WE'VE SAVED £30K MOVING INTO A VAN!

Nikki Collinson-Phenix, 46, has had one adventure after another

-  MATT BARBOUR

Looking at the dazzling firework display over the harbour, my family and I were in awe. It was New Year’s Eve 2021, and my husband Ian, 49, and children Laanii, then nine, and Raif, four, were three months into our new life, travelling around the world in a six-berth caravan called Suzy, having left our three-bed semi-detached home on the Isle of Wight.

Growing up in a single-parent family, I never went on holiday, and didn’t go abroad until my 20s. But after backpacking through Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, I caught the travel bug and vowed I would give any future kids the childhood I never had.

Ian and I met in 2013 when my daughter Laanii was 18 months old and I told him my plan to see the world. He thought I was mad, but I felt like a hamster on a wheel in my job as a chiropractor, with no way out until retirement. So after our son Raif was born in May 2017, I started to work on our exit strategy.

I had a good career, but as I couldn’t do my job on the road, in February 2019 I set myself up as an online business mentor in health and wellness.

Ian had a successful carpentry business, but around the same time, he decided that he wanted a career change. Suddenly, he was asking when we could go off on our adventures. An avid runner, he realised he could earn money by doing running coaching online while we were on the move.

Our parents were very supportive, and though some people said we were crazy to uproot the children, I knew travelling would give them the kind of education they wouldn’t get from school. We pledged to keep travelling as long as they were happy.

SETTING OFF