The Idea

We have been very comfortable in both our motorhomes: the first a 27-foot American Four Winds (seen in England on the left), which lasted 13 years, and the second a 26-foot American Flair (seen below right in Greece). Too comfortable in fact. Although they have taken us to live and travel in every European country, from Norway's Nord Kapp to Morocco's Western Sahara Province and from western Portugal to the Turkish border with Georgia, we have too often been restricted by their size.

We used a motorbike for several years, riding it in Greece, Turkey, Sicily and Corsica, and we have always used bicycles and walking boots to take us off the beaten track into the remoter and more interesting places. Now we want to spend more time in those shrinking areas of mainland Europe and North Africa that still remain free from the pollution of mass tourism.

So - the Flair motorhome has gone into store with those highly skilled operators, Darren and Martin, the Motorhome Medics of Cheltenham. While we were recently motorhoming in Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, they sourced, checked over and finally bought for us a Mercedes Benz short wheelbase Sprinter van in excellent condition (seen on the left in Tunisia). More ideas and work from them has transformed it into exactly the right vehicle for our future travels.

The aptly-named Sprinter already holds our bicycles, along with camping, walking, reading and cooking gear and much else besides. It will take us to some of the many places we haven't been before and set us up to ride and walk, free from the threat and noise of traffic. We can find rooms, put up a tent or sleep in the back of the van (but only when pushed). We have even rejoined the YHA!

In this way, we hope to greatly increase the contact we have with the people and countries in which we travel, avoiding the isolation of the comfortable motorhome and the often remote campsite.

Our idea at the time of writing is to leave the UK in mid-December to find our way across France to the Mediterranean and follow that Sea, round past Livorno, Civitavecchia, Rome, Anzio, Naples, Salerno, Monte Casino and across the Straits of Messina into Sicily, en route to Tunisia and a side trip to Malta.

Margaret's 93-year-old Uncle Harold tells us that our route through Italy is, for the most part, the reverse of that taken by him and the victorious Eighth Army in 1943/44 as the defeated Germans were driven northwards. How much we would like to take him with us, to revisit the scenes of his greatest adventure.

Returning to Sicily, we aim to spend time in Malta and Tunisia before crossing two seas to Greece. Here the Sprinter will once more come into its own in the mountains of northern Greece and in a slow passage through the remoter parts of Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia.

After this journey we might return more than relieved to the comfort of the Flair motorhome, or continue Sprinting, or if the many gods (also known as coincidences) permit, set off on a fourth round-the-world journey.

Are we privileged? Of course; we all are in the west of Europe. The thing is to use that privilege, rather than fritter time and money away on shopping. Are we lucky? No. It's just a lot of work and a willingness to forgo other, less challenging ways of passing time between the end of work and that final journey into the greater unknown and unknowable.