Wanting something more
This time last year my partner and I were in Manchester, living out our 20s as society expects. I (aged 26) was grinding away in a corporate role, constantly under pressure to impress, while my partner (aged 30) was working long days in a bougee restaurant that had little appreciation for their staff.
Doom scrolling on Rightmove became a regular evening activity, constantly refreshing to see the same disappointing results: tiny houses at prices that made us feel nauseous. Until one evening we started to wonder, does buying a house need to be our next move?
Now or never
With no mortgage, no pets and no children, we realised now would be the perfect opportunity to do something exciting and unexpected. This is when we started to think about Canada. Instagram portrays Canada as a land of unbeatable views with endless mountains and landscapes to explore, and after a bit more research we were sold.
As we were looking into visa options, we learnt that the age limit for the IEC working holiday visa had just been expanded to 35. Perfect timing! Once we understood how it worked, thanks to various blogs and Facebook groups, it was a fairly simple application process (I will write a more detailed post on this soon).
Canada calling
Fast forward 6 months: we had saved as much as possible, secured our IEC visas, quit our jobs, booked flights, said goodbye to our friends and family, and off to Calgary we flew!
Having only 2 weeks of accommodation booked before we arrived, the race was on to sort out all the required admin that comes with moving to a new country. Within a few days everything was done and the campervan hunt began.
The birth of this blog
As I write this post, the winter nights are drawing closer–the perfect time to reflect on the incredible summer we’ve had in our campervan. So, what better way to share some of our highlights and lessons learnt than a blog?
If you are considering doing something similar, I hope you find reading about our experiences helpful in someway. Happy reading!