«Modern nomads»: Everyday family life in a motorhome

Shortly before the coronavirus pandemic, my husband and I quit our jobs, sold our flat and started travelling through Europe with our two daughters (ten and twelve years old at the time). In the nine-part series «Happiness travels with you», I write about our experiences and everyday life on the road in the caravan.

Four years later, most of our family life still takes place on the road, now in a motorhome called Daisy. Four of us in 15 square metres. How is this possible without us banging our heads all the time or wanting to run away because of claustrophobia? Perhaps this is the answer. We are looking for space. Only we do it together.

Welcome to the new series «Modern Nomads». I look forward to taking you a little way into our life as a travelling family.

Resolve conflicts immediately

We don't argue very often. In any case, we rub up against each other less often than in our old life. For us, getting on each other's nerves has little to do with physical proximity. In the past, irritation was usually caused by time pressure or unfulfilled expectations.

Today, nobody misses a train or is late if they don't hurry in the morning. Household chores are kept to a minimum in such a small space. Two minutes of mopping up doesn't lead to an argument about whose job it was. There hasn't been any homework for a long time.

Nevertheless, living together in a confined space means that we can't avoid conflict. Subliminal tensions or unspoken anger quickly flare up. Or, as my older daughter recently said: «We have no room for elephants in the room.»

We have never had as much room as we do now to pursue our own interests.

Daughters like the sun and the moon

Isn't that exhausting, being so close to each other all the time? How can teenagers develop their own identity and individuality in this family? We've never had as much space as we do now to pursue our own interests. Our daughters spend a lot of time together, but they are still like the sun and the moon.

They listen to their own music and have their own style of dress. One of them always gets up early and likes to go hiking alone if no one else wants to join her. The other would like to sleep in every day and prefers to devote herself to an exciting book or crochet.

School, reading, watching documentaries and films, listening to music, visiting new places, chatting with friends and talking on the phone. All of this provides plenty of fresh input. And then there are always phases in which we spend a lot of time with friends and relatives.

It's true that our teenagers perhaps lack the opportunity to secretly try out interesting or «forbidden» things like vaping or drinking alcohol or getting a tattoo, like my friend did when she was sixteen. Nevertheless, I feel that my children are anything but conformist.

Our lifestyle is the best anti-midlife crisis pill for us as a couple.

Couple relationship as a basis

The basis of our family life lies in our relationship as a couple. In the play «Bunbury» by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, a protagonist takes a swipe at couples who flaunt their happiness together in public: «They wash their clean linen in public,» she mocks.

That's not my point here. I just want to illustrate that the cohesion of us as parents forms an important foundation for our life plan. We've been a couple for over 24 years, four of them on the road. On the one hand, we are certainly very happy together. On the other hand, it doesn't last without us contributing to it.

A big impetus to start our journey in the first place came from two people we met five years ago. They had lived on a boat for many years and settled down again when their daughter was three. If these down-to-earth and rational people could lead a travelling life, so could we, we thought. The couple went through thick and thin, always starting new projects together. Last year, they split up. Very suddenly - for us. The world was suddenly no longer the same.

Breaking new ground together

Could that happen to us too? We are at an age when many couples break up or someone has an affair. The children are slowly growing up. When you crawl out of bed together in the morning and greet each other, the tingling in your stomach is limited - if you still share a bed at all. Is that it now?, some may ask themselves. Long-established communication patterns harden, interests develop in different directions.

Our lifestyle is the best anti-midlife crisis pill. There is no mundane everyday life in which the years pass us by. We regularly make new decisions together, meet new people and visit new, unknown places. In doing so, we gain so many fresh experiences that we never feel like we're missing out on something better.

Taking responsibility for your own happiness

Another cornerstone in our relationship is that we don't want to make each other responsible for our own happiness. If someone has a wish or a need, this should be verbalised and we try to give them space. We don't wait for it and are disappointed if the other person hasn't read the wish from our eyes. If it does happen, we are happy about it.

Maintaining a couple's relationship means above all working on yourself.

It must also be possible to love different things without the other person taking this personally and transferring it to the relationship. Or as the philosopher, psychotherapist and communication scientist Paul Watzlawick satirically put it: «If you really loved me, you would like to eat garlic». For me, nurturing a relationship means one thing above all: working on yourself.

A comforting thought

It is unlikely that the four of us will still be travelling in a motorhome in another four years. The ravages of time are doing their work. All children grow up and go their own way. We are in no hurry, but trust that our children will take the right steps at the right time.

By the time sons and daughters are 18, parents have used up on average around 90 per cent of the time they will ever spend with them. This estimate is a good consolation for me that we have made the best of it.