How it all Started
Being surrounded by nature has always made me feel infinitely more myself, but the Highlands hit differently. They open up my heart and soul and play music directly into my core and make me feel alive in a way that I haven’t experienced before.
I’ll get to the bits you’re probably interested in, like the costs, and how we found our plot of land – but I think it is equally important to acknowledge how we even made this possible.
When we set our hearts on this goal, Cam was living full time in a van that he self-converted (who we lovingly named Kevlar; she’s an ex-Met Police Riot Van), and I was working in an office job and living with my parents. We had travelled a lot together, but it was becoming increasingly clear to us that we wanted this travel-based off-grid lifestyle to be our whole life together and not just the odd holiday. We were also clear that we weren’t ready to go and tie ourselves into a mortgage, it just didn’t feel like the right path for us.
So, we decided that we’d move into the van together, but there were still a few obstacles in our way.
Firstly, I loved my job. I was working with a software startup as their Customer Service lead, but it was office based. I spoke to the CEO about our goals, and my need for remote work, and got a flat no in response. Since I’d proven throughout Covid that I was able to competently work remotely, I was sad about this, but I moved onwards despite the slight mourning for a job I loved.
This is where the search for remote work started, and I was determined to find something that allowed us to press forward with the goal we’d set our hearts on. I was mainly searching on Indeed and LinkedIn and despite finding a lot of job postings, I didn’t apply to very many. I needed something completely remote – but I also wasn’t ready to totally compromise on actually enjoying work too. Then, as if fate was on my side, I stumbled across my current role – and it totally changed my life. I’ll talk more about what I do and how to go about finding remote work another day, but the part that’s important to this story is the simple fact that this position was exciting, interesting and completely, wonderfully, remote.
Vanlife & Searching for Land
So that was it – I’d found the remote job, I spent a few months getting used to it from the comfort of my parents home, and then when we were ready and confident we set off in the van.
The Scottish Highlands were our destination, and we spent a beautiful year slowly travelling and experiencing what that part of the world had to offer. In this time, Cam started his YouTube channel and grew it to be monetised and I grafted my way to a couple of promotions – all while we were living a life that felt like a dream.
It still feels like magic to me that we managed to push our lives, and careers, forward whilst doing something completely different that many people had voiced concerns about or warned us against. I think daring to dream, and push that mould, can open doors others are too afraid to even touch.
Living in the van made me fall back in love with myself.
I found an inner peace that I had lost somewhere along the way, and I discovered a life that felt honest. In my relationship with myself, and my relationship with Cam, I found a sense of ease. Life was really, really good.
But in the most human way, we still wanted ‘more’.
For us ‘more’ wasn’t a fancy house, but we did want somewhere to put down roots, somewhere that felt like ours. We decided we wanted to find some land.
The search began, and we had a few things that were especially important to us; we wanted something that felt like it had planning potential, something that felt remote, and something that was not surrounded by lots of people. It quickly became clear that there was not much on the market, or in our ideal price range, that fit this criteria.
It took almost two years of Cam browsing On The Market at every spare moment for us to find the plot of land that would finally become ours. On the way, we found two other plots we were interested in – one which went for around £100k (ouch) and the other which we bid on, but only came 6th out of 11 bidders. I think fate was still looking after us throughout this, because the plot we finally bought was the plot of our dreams. It was superior in every way.
We bought our plot for £35,000 and paid solicitors fees on top of around £1,600, and sincerely, we couldn’t be happier with how we’ve spent our money.
What’s Next with the Land?
This journey is still on going.
I’m sitting here writing this on the 15th December ’24 while Cam is sat next to me working on the plans for our planning application. We would love to put our own little 1.5 storey house on the plot, replacing the beautiful dwelling that used to be on the land until around 1960.
Nothing is certain, and out of all of the steps so far, this is the most nerve racking one. However, we’re jumping into it with heards full of hope and the same amount of drive that we’ve put into our whole journey to get to this point. I am so blessed and excited to continue to share this with you as we roll forward.
If my words aren’t enough, below is the video that Cam put together about our journey, it still brings tears to my eyes.
