Our home on wheels

Two years ago we startet thinking of a long journey. Pretty quick it was decided: we will discover northern America. We already know the area around Vancouver from other vacations but the west coast of the US, Alaska and the rest of Canada we only know from TV.

Soon we decided on taking our own Volkswagen with us – an adventure we will never forget.

At the end of winter 2016 we had to buy our T5 and replace our old and rusty T4. And with that we had to rebuild all the interior. Hours and hours we brought our ideas to paper and let us inspire by others. The bed was soon done, the kitchen took a bit more time…

After uncountable hours in the workshop of Nick’s parents it was time for a test-holiday in summer. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time for all the electrical installations but on our 3-week-test-trip we testet all furniture and noted some improvements. Over all our plan seemed to work quite good!

In autumn the electrical stuff needed to be done: second battery and additional sockets were installed. In addition Nick managed to install a heating system we might need on cold mornings way up north. After some small improvements the bus was finally ready.

It was harder than expected finding a shipping company, who transports our beloved T5 to the USA. Mostly we didn’t receive an answer at all. We contacted Pandilea, a swiss couple that is on the road for 2 years now. Quickly we had their recommendation: ITS, a swiss company.

Our contact at ITS quickly answered all our thousand questions and provided us all information needed. We were so glad we found a partner who really cared for us, even the it all had its price.

The schedule and prices for the cargo ships are available at the beginning of the year and now everything goes on in big steps: container is ordered, US Visas received and the flights are booked. Now we try to handle our huge checklist, but anticipation grows from day to day!