“We rent one for a week and then you can come up with a new dream.”

That's how our first camper adventure began, 15 years ago now. We already had camping experience. First in a tent, then when the children came along in a beautiful Smitveld folding trailer. My husband comes from a camping family and he thought it would be great to have his own camper van. I couldn't imagine it. With two young children and a dog in such a tiny van. To get rid of the hassle once and for all, I decided to rent a camper van for a week during the May holiday. Then my husband would find out for himself that it really wasn't as much fun as he thought.

And it had everything to turn into a complete fiasco. We arrived at the rental company where a white Volkswagen T3 was waiting for us. Unfortunately, something had gone wrong with the awning of the previous tenants, so it was not included. We had chosen a nice campsite, unfortunately the weather was not really good and we discovered at the campsite that we had forgotten our coats. The first night our youngest fell out of the pop-up roof bed, in the middle of the bag with groceries. The Dutch weather continued. Drizzly and about 16 degrees. But imagine my surprise. I thought it was fantastic. The freedom that you can go and stand where you want. No hassle with setting up a tent or a trailer tent. Roof up, turn the chairs, fold out the table and there is your little house on wheels. The girls thought it was fantastic. Playing games, cooking on the small gas stove and sleeping "upstairs". Their own place, with a beautiful view of the campsite at all times. And when they went to sleep, we opened a bottle of wine and played a game or read a book. Music softly in the background. We stayed at a campsite for two days and on our way to the next one we looked for fun activities to do and did the shopping at the same time. We really had time for each other and enjoyed every rainy minute. Who would have ever thought. If it was already so much fun, it could only get better.

And that was it. After half a year we were the proud owners of our first camper van. A white Volkswagen T4. With 67 HP under the hood and without air conditioning, but we were over the moon. For 5 years we had fantastic adventures. Especially in France, our favorite holiday destination. After five years we traded it in for a green, younger T4 and another 5 years later for our current camper. A silver-gray T5. Our daughters are both adults now, but still like to go on vacation with us. They too are infected with the camper virus and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years we go on vacation with three campers. A beautiful new dream to live towards.