MAPS & GUIDES: Large-scale maps can often be bought locally - if there is a tourist office, check out what is going free. On a smaller scale, an atlas covering the whole country is always better value than buying several individual maps. If you love maps and have built up a stock in the UK, have them sent out (see Poste Restante) and post them back after use. Stanford's is our favourite map and travel bookshop (12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London W1R 5TA. International orders phone +44 207 8361321 or visit www.stanfords.co.uk). Beautiful Upton upon Severn is the real location of www.themapshop.co.uk.

We have a love/hate relationship with the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet series (the 'Rough Planets'), but we do use them a lot. They give good local information, town maps and some details of camping as well as the usual tourist bumph. Visit www.roughguides.com and www.lonelyplanet.com. The Michelin Green Guides are excellent for details and plans of historical sites and scenic drives. See also Travel Advice.

MONEY, EARNING IT: Flo knits dolls to sell through campsite shops; Eugene and Nicole busk in the summer; Barney & June watched somebody's house from the comfort of their Hymer; others work as temporary campsite wardens. In Greece, several campsites have a resident English couple living in their own motorhome, helping out in return for a free pitch, a small income, meals or other perks. Fruit and vegetable picking and packing provide seasonal work, while people with language skills can translate, interpret, coach or teach.

It is still a complicated process to get a work permit in another EU country, so these efforts to earn money may often be described as 'informal'. Visit www.vacationwork.co.uk and get ahead of the students.

If you plan to write for money, start on this before you leave the UK. Try to get a commission from a magazine or publisher or get an agent. It is much harder to set this up once you are travelling. Match your writing to the publication(s) you are aiming at: this may determine the direction in which you travel. See if a guidebook or magazine wants a particular region explored.

Take a word processor with a printer, or better still a laptop, since magazines increasingly prefer material in digital form. A digital camera (see photography) will take the photographs that are essential, and you can make them available to the publisher via the internet or on a CD through the post.

MONEY, SAVING IT BY HUNTER-GATHERING: There are many opportunities to gather fruit and vegetables as a second harvest gleaned from fields and orchards, or from hedgerows and wild trees. Sometimes the campsite itself is also a fruit or olive orchard. We have gathered or been given a wide range of fruit, vegetables, nuts, herbs, wines and olive oil. If you fish (we don't) take your rod, line or octopus spear. Or wait with the seagulls for a fishing boat to dock.

MONEY, SPENDING IT: We can draw money from ATMs throughout Europe using credit (HSBC Visa and MasterCard) and debit cards (Cirrus and Maestro). We pay off our credit cards in full each month by direct debit, avoiding any interest payment. Internet banking (for example www.hsbc.co.uk) is a great paper-free way of monitoring accounts, checking direct debits and making payments.

We also carry some cash in euros and euro traveller's cheques with a well-known name like Thomas Cook. The euro has rapidly displaced the US dollar as the second currency of choice throughout Eastern Europe. Plastic cards are safest, because they are easy to hide and can be cancelled if lost or stolen. They also provide some insurance cover. We protect against their loss with a 'Cardguard' scheme. See also Security.

ORGANISATIONS TO JOIN: There are many clubs that might be of interest to motorhomers. The Caravan Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club (see camping, sites) are of direct use for their campsite guides, magazines, insurance and legal services. The Motor Caravanners' Club (www.motorcaravanners.org.uk) has offered advice, a magazine and club rallies for many years. People with special interests are well served: the retired, snowbirds, Silk Route adventurers, Christians, classic motorhome enthusiasts, self-builders, naturists, folding bike riders, nice people – there is even a group for loners! People with similar motorhomes can meet and share experiences - Hymer, Swift, Bambi, Pilote – and American RV owners can choose from 5 clubs. Check your needs against the MMM's regular listings.

ORGANISING INFORMATION: Travellers have a long list of essential codes and numbers: passport, National Insurance, National Health, VIN, credit and debit cards, driving licence, short-wave frequencies, equipment serial numbers, etc. A pocket-sized or palm-top organiser can store all these things, coded (see security, pins and other codes) and behind passwords if necessary. Our 4MB Casio organiser also stores dozens of addresses, keeps a daily log including mileages and fuel, gives space for memos, has a perpetual calendar and anniversary reminder, gives the date and time in many parts of the world, records expenses as they occur (listing them according to type and giving daily, weekly or monthly summaries - see Cost of Living), converts currencies as well as British and metric measurements, calculates, schedules future activities, and lists and sorts by priority all the things there are 'To Do'.

