Russell and Diane Gibson have been living their dream as permanent travellers. They tell Catherine Milford how they think they’ve finally found the right vehicle for them.
Russell Gibson grew up taking holidays in old buses his dad had converted into motorhomes. These days, Russell’s motorhome or caravan is his permanent home. He says it’s the perfect life, and after many years trying out all manner of vehicles, he reckons he’s checked out enough caravans and motorhomes to know his latest purchase is just the ticket.
Russell and his wife Diane are currently living at the holiday park at Ruakaka Beach. “We hit the road, headed up north towards Uretiti, and this is as far as we got when we went into lockdown. So this is where we’re staying!” says Diane. The pair are currently in a 24ft Silverline Jayco caravan, which they’ll live in until they take delivery of what they consider their ‘forever’ motorhome — a 29ft Iveco motorhome — in April 2022.
Russell, have you always had a caravan or motorhome?
I had a motorhome before marrying Diane last August, but I sold that. The first one we bought together was an English Rambler Fiat Ducato in March 2019. Our second was a 24ft Jayco Conquest, in August 2019, then we bought the Jayco Outback. Since June 2020 we’ve been living in a 24ft Jayco Silverline, and the last one we’ll have is the Iveco, which we’re getting delivered next April.
You’ve lived in a lot of motorhomes! Why so many?
My dad could never resist buying a bus or caravan, doing it up and on-selling it, and I think the habit must be hereditary! I’d watch him buy them, do them up, then see another one he liked and do the whole thing all over again. I’ve inherited his trait from him I think. I used to do up
pop-top caravans as a hobby — buy one, make some modifications and on-sell it — but I never lived in them. It was Diane that started that.
What’s the appeal of a motorhome for you, Diane?
I’ve always wanted to live in one. Russell and I used to work together, me running the warehouse, while he was a truck driver; we lived a ‘normal’ life in Auckland. When Russell came home one day and said he’d had enough, I was all too ready. Now our whole life is in our caravan, or motorhome.
Do you prefer motorhomes or caravans?
We’ve lived in both. Really, it depends on what you’re after. Caravans are more spacious, which is great as motorhomes can get a bit cramped; on the other hand, you can’t really freedom camp in a caravan. Size is a problem too: at the moment we tow the caravan with our Dodge Ram truck, and the car and caravan together is 17 metres long, which makes us too big to fit in some campground spaces.
Whichever I’m buying though, I always buy Jayco. They’ve always looked after us, every Jayco we’ve had has worked well, and we like the way the vans are built.
Where do you enjoy travelling to?
We’ve been to Taupo, New Plymouth, Papamoa, Rotorua, Mount Maunganui, Taranaki — all around the North Island. Each month we sit down and make a rough plan of where we want to go, then we work out how we’re going to do it. We have a DOC pass, so we often stay at DOC campgrounds.
We come to Ruakaka a lot; it’s very restful. The campsite is right on the beach, which is so long you can walk from here to Uretiti. The biggest problem is that there aren’t any fish around at the moment! Nothing is stressful though; we take our surfcasters to the beach with a couple of drinks, a jacket and a chair, and just relax. Even if we don’t catch anything, we can have some laughs, walk home in our own time and go home for dinner when we’re ready.
How do you manage without power?
I can’t stress enough how important it is to have adequate solar power and batteries. You can’t survive without it. We have 480 watts of solar panels on the truck; it came with one panel and we added more to it. Now we can stay somewhere with no power for five days using just the solar panels and gas, although the batteries do run down after that. I always cook on the barbecue outside rather than using too much equipment inside too, which saves quite a lot on power.
What’s the attraction of living on the road?
We can do whatever we want, and go wherever we want. We wake up to a different view as many times as we want, and we can move whenever we want. We meet lovely people on our travels who are doing the same thing as us, we swap Facebook and phone contact details, and it’s not uncommon to meet up with the same people again while we’re travelling. There are people of all ages doing what we’re doing: we’ve met plenty of young travellers, as well as people our age who enjoy it as much as we do.
How practical is it, living on the road?
It’s very practical, once you work out what you need. A lot of people can’t believe we live like this, but we really enjoy it. In life, we have ‘wants’, and we have ‘needs’. We live in a small space, so we buy what we need, not what we want. When we first started travelling, every cubbyhole and storage space was crammed full; nowadays a lot of them are empty because we realised we just don’t need that much stuff. We’d rather have the space.
The new motorhome we’re buying has more external space than the one we have now; it has huge lockers on each side, and a generator that charges up all the batteries.
Do you miss anything about your previous life?
Not really, no. I definitely don’t miss getting up to go to work! I used to love my lawns when we had a house, but I don’t miss that any more. We had great neighbours, but now our neighbours are the people we meet. Any mail for us goes to the house in Auckland, where my son is living, and bills all come to us by email. We’ve got our routines here, just as anyone would at home; we arrive somewhere, and we set up: she has her jobs and I have mine.
What would your advice be to someone starting out on a journey like yours?
First, do your research. Before I buy, I research on the internet and read every pamphlet I can find on caravans and motorhomes. I learn exactly how much space it has, how to pack it and how to modify it to suit our needs.
Think hard about what you want in your caravan or motorhome, and what’s important to you. For example, are you cooking inside or outside? If you cook often, think about bench space; if you enjoy entertaining, is the seating area large enough? Write a list of your ‘must-haves’, and then start looking.
Budget is crucial of course. I’ve sat in caravans at Jayco and chatted to people who are about to buy a caravan, and I tell them their car can’t legally tow it. So then you’re not just looking at a caravan; you’re looking at buying a vehicle that can tow it as well.
Will you ‘retire’ from travelling one day?
We want to do this for as long as we can. We’re in our early 60s so there’s plenty of time yet; if we do have to stop, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. From our experience though, people who live like us are younger at heart than people who are working. We just really enjoy our life.
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