We live full-time in our motorhome called MG. We moved into him in June 2024 and before that we converted a luton box van, named it Adam and lived in him for a year back in 2023.
Living Free
We chose van life as a result of the increasing housing costs and ridiculous rent prices in our area. We have been together, as a couple, for over 6 years now. 5 of those years we spent barely spending a moment together. We had to work to live and a quantum shift was needed. We both new we wanted to spend more time together and combine our effort to produce what you see today, The Ghingos. Working full-time and trying to offer yoga classes, practice music, perform and build a business focused on wellbeing was a difficult task that drained us. So we took a leap of faith. We envisioned what we wanted and how we were going to achieve it. We left our shared house back in 2022 and haven’t looked back since, even with the cold winters! This shift has allowed us to save money, choose work that we want to commit to, build our business and finally spend some much needed time together.
The impact of not working in a career or job that neither of us really wanted to, was immense. Our happiness grew, our connection became established and the business you see today has begun to blossom and grow, due to our focus and drive being one-pointed. Amongst many things, we realised that it is best to serve ourselves in order to serve others better. Our health, both physically and mentally improved and our love for each other, our passions, and life itself grew and continues to grow day by day.
Sacrifice and Gain
It isn’t without sacrifice that we live in MG (our motorhome), but with sacrifice there can be tremendous gain also.
We’ve sacrificed space, warmth, security but gained appreciation, resilience and acceptance. It is when we are out of our comfort zone that we grow the most. From this transition from house life to van life we have gained a minimalist approach and truly believe that the objects you own end up owning you. Like many, we are still going through the process and refining the things we have. Continuously we are giving away objects that we’ve acquired or trading one thing for another, in hope to one day fine equilibrium and balance in our home.
How we live
The motorhome has everything we need, fresh water, bathroom, bedroom, the ability to cook food and space to do our daily practices (yoga, exercise and music). We’ve adapted to van life and the financial freedom we have gives us the chance to really focus on creating a life we love.
Daily we wake up and go straight into our practices. Seb does his yoga practice and fra practices her drumming and exercises, and yes, we do these together usually at the same time. When you live together in such as small space, you must develop a certain peace and understanding with your partner in order to live harmoniously. There isn’t much space, as we’ve mentioned, but you must adjust, adapt and accomodate as Swami Sivananda says.
Power
We now have the technology to harness the suns power, not only for ourselves, but for our devices. We run MG’s power of the sun and the starter battery. We don’t have any extravagant devices, just basic electronics, so a small 260watt solar panel and 95ah battery is enough for our needs. What about if the sun isn’t there you say? Well we do spend most of our time in the UK and the sun is often sparse at best. We are currently dealing with grey Skys and cold weather, but our trusty starter battery provides us with a few extra days of juice when we need it.
Water
MG can hold 70 litres or clean and grey waste, this lasts us about 4-5 days. That’s 2 people having a shower, cooking and washing each day. As we use natural/eco friendly products, our waste water can go straight back to the earth, although we empty it down the drain. With this system we can travel and park up for almost a week without needing to move. We always fill up our water bottles when possible, to maximise our water levels.
The toilet
We’re all human and we all need to use the loo. Like our water supply our toilet can hold up to 4-5 days of human matter. When we were living in Adam (our first van), we composted our waste. The Humanure Handbook was our guide in doing this safely and is packed fulled of useful s*** to read. If you have the means, please follow this method, it will change the way we impact the environment for the better.
Speak with us
If you have any questions concerning van life, please feel free to ask us and we’ll do our best to help you along the road.