RV Roadtrip Comes Full Circle, More Ways Than One

At long last, an update on the intrepid travelers! It’s been quite a while and so this should serve as a good catch-up to what we’ve been up to and are planning for our adventurous future.

Our last post, which was already way behind us in real time, had us come almost full circle around Europe on our grand tour RV road trip. 

Not sure how impressed Sebastian was with Berlin.

With Europe starting to get cold and visits to our families overdue, we parked up at the EuroCampingCars depot, caught the train into Paris for a few days and then packed up Sebastian for the big flight to the States.

We weren’t done with Europe and the RV yet, but we were sick of playing the Schengen game. So what to do?  Well, apply for a Long Term French Visa, of course.  It seemed a little daunting at first with all of the paperwork involved but it turned out to be manageable and we were granted a 1 year visa.  Problem solved.

A great day in Barcelona.

After holidays in the US we flew back to retrieve the van with a goal of spending more time in Western Europe and especially France this time around.

We raced through last time around and wanted to do more slow travel. And so that is what we did for a year.

Brantome, France

A kayak trip on the Dordogne.

Lots of time in Spain, Portugal and France with a few trips to Germany and Switzerland tossed into the mix.

We spent the night in a parking lot in Liechtenstein.

We had a wonderful time crisscrossing France and slowly exploring all of the different regions, especially the Dordogne!

So absolutely lovely. We were able to meet up with friends along the way in a few different spots and we made new friends wintering in Spain and Portugal.

We met up with Oli at an Overland Expo in Germany.

We spent a month on Corsica and a month on Sardinia before dropping the RV off again at the depot. It was a great way to travel, not pressed for time but with almost a year of it and the prospect of winter in Europe, we decided we needed something different.

We spent a month looking at Mt. Blanc.

The plan was to leave the van for the coldest months of the winter and then come back for a few months and sell her. After 2 1/2 years living in the RV we were looking to travel in a different style.  So Central America for the Winter was the logical choice, right?

Enjoying the warm weather and water in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica for the end of November, December and January and then up to 2 months in Nicaragua or maybe back to Costa Rica for March we thought. Our plans were pretty flexible and maybe we would extend our time in Nicaragua.  As it turned out, we met some really great people in Samara, Costa Rica, and we decided for sure that we would return for March.  This was March of 2020. (Cue impending doom background music)

The epic view from the villa in San Juan del Sur.

View from our favorite beach bar in San Juan del Sur.

San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua was fantastic.  We enjoyed it so much that 1) we didn’t adventure to any other parts of Nicaragua and 2) we vowed to spend the next winter there.  We met some great Canadians and US expats that call San Juan del Sur home for at least half of the year and we were going to join them. And our dollars sure did go far there! But alas, we had already pre-booked our place back in Samara and so on March 1, 2020 we crossed back into Costa Rica.

Don’t forget to pay your CR Departure tax.

And then a few days later all of the borders around the world started to close. As it turned out, we were very lucky.  Trapped in Costa Rica for the foreseeable future, we started to make the best of our circumstances.  Long story short, Costa Rica kept extending our visa and we settled into pandemic and social distancing life in Samara. We bought a little SUV, a surfboard and SUP and rented a house with an awesome view.  I surfed a lot, we took road trips to isolated beaches and enjoyed Costa Rican tamales once a week from the farmers market.  Life was pretty good.

Fast forward to May of 2021. With vaccines available in the US we got on a flight from Liberia, Costa Rica to Dallas and then on to Sacramento.  Only we didn’t get to Dallas we got diverted to Houston and that was it.  No plan to get us to Dallas from the airline, just a “Sorry, not sorry”.  And so we hatched a plan, rented a car and ran the gauntlet from Houston to Sacramento.

2 1/2 Days, 2100 miles. Houston to Sacramento.

By now, we were very anxious to get back to France and check on the RV but that would have to wait for a couple of more months while we visited friends and family and got some other things sorted out in the US. Oh, and we also hatched a new Europe Travel Plan™. We knew that we didn’t want to spend a long time in the RV again. More Airbnbs, less campsites. And, another long story, Shani was going to apply for recognition of her Italian citizenship so we were going to spend an extended period in Italy.  

So the logical thing to do was buy a Toyota 4Runner in the US, kit it out for some light overlanding and ship it to Europe! What every reasonable and sane person would do, right?

Safe arrival at the port in Belgium.

After we put the 4Runner on a boat in Long Beach, California, we road tripped to Colorado and eventually got on a flight to Paris. We were very anxious about the condition we were going to find the RV in, it had been in storage for 2 years after all! And, I have to say, everything was way better than expected. Essentially we filled her with water, turned on the leisure system, did a few other checks and drove off to a campsite. We wanted to do a little bit of a shake down tour not too far from the depot in case anything went wrong. We had a few minor issues and that was it, thankfully!

Château de Sully-sur-Loire.

We spent a week in various spots around the Loire river valley and then it was time to pick up the 4Runner in Belgium.  In our best laid plans we were intending more time in the RV but that kept getting pushed and the weather was starting to get kind of cold for us.  I mean, come on, we had been in Central America for a year and a half and then the summer in California and Colorado. We were not ready for the cold!

Moving Day

So here we are back in Italy with an amazing ocean view and a massive (by European standards) American SUV trying to navigate the citizenship process for Shani. Wish us luck!

A beautiful day out in Italy.

So what’s next? Well…that’s why we have the 4Runner here. Our plan is to take that across Turkey, into Georgia and Armenia and Azerbaijan. Stay tuned for that leg of the adventure!

Oh, and we also still have the RV….