Divorced, grieving and road tripping: Why I've decided to solo travel the UK in a converted BMW Mini camper
2020 hasn’t exactly been the year for travel. As I write this, I should have been travelling across the USA with Trek America. From there, I had then planned to solo travel across Canada before coming home shortly before Christmas. But alas coronavirus had other ideas. I had a lot riding on that trip. In January I quit my job to take a career break in order to solo travel following the most painful year of my life. 2019. The year where I lost my Dad and went through an unamicable divorce immediately after. The year where I ended up being hospitalised after my mental health reached crisis. The year where life as I knew it changed forever. The year where I solo travelled for the first time and never looked back.
When I welcomed in 2020, I thought it was going to be the year of fresh starts and new adventures. A year of figuring out who on earth I was as a newly divorced woman. A year where I could follow my new found passion for solo travel and keep discovering myself along the way. Instead it would a year where a global pandemic changed everything. It would be the year where we had to be confined to the safety of our homes and where too many families would have their lives forever changed by grief. It’s safe to say the past two years haven’t worked out so well. Quite frankly, they’ve been the worst of my life.
As much I have accepted that my international travel plans may have to wait a while, the mindset to solo travel and take some much needed time out hasn’t changed. The pain of losing a parent and getting divorced has left a massive void in my life. I have been using the added time to work on myself and give myself permission to truly grieve and heal. But that void is still there. The desire to solo travel and push for a better relationship with myself is still there. The need to grow and get comfortable being on my own is still there. So I have decided to take matters into my own hands.
Visiting ‘Old Harry’s Rocks’ along the Jurassic coast in 2020
Coronavirus made me realise how I’ve taken my home country for granted
Lockdown measures and travel restrictions have certainly made me more appreciative of home soil. I remember that feeling of being able to explore places more than five miles away from home as lockdown started to ease. What a feeling! As I started to explore more of the great outdoors, I soon realised how much I had taken living in the UK for granted. I have always been someone who felt I needed to go abroad to travel. But now we’re living in a Covid-19 world, my attitude has totally changed. The UK has so much natural beauty and iconic scenery, and yet there are so many places I’ve never visited. I’ve never been to the Highlands of Scotland. I’ve never explored Wales beyond Cardiff as a university student. I’ve only been to Ireland once and that was with my ex-husband. I’ve decided if I can’t solo travel abroad in 2020, why not solo travel in my home country instead? Why not finally see what the UK has to offer?
Time for a Road Trip in my BMW Mini Camper
Road trips and staycations are fast becoming the norm in a Covid-19 world. I debated whether to hire a campervan, even though I’m not a camper (like REALLY not a camper), or just book Air BnBs on the go in my own car. I decided to go with a mixture of the two. I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone when it comes to camping, but not completely chuck myself in at the deep end. However when I looked into hiring a camper van, no surprises the cost was astronomical! And then I had an idea. Could I part convert my BMW Mini into a camper? I’ve had my Mini for nearly 10 years ( affectionately known as Zippy) and I figured road tripping in my own car would help to save the pennies. Inspired by the growing Van Life community, including Halle who kitted out her Kia Soul and solo travelled 48 States of the USA, I figured surely I could do the same? I’ve seen how more people are choosing to kit out their cars and vans in order to explore on the go and I figured it would be a more cost effective option. And so that’s what I’ve done. I have transformed my BMW Mini into a camper so I can explore the UK and camp in comfort. Thanks to the help of my best friend’s husband and Ashurst Interiors, I have been able to transform what was just an idea into reality. All in all the transformation has cost me less than £500 and what’s more, I can return my car back to normal once my road trip is over.
Road tripping whilst keeping safe in a Covid-19 world
So my route for my road trip is all mapped out and I’m ready to go. Thanks to inspiration from ST&G Marvellous Maps, I’ve decided to stay rural in a bid to keep safe whilst on the road. Being able to keep safe and socially distanced as much as possible is my top priority. With many cities across the UK facing local lockdowns, I didn’t fancy putting myself or indeed others at risk. Besides, there is so much more to UK than its cities! With the exception of Brighton and Edinburgh, I will mainly be exploring coastal Britain, together with National parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty. All being well. I plan to drive the North Coast 500, Scotland’s equivalent of Route 66. I want to showcase what Britain has to offer in a bid to inspire others to appreciate what’s on their doorstep. The travel industry has significantly changed due to Covid-19 and I know I’m not the only one who had a lot riding on cancelled travel plans. I hope by sharing my adventures on my new YouTube channel I can encourage others to look closer to home when it comes to travelling. It may not have been the solo travel adventure I originally had in mind for 2020, but I dare say this makes for a pretty awesome plan B!
Thanks so much for reading my blog. If you want to follow my Road Trip across the UK, please follow me on Instagram @rediscovering_emily_ or subscribe to me new YouTube channel.
If there are any must see places in the UK you’d recommend, drop them in the comments below.
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