I have been going like an army maneuver over the years. Colour-coded tabs in spreadsheets. Itineraries were printed in one copy and stored in three devices. Hotel reservations made 6 months before. The dinner reservations were taken before I had even booked the flight. I noticed all on my list. I ticked every box. And I was nearly emotionless.
Then came Scotland. I had prepared the trip very well. Trains between cities. Reserved hotels in all attractions. A spreadsheet that informed me of how often to have lunch per day. My train, which I had arranged between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh was cancelled on day three. No explanation. No replacement bus. It was the following afternoon that there was the next train. My accommodation in a hotel that night was non-refundable. I was, as the saying goes, at Inverness station with a case of defeat in my hand, and was scrolling up and down costly last-minute hotels, all full with reservations.
One of the strangers overheard me in my frustration. “Thought about a campervan”, she asked. The station has cheapest campervan rental places nearby. They may still have something. Two hours later, I had a set of keys to a small campervan and no idea. I had never driven anything bigger than hatchback. I had never slept in a vehicle. I was terrified. And I was free.
I drove north with no place to go. I had gone to a loch as the evening light was so wonderful, and no one was in sight. I consumed fish and chips through a piece of paper and was viewing a sky that changed to purple, then orange and later heavy blue with stars. I went the wrong way and found a castle of which I was previously unheard of, a ruin of a thirteenth-century keep, where there was neither gift shop, nor ticket booth, and merely a field and a view that made me stop breathing.
I was not glancing at an app every five minutes as I had often done before. I was not adding up the question of whether I would be able to squeeze in one more attraction before sunset. I was not hastening to record real-life experiences to post on social media. Instead, the moment itself became an inspiring journey, unfolding naturally without a checklist or timer. I was just present. The highway determined my sleeping place. Curiosity decided where I would stop. And it was the weather that quietly convinced me to stay a little longer.
Campervan travel forces a different rhythm onto your life as depicted in bunkcampers.com. Your bedroom on your back. You are not obliged to hotel check-out time or train schedule or scramble to find a restaurant before the kitchen closes. When you are curious you stop and not when the itinerary directs you to stop. Conversations with strangers in camp sites are due to the fact that everyone is in the same place to accomplish the same thing. You get to know that the most enjoyable experiences are not necessarily premeditated.
I found out something surprising among the lowest-priced campervan hire locations. Liberty is not something you need to be luxurious. You must have a running car, a bed that is not wet, and you must be able to be inconvenienced at times. My campervan was without a bathroom and its cooker had a single functioning ring. It was perfect. This simple setup quietly turned the journey into a memorable travel experience, where every small challenge became part of the adventure. I was taught how to bathe in cold loch water. I was taught how to prepare pasta in one pot. I understood that pain is not pain, but it is the cost of being in the real world.
That experience helped me learn that fear is, in many cases, disguised as over planning. The anxiety of being left behind. The fear of being bored. The risk of spending money only to find out that the trip was not what it was promised to be. But the best trips do not deliver what was promised. They give them what was not promised at all. I leave room to surprise now I still prepare, though. I reserve a beginning and an end. In between it is all suggestion, not mandatory. It happens that the road is a better guide than any spreadsheet ever was.