We started travelling with a Canon StarWriter 70 and then moved on to a Brother LW-840ic, each an inexpensive dedicated word processor with built-in ink jet printer. They recorded all our writing, addresses and data on 3.5" disks. We also have a filing system for letters, photographs, receipts and guarantees, manuals for the motorhome and its accessories, stationery, tourist information leaflets, articles cut from magazines, maps, etc.

More recently, we have bought a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop computer, which has immediately found a wide range of uses: writing, digital images, CD audio recording and playback, keeping and analysing data, video editing, spreadsheets, watching films on DVD, maps, route planning and analysis - and it can send and receive FAX! (See photography, internet & email and gps.)

The Dell 3-in-1 printer, scanner and copier produces good printouts for documents and photographs, stores key documents and digital images, turns printed words into word processor data and saves us looking for a photocopier. Dell have no shops - you design your own machine, get advice and order over the internet at www.dell.co.uk (phone 0870 907 4000) – an ideal arrangement for the traveller.

PENSIONS: Providing you are 'ordinarily resident' in the UK and aged under 60, you can continue to pay voluntary contributions to enhance your pension. Once you are eligible, you can receive the annual heating allowance and state pension payments with annual increments. To see if you are 'ordinarily resident', contact The Pension Service, Tyneview Park, Payments, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE98 1BA.

PET PASSPORTS: From July 2004, the EU Pet Passport replaces the Pet Travel Scheme for taking pets in and out of the UK and around Europe. More information from DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) - visit www.defra.gov.uk or talk to your vet who will issue the passport, but do this well in advance.

PHOTOGRAPHY: For us this is an absorbing hobby, constantly focusing attention, recording our journeys, supporting our travel writing and helping us to share experiences. We started with a compact 35 mm Minolta camera to carry when cycling or walking, and a much bulkier 35 mm Canon EOS 600 SLR with a variety of lenses for 'serious' photography. The Canon has a flashgun, a firm tripod and a remote shutter release.

We use Kodak Gold film, 100 asa in the summer, 200 asa in the winter. The problem is finding a way of storing prints and negatives so they can be easily identified and retrieved - after 9 years we have too many!

More recently, we bought a digital camera, a Fuji FinePix F601Zoom. This has transformed our approach to photography – we can now click with impunity and save only the best for future use. The camera is compact, its battery is rechargeable and the 128MB memory card (storing up to 300 images) can be used repeatedly. Every image can carry the time and date it was taken, details of the exposure and a 30-second descriptive soundtrack. The camera will also take short videos and long audio recordings. Splendid.

Many shops provide a printing service for digital cameras, and images find permanent storage on a CD. However, the camera comes into its own if you also have a laptop or PC (see organising information), which can store the images or copy them to a CD, crop and enhance them, send them in emails, print them as photographs or as inserts in letters, set up a slide show, add sound, make a video – everything a creative photographer might want.

POSTE RESTANTE: This is easy to set up, sometimes frustrating to use and always takes the form:

SURNAME, first name or initial, for example: WILLIAMSON, Barry
Poste Restante (or local equivalent):                Poste Restante
Post Code (if known):                                     20100
TOWN:                                                          KORINTHOS
COUNTRY:                                                   GREECE

Put your surname first, as mail is kept in alphabetical order and checked against your passport when you collect it, sometimes from people who don't know your alphabet. In Alexandroupolis, a package addressed 'F.A.O. Margaret Williamson' took 15 minutes to unearth, filed under 'F'.

The words 'Poste Restante' should be recognised everywhere, although in Germany and Austria they use Post Lagernd; in Italy Fermo Posta. Any post office will tell you the code of any other post office in the same country. If the Poste Restante isn't at the main post office (this happened in Innsbruck and Dubrovnik), they will tell you where to find it.

One Poste Restante will pass mail on to another in the same country. For example, Chamonix passed a packet to Séez in Haute Savoie where we were at the excellent Camping Le Reclus. Chamonix wasn't very far away, just the other side of Mont Blanc! Sometimes we pay a fee on collecting the mail: France charges for every single item, Austria and Italy only for parcels, but Greece, generous as ever, is free. Even large articles can be sent Poste Restante: a set of table legs and a new water pump came from CAK Tanks of Kenilworth; Brownhills sent a Fiamma 3-bike rack. A smoke alarm, a Shimano bicycle cassette remover, oil and fuel filters - all these essentials arrived safely. Countries outside the EU (including Gibraltar) require a completed Customs Declaration Form to be attached to a parcel.

