Home is where I park it

A few months ago while on lockdown in Morocco I wrote a couple of pieces about how life was like on the road there for myself and my partner and the effect the pandemic was having in general to van dwellers. We finished off our Moroccan adventure with a few days in Essaouira and then a few days in Chefchaouen, both normally very touristy. We felt very lucky to visit just as lockdown was easing with no other tourists in sight! Waiting for the Ferry to Spain We were lucky enough to make our way back to Portugal fairly painlessly with the help of the UK embassy who got us and our van a place on a ferry carrying mostly French nationals out of Morocco. Cases of Covid-19 were on the rise in Morocco as they started easing the lockdown, and we felt it was time to head back to Portugal which is where we are normally based most of the year. Portugal had done fairly well in keeping cases of the virus fairly low compared to other EU countries and deaths were also low. As we travelled through the

Hope all my readers have had a Blessed Solstice and have a very Merry  and a Happy New Year. Thanks for reading all my ramblings this year. Lots of Love, Sam XXX

or 'The criminalisation of my lifestyle in Portugal' Sadly it seems the rich and the fascists have got their way once again, this time in Portugal. Those of us who remember the UK traveller scene in the 80s, will remember how the government criminalised our lifestyle as 'New Age Travellers' starting with draconian laws after the government stopped the peaceful Stonehenge peoples festival in 1985. That day they used horrific police brutality on Travellers themselves, their vehicles and their animals. Many in Ireland will know how anti-traveller sentiment led to car parks all getting height barriers and trespass being criminalised. This is us, full-time van dwellers There has always been anti-traveller sentiment from a section of society. Nomadic lifestyles have always scared some of the settled population, a mixture of fear, jealousy and lies in the media have contributed to the anti-traveller brigade. With the growing number of people again taking to the road, known as

Is it ok for vanlifers, campervanners, new age travellers, hippy travellers, van dwellers, motorhomers etc to be travelling during the pandemic? Travelling at this moment in time is being discouraged generally. There are many countries in the world with closed borders where visiting them would be impossible at the moment. There are also many countries where although travelling is not being encouraged, there are open roads, ferries and flights to these countries. Some countries have quarantine requirements so as long as you abide by the rules regarding quarantine and where and when you can travel is it ok to drive around in your campervan? What has brought me to question this is the sheer amount of vanlifers and other van dwellers I see on Instagram posting about their travels during this global pandemic. I don't mean people that are generally staying in one area but people covering hundreds of miles. What is particularly worrying is the vanlife influencers or wannabe influencers th

After my post a few days ago about the actions of some local people evicting people in motorhomes from where they were parked I did some research into a couple of online groups that I found that are actively against the ‘wild’ campers in the Villa do Bispo area. I found that one of these groups openly supports the Chega party, the far-right political party in Portugal. I also found that followers of these groups were not all the environment lovers they claim to be. One of the major sources of complaint has been people parking in the Natural Park overnight, something that is prohibited. The 'anti wild camping' campaigners often say the environment is being ruined because of campervans parking overnight.  These groups are taking photos and videos of people and their vehicles without their knowledge and posting on social media. They post mostly rather ambiguous pictures of campervans next to litter or just pictures of litter accusing the people in campervans of leaving the litter.

Thanks for arriving at this article! If you don't want to read the whole article as I appreciate it's quite long then scroll down to the bottom for a summary of the main points. Last Saturday (the 21st November 2020) there was some disturbing news emerging about some locals from the Vila do Bispo area getting together and taking it upon themselves to evict people in campervans from beach car parks in the Costa Vicentina national park. There has been ongoing problems with the arrival of more and more people in campervans and motorhomes over the last few years to this area of Portugal. Most of the negative reporting about people in vans is actually a very small minority of people and includes day trippers in cars, locals and tourists alike.   Campervans at a Beach in the Natural Park These issues really need addressing urgently before someone gets hurt. Vigilante groups are a scary enough thought for people in campervans but also the locals themselves may well end up putt