A young couple has shown how they sold up their first home in Oxford and quit their jobs to go live in a van with their dog travelling across Europe - that even houses its own compostable loo beneath the sofa.
Fed up with the rat race, former IT consultant, Kieran Field, 27, and former accountant, Alice Ballard, 26, ditched their 9-5s for the nomadic lifestyle of wild swimming, surfing and hiking. They gambled everything on a £7,000 van to create their new home on wheels – complete with a double bed, one-square-metre kitchen and outdoor shower made from a hosepipe.
It came after they renovated their house, a two-bed semi-detached property in Oxford, which they now rent out to fund their new lifestyle. The couple set off on their adventures in the north of France in August 2020 and in the two years since, have covered 25,000 miles across 16 European countries.
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Alice said: “Living in a van has given us the freedom to be where we want to be and do whatever we want to do.
“I am a strong believer that life is very short and you never know what is around the next corner.”
She added: “We have never once regretted moving to a van – it was the best decision we ever made.”
After meeting aged 16, while both studying BTec music at college in their hometown of Oxford, Kieran and Alice quickly began saving for their first home together after they started working.
In 2014, they bought their two-bed house in Oxford, and set about renovating it into what they thought would be their forever home.
But after a few years, they were itching for something more.
Alice said: “We have always been really travel-orientated so we would try to squeeze in road trips around America in between work.
“We would go camping in Europe or take two weeks off work to visit places like Indonesia and Thailand.”
She added: “But it was never long enough and we would use all our savings.
“You leave school and you think, ‘Great, we have this nice house’, but there are all these monthly outgoings and no money at the end of the month.
“We were meant to be living the dream but we were just missing something.”
Desperate to explore more of the world, the couple took a leap of faith in July 2019 and bought a three-year-old white Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van for just £7,000 on eBay.
Naming it Puff the Magic Wagon, they spent nine months and £1,000 stripping, insulating, and converting their van on their weekends.
“We knew if we had the shower inside, it would take up a lot of space for something we use only once a day, so it made sense to have it outside, and we made it with a £20 garden hose,” Alice said.
“We created the toilet using the seat with a small bin underneath, filled with sawdust mixed into compost, with a separate urine tank at the front – you literally lift off the sofa cushion and it’s there.
“We spent the first few months using cafe loos and we quickly realised we needed our own toilet so having the toilet in the van was actually really glorious.”
And they managed to squeeze in some luxuries too, thanks to solar panels on the van roof and three high-performance batteries.
“So long as the sun was shining, our van was like a fully-functioning house.
“We had full lighting, a coffee machine, a fridge, air fryer, gas hobs and chargers for our phones and iPad as well as a surround sound stereo.”
By February 2020, they were ready to head off with their four-year-old Golden Retriever, Freddie, only to be delayed by the lockdown.
“We were locked in until the summer but it gave us the perfect chance to rent out our house and then in August, we could finally go,” Alice said.
“We had put so much blood, sweat and tears into making the van with our own hands and we were so proud.
“Heading off, we felt this massive, satisfying sense of freedom.”
Heading first to Mont Saint-Michel in France for a month, then to Picos de Europa in Spain for two months, the couple later moved on to England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Spain, Andorra, Croatia, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium, Gibraltar, Bosnia and Austria.
With an income of around £1,000 a month from renting their home in Oxford, the pair say it is more than enough to live humbly.
“We are not rich people, but it is enough,” Alice said. “We are really careful to track every penny every month and make sure we don’t overspend.”
After adding a second dog to their team – rescue puppy, Sookie, an eight-month-old mongrel they found in Dubrovnik, Croatia in March 2022 - the couple, who document their travels on their YouTube channel, KeiranandAlice, with loyal community of 11K subscribers, decided to upgrade to a bigger van.
They purchased a 14-year-old Mercedes-Benz Luton van in London and converted it in just six weeks – all for £17,000.
“We knew what we were doing the second time around, so it was much easier and the van is so much bigger,” Alice said.
“The biggest difference is the amount of floor space we have and now we have an indoor shower too, which is so good, and there’s still the loo under the sofa too.”
She added: “It also has more solar power and battery power which means there is more usable power.”
Travelling 25,000 miles in a van together has been great for the couple’s relationship, Alice, currently in County Mayo, said.
“I think there is something quite romantic about building a home with the person you love, with your bare hands.”
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