that there are no UK laws stopping you.
However, you must ensure your vehicle has passed its MOT and is fully road legal.
There could also be restrictions on where you can park up to sleep in your van.
For example, local authorities place restrictions on certain streets or lay-bys, and you could be fined if you spend the night there.
It could also be unsafe to stop in certain locations, particularly at night-time.
Check the The Highway Code guide for guidance.
They were then denied access to Saudi Arabia – being told that the country doesn’t allow right-hand drive vehicles – and so the pair shipped to South Africa to tour a new continent.
They headed north through Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana before finally shipping home from Durban back in South Africa after four and a half years of travelling and living in their van.
Van life highlights
Describing some of his favourite moments, Chris said: “It was absolutely amazing, one of the highlights was the Grand Canyon.
“We had the mad idea to see if we could wild camp in Las Vegas and see a show, and we managed to stick in a hotel car park and then went to a show and Cirque du Soleil.
“We drove past Mount Fuji. Passed the Taj Mahal in India, and the nature of seeing elephants walk in front of your van in Kruger National Park and having leopards and lions walking around was fantastic.”
Chris added: “We’ve always loved travel and planned when we retired one day that we would go and spend our retirement travelling.
“You get to that point in life where you realise you’re not going to live forever.
“You hit that middle age and think we might not make retirement, we need to live for now. It’s hard to step out of the box of what’s normal but we did.
“We had this mad idea to think we could travel the world, and after six months of planning we set off from Ironbridge.”
Through their Tread The Globe channel, the couple documented their trip online and soon built up a legion of followers and fans as they tried to live on £27 a day.
Chris, who was previously head of catering services for an NHS Trust, added: “It’s sometimes hard to realise the impact you have on people.
“During Covid we had messages of people saying the videos are helping them get through a dark time.
“There’s a real impact and it feels really nice that we’re giving positivity because we’re just about showing the world is a beautiful place.”
Homeward bound
But the couple came back home last week and were greeted by 100 people cheering them on.
Marianne, a former theatre admin worker, said: “I really feel if we do nothing else in our life, we’ve done something fantastic.
“When we left, everyone said: ‘You can’t drive around the world with a two-wheel drive Fiat Ducato.’ But she’s done it.
“We’re overwhelmed with the amount of people that have come out to cheer us home and welcome us back.
“It’s been lovely to be home after we’ve been living in the van for six years.
“We feel as though it’s made us realise how incredible this trip has been. We’re still trying to understand that we’ve done it.
“It’s been so overwhelming, but it was the best decision for us.
“I think when you’re sitting at a desk looking out of the window and there’s a brick wall, whether it’s a weekend away or whether it’s a week away, two weeks or a whole craziness like we’ve done, I would encourage anyone to just go out.
“If you’ve got something that’s stopping you, a fear, message me and I will put you straight.
“We’re so happy to be home and see such a warm welcome on a rainy day – and so sad that this adventure’s over, but there’s going to be more.
“It’s been phenomenal. Different places, different cultures – everybody’s given us a warm welcome around the world.”