Post Offices usually have a rule that they keep letters and packets for a month (14 days in the UK) and then return them, but so far only the French have done this. American Express offices will hold letters (not packets) for up to a month, if you have their card or use their traveller's cheques. See also Address.

RADIO: The third member of our travelling team, the best informed, tireless and entertaining, is our little short-wave radio, a Roberts R809, costing about £100. It runs off the 12-volt system (see electricity, batteries) and the tuning is digital, which means we can switch easily between 10 different frequencies, depending on the time of day, location and atmospheric conditions. A 30 ft external aerial improves reception enormously! The BBC (write to BBC World Service, Bush House, London or visit www.bbcworld.com) publishes programme guides which give the frequencies and times of its short-wave transmissions in different parts of the world. The Roberts gets other English language broadcasts on short wave as well as local music and language on FM. For about £120, a satellite radio gives clearer and more reliable BBC World Service reception, albeit from the English-language Africa service. There are up to 40 stations on the same signal – music and other news channels. The antenna is simple enough to sit at a window, vaguely pointing south (towards Africa). Visit www.sdsdigital.co.uk or www.worldspace.com.

REFRIGERATION: Our large Norcold absorption fridge/freezer uses a small gas flame or mains electricity to provide the heat necessary to vaporise its cooling fluid. Access to the 'works' is from an outside panel and there is a roof-level vent. On some models, a 12-volt heater enables the refrigerator to work while the motorhome is moving. The most sophisticated type provides automatic switching between the 3 modes of operation. Absorption fridges do require a level pitch! Visit Electrolux under their new name: www.dometic.co.uk.

Less common are refrigerators using a 12-volt motor to run a compressor. They are more efficient, but they are also noisier, more expensive and do require a mains supply or solar-panel to support the batteries.

SAFETY: We have 3 fire extinguishers (near the door, in the cab and by the cooker), a fire blanket, 2 smoke alarms on the ceiling (the kind that can be cancelled for 10 minutes during toast-making), isolator taps for each gas appliance, easily accessible heavy duty isolator switches for the batteries, and propane and carbon monoxide detectors in the bedroom.

SECURITY, IN THE MOTORHOME: A lot of thought has been given to security. We have a hidden safe for cash, credit cards and documents; a double deadlock on the solid side door; chains with padlocks to fasten each cab door to a strong seat pillar; steering wheel clamp; screws that lock the sliding windows; personal alarms; an alarm and immobiliser for the motorhome with a 'panic button'; a CS gas spray (freely available in Greece and Germany, perhaps not legal in the UK) kept by the door; heavy walking sticks; a powerful flashlight and the excellent ultrasonic 'Dog Dazer'.

If you fear night-time gas attacks, visit www.nereusalarms.co.uk for details of their £125 'EtherAlert'alarm.

We don't open the door to strangers, even in uniform: we might open an adjacent sliding window and put on the outside light. We leave the vehicle parked with the radio on and all the blinds closed and we have stickers on doors and windows graphically warning of guard dogs, alarms, police and dire consequences. We consider our exit routes and leave the vehicle 'ready to drive' when we park in a public area overnight. All this seems to be working - so far.

SECURITY, PINS & OTHER CODES: Any word that contains 10 different letters is a good key for recording numbers you want to keep secret. For example, with

CAMPF I N DE R
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

the PIN 4270 is written as FMDC. A thief is unlikely to crack this code.

SERVICING, SPARES & REPAIRS: No problem for a European motorhome in Europe – your Fiat should feel at home in Italy. We bought American and made an arrangement with good UK specialists (Frenchie in Cambridgeshire and later TB Turbo in Lancaster) to send spares out Poste Restante. We use our credit card and order by phone or email. They also help when we get a surmountable problem and need advice and moral support.

Basic spares include bulbs, fan belts, oil and other engine fluids for top-ups, oil and fuel filters. Don't forget a jack strong enough to safely lift the heaviest corner of the motorhome. Try it before you have to! Ours is a Swedish-made 8-ton bottle jack.

We carry a wide range of tools for inside and outside jobs. These include a full socket set, air compressor and pressure gauge, hammers, pliers, screwdrivers (including a ratchet set with many heads), an electric screwdriver (indispensable), pop-riveter, soldering iron, duct tape and a hacksaw. We have a fibreglass kit, exhaust-pipe bandage, mastic, sealers, wire and different kinds of glue. We often open our box of washers, screws, nuts, bolts and other fasteners.

Other repairs require a sewing kit, including needles and thread strong enough for an awning.