Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen our website subscribers and Instagram followers grow steadily compared to previous periods. Why? I honestly have no idea! Perhaps it was because we ended last week with a vlog by our favorite vloggers, Tip de Bruine Labrador. In their vlog, where they’re traveling for a year in Canada and America with their Concorde campervan, we were allowed to record a 49-second moment of fame clip introducing ourselves, but most importantly, encouraging everyone to follow, subscribe, or like Tip the Brown Labrador on YouTube. This may have contributed to our increase in followers, but we were already seeing an upward trend before that. Our website has this year been visited 25,000 times by unique visitors, and we now have over 1,000 followers on Instagram. But in recent weeks, we’ve seen more and more followers, especially campervan enthusiasts, from all over the world joining us. It’s pretty cool, and we also enjoy hearing from emails and comments with questions after our blog posts.
Anyway, that did make us decide to start posting blogs in both English and Dutch on our website in the future. That’s proving to be a bit of a hassle, and we also explored the possibility of having the translations done automatically by the website or a plug-in app. But no, it didn’t. Unless it would cost a lot of money every month to use those kinds of apps. Well, it has to stay fun, and camping already costs so much money. Especially if road tax for campers is going to double next year. In our case, that means the road tax will cost about 200 euros per month.
Future blogs will continue to be written in Dutch and saved in their current location under the heading “camper trips” and then under the relevant country we’re staying in. We’ll save the blogs translated into English chronologically under the heading “camper trips” and then under the category “EN / English.” Hopefully, this will make our blogs easier to read for international readers. In the future, we’ll also try to translate older blogs from previous destinations in previous years and save them under the “EN / English” category.
So, that’s it for the housekeeping…now back to reality, which involves scheduled maintenance on our campervan before we leave for the south in the middle of next month. We’re planning to spend a few weeks in France before heading to Spain and Portugal. We’re so incredibly excited. The past few months in our holiday home in Drenthe were wonderful, and the trips to Germany, France, and our beloved Lelystad were also very enjoyable. But now that we’re back on the road for a long period, we think it’s fantastic! We’re also looking forward to blogging regularly, featuring Miriam’s beautiful photos.
To make our website more dynamic, we’ve bought a drone again for scenic flights where we can take aerial photos. Last week, we were actually convinced we’d been scammed with the purchase of this drone. According to Miriam, it was one of those fake websites that rakes in money but never delivers. And indeed, it certainly seemed that way, and I could have kicked myself for that. I was adamant that I didn’t want to buy a DJI drone, but a cheaper alternative, since I wasn’t getting the most out of my previous, more expensive one. For a few aerial shots and simple operation, there had to be an alternative, and I found it in the Skyrovas Air Plus Pro. A lightweight drone under 250 grams, you don’t need a drone pilot’s license, and it actually falls under the toy category rather than a “real” drone. The test and review I’d read about this drone were good and were done by a drone guru with enormous expertise… but it turned out to be unrelated. Its Chinese name had been translated into English… and “Mr. Trust everything he reads” (Me!) was convinced and immediately bought this drone and accessories.
How happy can you be then that DHL suddenly showed up at my doorstep yesterday with this drone? I could have cried! Now, I don’t know if it was from the joy of the drone or the fact that the package was even delivered and I didn’t receive any scorn and ridicule at future birthdays, parties, or other group events where it’s wonderful to criticize someone for being so naive… I’m just happy with the drone! It looks really great, comes with a nice storage case, an extra battery, extra propellers (I’ll probably need them…), and a Dutch-translated user manual. I should add that if the quality of my English blogs in the future is as good as that of the Chinese user manual, it will cost us a lot of subscribers/followers…
Miriam made another significant investment in the form of new sheepskins for the campervan seats. She’d seen them on other campervan owners and thought they’d be a good idea. She, too, was busy finding beautiful fleeces, initially buying a few in a color that didn’t quite fit the “100% natural” label. Sheep in that color are called Barbapappa or Teletubbie, and believe me, they don’t exist! As you can imagine, this example would have come as a counter-move at a birthday party if my wife had pranked me about buying my fake drone…
But yesterday the new sheepskins arrived, and I have to say, they’re beautiful. Miriam couldn’t resist mounting them on our campervan seats to see the final result. Attaching them to our seats was also easy and feels sturdy. This is a premium car seat cover made of 100% lambskin, Marla, purchased at http://www.walser-shop.nl, and honestly, they look great and are very comfortable. Perfect for the colder months in the south.
Finally, we also bought some new road atlases for France, Spain, and Portugal. For years, we tried to convince my sister Annette and brother-in-law Kees to do everything with the GPS, but they wouldn’t budge. Kees always said, “Just laugh at all that paperwork on my lap, but at least I have an overview and can plan more easily while driving.” God bless him, unfortunately, but our Kees is right… maps are easier for planning and keeping an overview. It’s a shame I can’t tell him anymore, but hopefully, he’s laughing his head off up there with all those other family members… You convinced us, Kees!! And to give you all the credit for this, we bought some road maps. Michelin ones, of course, because Kees was a bon vivant and bon vivant…
As you can see, we’re already well on our way to preparing for our next winter trip, and that will be in a few weeks. Next Thursday, our Lambortinki 3.0 is going to the garage for maintenance, a gas pressure test, and the installation of a Maxx fan. We’ll be ready to go then, but first we have a few fun dates with family and friends, a few more days of work to do, and two tennis tournaments for me with my tennis buddy Albert. Time to score some ATP points…
We’ll be hitting the road around Wednesday, October 15th, and we’ll be posting a blog twice a week, detailing our experiences and locations, with hopefully beautiful photos from my sweetheart. We’ll be in touch!
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