Why we decided to downsize our London home to live in a lorry

In recent years, we were working crazy hours to maintain our home of bricks and mortar in London. Chris’ job in IT was demanding, high pressure and the price of things increased every year with the work/life balance, tipping heavily towards the working end, it wasn’t a healthy lifestyle and he ended up being left mentally and physically exhausted. My girls had left home and Chris’s kids were getting older and not wanting to spend every other weekend having to spend time on trains coming to London, they wanted more quality time in the holidays with us. The timing was right to make the big move to living a simpler more healthy life. It was a difficult decision and at times very scary but we knew we were not able to continue, as we had been both financially or emotionally.

We thought of different options we had to change our lives to have a better and simpler life that would be more self-sufficient and not have to rely on being on grid. We are passionate about travelling and seeing new places but our second passion is Scuba Diving. After a few years, we became friendly with one of the instructors who invited us to her home..... a lorry!

| Florry parked with her Inspiration in Menorca |

This is where it all started.

The idea that it is possible to live in a home on wheels opened our eyes to a new world. Wow!

We realised we could do this and live a healthier life with less stress and could possibly combine the two things we are passionate about - Travel and Scuba Diving. We had spent many holidays camping with our kids and touring in our motor home so we knew the life of motor homing already so that was ok, it was the build that was the scary part and the idea of doing it full time. People thought we were dreaming and that we wouldn’t be able to build a motor home as we had never done anything practical like this before. We sold our motor home, borrowed some money and bought our lorry.

A year and a half later we were living in Florry living our dream of travelling visiting beautiful places, still able to see our family and able to dive.

It's not always perfect but it is a lot less stressful than living in London. In our blog later will talk about the build from scratch to now, but suffice to say it was hard work with plenty of blood, sweat and tears in between packing up a family home and working our normal jobs. We got there in the end and we are finally able to reap the benefits of the hard slog it was transforming Florry in our home on wheels.

This year we’ve had many adventures travelling in Florry around Europe. All our 5 kids got to have time with us in France over the summer holidays, which was lovely. We’ve also been able to see Cara, Chris’s youngest every holiday so far since living in the lorry and she still loves to come and stay with us in the lorry or wherever the lorry is parked and has been able to have quality time with Chris making things, learning how to use tools and exploring the world through an outdoor life. What more could we ask for? A simple life, Environmentally friendlier life, travels, some diving and quality time with our family.