{"id":15,"date":"2014-06-05T07:19:14","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T07:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?page_id=15"},"modified":"2021-03-10T08:44:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T21:44:59","slug":"about-us","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?page_id=15","title":{"rendered":"About Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michael and Pam live in southern suburbs of Sydney (The Shire), Australia. We caught the travel bug several years ago.  Having been a firefighter for 34 years, I retired in 2012.  Pam retired in 2017, so we have taken the opportunity to extend our motorhome travels and take the odd side trip since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walking Botany Bay on a winter’s afternoon.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Having visited Europe and North America in 2011-2012 we were looking for a way to extend our travelling dollar.  After perusing numerous travel blogs, we thought a motorhome could be the way.  So after much investigating we decided on the make and model we were looking for.  Our plan was to purchase the motorhome during our next trip to the UK in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started looking on eBay and next thing you know, we were the proud owners of a 2005 Hymer B584.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014 we headed off on our first extended motorhome tour.  Travelling from London via the ferry to Calais, we followed the French coast south through Normandy, Brittany and the Atlantic coast to Spain before heading into the Pyrenees.  Arriving in Toulouse we transferred to a hired French penichette for two weeks on the Midi-Canal to Montpellier on the Mediterranean.  On the road again we crossed back into Spain and followed the east coast to Valencia before heading home via Bilbao and the ferry to Portsmouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst our first tour in 2014 seemed easy enough now, looking back we were inexperienced.  Every day we learnt something new about our motorhome and the art of motorhoming in foreign lands.  The idiosyncrasies of our Hymer, finding places to park and when it may be better to move on, are all part of the learning curve.  Talking and learning the tricks from other motorhomers is the best way and generally speaking, most are more than willing to share their experiences.  Our philosophy has always been to do our best on a limited budget.  Hence wildcamping or free stops are always our first choice.  Unfortunately that’s not always possible, so if paying to stay in an aire or stellplatz becomes a necessity to comply with some local ordinance, so be it.  Campsites tend to be our last resort. You’ll note we often take a ferry rather than drive. Whilst ferries can be seemingly expensive, they save a lot of time and diesel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having spent a year reading other travellers blogs, it seemed that creating our own blog was the thing to do.  So prior to departing in 2014 we started building this website.  Our aim was to create a diary of our experiences primarily for ourselves and to annoy the children who think we should be at home and not spending their inheritance.  Learning how to use WordPress’ themes and plugins, creating pages and posts, uploading this and publishing that…not to mention the confusing jargon is an ongoing challenge but it keeps the grey matter sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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