This – this was my bloody dream ever since one of those enchanting nights in Portugal. This was the thing we had mulled over, planned and made many a decision based upon. We chose to push the last two months of parental leave as far out as possible – for the chance of good weather and for the glimmer of hope of outlasting the lockdowns and limitations.

We chose our car with this in mind – had to have certified roof rack carrying capacity and be big enough for four and our stuff. We lined up friends, options, mulled over potential routes.

So the 26^th of April came – and went, with us firmly in lockdown grounded at home. No way to move the dates, no point in fussing over anything. Just hunker down and suffer through this – one more month to add to all the ones added up already.

May a half-dead rat’s feces hit all of those sharing the blame for spreading and failing to contain this bloody thing. Cursed be every super spreader! We HATE the novel corona virus! [/old man yelling at cloud]

But then, as always, things get better eventually (at least for us cis white European whities, that is). One by one, we managed to snatch up our first doses of the vaccines (after the boomers were finished and immediately demanded everything go back to normal for them, of course). European countries started to loosen travel restrictions and we finally allowed ourselves to think about actually doing it.

So, what is “this”? Well, it is our meager attempt at doing what is unfortunately very unsustainable (long distance travel) in the least harmful way we can think of. And to embrace our continent of origin and what the most dense and top tier level of infrastructure can support: Camping with an EV and our well proven iCamper SkyCamp roof tent.

The thought that struck me on our last trip: We stick to campgrounds anyway, because in such densely populated parts of the world there is not much room for wild camping (plus the fact that it is illegal most anywhere). So why not use that time to fuel the vehicle that we are using? With the kids, we would not travel more than maybe 300km in a day and, if we needed to, the charging infrastructure is good enough to just top up during a normal rest stop.

So here we are, 250 km from home on a campground in the black forest. The car is charging, number 3 and the Agent of Entropy are sleeping peacefully in the roof tent and I get to be really electrified about traveling again.

We are doing it … be a naysayer if you want – yes this is not edge of the unknown adventure travel. But it is the road.

My kids will experience that. They will meet cool people, friends we have across Europe and they will breathe fresh air and see the open sky.

And no virus could stop us from doing that …

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