Couple take off on round the world trip after £16k conversion of an old van – with TWO double beds, shower and kitchen
A COUPLE spent £16,000 converting an old van into their dream home - and they've taken off around the world in it.
Cazzy Magennis and her boyfriend Bradley Williams, both 28, bought their van in June 2020 for £6,500, and spent three months doing it up.
The pair are full time travellers and run blog , but when Covid struck two years ago, they found themselves unable to go abroad so they moved in with Bradley's parents in Kent.
With time on their hands, they decided to buy and convert a campervan which they could take off round the world in when restrictions were lifted.
After doing some research, the couple bought a Peugeot Boxer and stripped it down to an empty shell.
They then transformed the van - which they fondly named Helen - into their dream home with two double beds, a kitchen, a shower, a toilet and air conditioning.
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Cazzy, from Belfast, said: "We'd wanted to do up a van for a while so lockdown gave us some time to do it.
"We had never done anything like it so before we started we built a chest of drawers just to see if we could. Once we'd done that we thought we were ready to take on a van.
"We bought Helen for £6,500 and we've spent around £10,000 doing the conversion - which is quite expensive for doing up a van.
"We were equipping it to drive around the world so we didn't buy any of the technical stuff second-hand as we were going to be living in it full time and didn't want anything to break, so we were happy to spend a little bit more."
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The couple were determined to fit as much into the van as possible, and used space-saving techniques to maximise the room.
Cazzy said: "We watched a lot of YouTube tutorials as well as some van conversion guides to learn how to do it all.
"Brad and I designed the van before we did anything else so we knew what we wanted it to look like.
"We decided we wanted to have two double beds so we opted for one permanent and one foldaway to give ourselves more space.
"There's also little kitchen and a bathroom with a toilet and shower. We've even added air conditioning which feels very luxurious.
"We also cut a window into the side of the van and redid all of the floor and then put solar panels on the roof.
"Doing the van consumed everything we did - we spent all day everyday doing the work, but we wanted to get it right."
The couple finished the conversion in September 2020 and a month later set off on a trial trip to Scotland for six weeks to test everything worked.
Cazzy said: "Our heating system broke in the first week so we had no heating in the depths of winter in Scotland which was tough."
They came home for Christmas and had planned to ship the van to France at the end of 2020 but France closed its borders, so they spent three more months in Kent.
In March 2021, France reopened so the pair shipped the van over and began their round the world trip, ticking off 27 European countries between March and December, 2021.
Then Omicron hit so the couple came back home, but they're now back on the road to complete their round the world mission.
The van has been shipped over to Canada and Cazzy and Bradley plan on driving it all the way down to South America, before getting it shipped from Argentina to South Korea.
They hope to complete their round the world trip within three years.
Cazzy added: "I feel really proud of what we've created. Even the imperfections are nice because it doesn't feel store bought. We built it from the ground up and I can't believe it was once just a van."
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Another couple converted an old DHL van into a mini home for just £2,000 using ping pong tables and climbing walls - and now it's worth £15,000.
And a third couple spent lockdown converting a battered old van into a dream holiday home - with a full kitchen, laundry area and huge bed.
