CARRY ON CAMPING

Emilie Layla LovaineJames, 33, from Swansea, used her life savings to swap out her home for an abandoned caravan park...

- ALICE WILLIAMSON AND HATTIE BISHOP

Scrolling through the list of advertisements on Rightmove, nothing seemed to be the right fit.

My partner Jon, 34, and I were looking for plots of land in our local area.

Our four walls were beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic, and we wanted something a bit different.

Except, nothing seemed to be the right fit.

Not big enough, too big, much too far from home...

It felt impossible!

But we didn’t give up hope.

And, after two years of searching, we struck gold.

‘Why don’t we look at holiday accommodation, too?’ I asked Jon one evening. ‘We could even turn it into our own business one day.’

Although we loved our jobs as photographers, travelling the world for weddings was getting a lot to juggle and we wanted to be able to settle down somewhere.

‘Why not?’ Jon replied.

So, opening up Facebook, I put a message out, and the next morning, woke up to a reply.

‘Look at this!’ I called Jon from the other room. ‘This lady’s selling a caravan park!’

‘Oh God, I know that place,’ he said. ‘There’s no way in hell we are buying that!’

‘Why not?’ I replied.

‘It looks like a horror film,’ he said. ‘I used to drive pass it all the time when I was little.’

But, just to amuse me, he reluctantly went to view it.

So, the following week we drove up to Llanelli, West Wales.

The scenery was beautiful, and it was only a 20-minute drive from Jon’s parents’ house – Diane and Gary.