About us - Living the PACO life

OUR TRAVELING STORY

“Never regret the things you didn’t do”

Last update: 04-04-2023. We are Jorg and Lisa and have been travelling with our bus “PACO” since September 2021. Our original plan was to travel in Asia with our backpack but because of all the craziness in the world, we chose to go on a campervan trip. We are very happy with that to this day. We had never travelled by motorhome before so everything was new to us. In the beginning we had to get used to travelling with an RV and everything that comes with it, but after a few weeks we found our feet and we really like the free life in the RV. Although we must also say that it can sometimes be challenging and tiring when things go wrong or break down again. Like everything in life, it has pros and cons. Starting such a journey, there is a lot involved, all the preparations and learning how everything works. We learnt a lot after 16 months of living full-time in an RV. When we were travelling for about a month, we came across 5 puppies without a mother by the side of the road in Montenegro. In a ski area in the mountains, remote from civilisation. We wanted to take all 5 puppies with us but also realised this was not possible for us. We spent a night there to think about what we wanted to do with the puppies. We put the puppies on a facebook group (30000 members) for street dogs in Montenegro. We also decided we wanted to take one or two little dogs with us. We put 2 little dogs on the bus. One immediately became stressed and wanted out, the other stayed calm. Here we decided to take this doggie with us, and this doggie is VI, who got a very good life with us.

19

Countries visited

19

Months traveling

27000

Driven Kilometers

Lisa

I am 24 years old and born in Breda. When I am in the Netherlands, I work in childcare. I really enjoy working with children but it always itches to travel. When I was 13 years old, I told my mother I was going to travel the world. “Just wait a little longer on that” my mother said then. But that has always stuck in my mind. When I turned 18, I had to do an internship in childcare. Then it occurred to me that this could also be done in Curaçao, I discussed this at school and it was possible. I arranged everything in four months and five months later I was in Curaçao. I had the time of my life there, my first long-distance trip from home. It felt like the beginning of seeing the world. 2 years later when I was 20, I wanted to get away again, but this time for a backpacking trip. I had worked in childcare and saved some money there. With this, I was able to travel in a few months. My trip went to Asia. Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia. Surely Asia is a very special place to travel. With your backpack you fly to the other side of the world where everything is so completely different from the Netherlands. Then I got into a relationship with Jorg, we wanted to travel together. Asia was not possible at the moment and we liked watching videos about vanlife on YouTube. This is where the idea of exploring Europe with a camper van was born. When travelling, I thought of going far away with your backpack to discover other continents. But closer to home there are also so many beautiful countries I hadn’t seen yet. And travelling with your own house on wheels is a completely different experience. Driving your own car allows you to see a lot of a country and you don’t have to plan much. Pick a side you want to drive to and see where you end up.

Jorg

My name is Jorg, 34 years old and I live in Breda. My first study (Communication and Multimedia Design) was creative but I found myself not good enough here and I wanted more security. I started studying Business Informatics in Breda and then the Master’s in Information Management in Tilburg. Fairly spontaneously, I started working for a large accountancy firm, completed another master’s, and after several years of happily working hard, I started having more and more doubts about the work I was doing. At work, we had the time-for-time concept which meant that a lot of work could be exchanged for a lot of leave; and I took advantage of this. Each year, I took about 10 weeks’ leave and travelled to places like Indonesia, India, Thailand, Egypt, Austria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. I have always wanted to travel for longer periods of time and Asia particularly appealed to me. So just before I met Lisa, Plan A for me was to spend a year travelling in Asia (and possibly South America). Unfortunately, the seasonal flu was then renamed pandemic and all borders closed. Waiting for permission to travel was not a good idea for me and we started looking more and more at motorhomes. One day we were in the car and I asked Lisa; “we’re going to do this, aren’t we? No empty promises we are really going to do this, if you say “yes” now you can’t go back”… and she did indeed say “yes” to this.

When did we found Vi?

24 oktober 2020

I am Vi, and come from Montenegro. I lived here together with my 4 siblings in a ski area in the mountains. It was very cold there but fortunately there were sweet people stopping to give us food every now and then. Then one day a blue bus stopped with two people in it. These people gave us lots of food and spent a night with us. The next day I was allowed to take a look inside their bus and after that I never left here.

Now I am a travelling dog. I am always in a different place and preferably in nature or on the beach. I am always cheerful and everyone is my friend. I still hope every human has food for me and sometimes I get lucky. I like walking, swimming in the sea and sleeping out, but most of all I like to play with as many canine friends as possible.

Our van PACO

PACO means “free man” or “free spirit”

We bought PACO on 11-07-2021. After watching Marktplaats on and off for several months, we found this 2008 Ford Transit. The van started its life at waterworks company Limburg and then as a work van at a sun protection company. The previous owner had fitted the bed, awning, solar panels and kitchenette. When we bought the van, we spent a few more weeks tinkering to create more storage space, significantly improve the looks, get the electronics working and mechanically get everything ready for a long distant journey. Along the way, we installed a large inverter and a diesel heater. PACO is certainly not perfect but this bus has gotten us into craziest places and we attract attention everywhere.