NHS Covid-frontline couple leave UK life behind to travel the world in a campervan for just £1,000 per month

A couple who both worked on the NHS frontline during the pandemic have left their lives behind to travel the world in a campervan which they restored themselves, spending just £1,000 a month and “living almost like locals” in countries including France, Portugal and Morocco.

Physiotherapists Sarah Brown, 31, and Phil Taylor, 28, met at work in 2018 and immediately bonded over their dream of becoming nomads.

The couple bought a van for £4,500 in 2020 and spent two years converting it into a habitable campervan, which cost them a further £10,500.

The couple were renting a house in Mansfield, Derbyshire, where Phil was helping Covid patients in intensive care at King’s Mill hospital.

Ending their tenancy shortly before hitting the road in June 2023, they started their journey in France before travelling through Europe to North Africa.

The couple are swapping between Europe and Africa across their journey to navigate post-Brexit travel restrictions for Britons.

The couple budgeted £2,000 a month to live on for the year, which they saved before travelling, but have been spending about £1,000 since being on the road.

Phil has been busking with his saxophone on streets across Europe to continue funding their travels and make their new lifestyle sustainable for as long as possible.

Originally planning to travel for a year, Sarah and Phil have already considered extending their trip by another 12 months.

Sarah told PA Real Life: “There’s just a combination of the spontaneity of it and the fact that there are a lot of unexpected things that can happen that has made this trip so memorable.

“You can’t really immerse yourself in the local culture when you’re visiting somewhere on holiday for a few days, but travelling in the van has given us the opportunity to live and experience places almost like locals.”

The couple bonded when they first met over a mutual love of travel and conversations about a “gap year” started from the very beginning of their relationship.

Sarah said: “From the very start of our relationship, it was always the plan to travel but we were postponed by the pandemic.

“Converting vans became really popular during lockdown and we were quite lucky in that we bought ours just before the first lockdown came into effect so we got our van for a cheap price.

“We both worked through Covid as physios, Phil got sent to work in an intensive care unit for people with breathing problems and it was quite a stressful time, so we didn’t have much time to work on the van.”

In 2021, with no prior knowledge of converting campervans, the couple started spending their weekends watching DIY videos on YouTube as they stripped out the van and rebuilt the interior from scratch.

The total price of buying and converting the van into a suitable mobile home cost Sarah and Phil about £15,000 and they say they have been able to live “frugally” while travelling by wild camping – which means they park their van in the wilderness, rather than paying to stay at a campsite.

Phil said: “Everyone said that we should hire a van for a week to see if we could get on with each other in such a small space, but we didn’t do that, so our first trip was the start of our gap year.

“It was make or break really.”

In June 2023 they set off for France in their finished campervan for a year-long adventure around Europe and north Africa.

Due to post-Brexit travel restrictions, they said they have had to plan their route for the next 12 months “carefully”, making sure they are not in the EU for longer than three months at a time.

In the first three months they drove through France, Spain and Portugal.

Phil said: “The whole point of coming away was that I wanted to learn more about different cultures so a highlight for us was when we were in Spain and we found out that the festival of San Fermin was on while we were there.”

Wanting to experience Spanish culture, the couple drove to Pamplona where the annual bull festival was taking place.

Sarah added: “We had no idea what to expect and we naively went into it and bought a ticket for the bull fight, not knowing that they actually kill the bulls at the end.

“We just sat there absolutely horrified that we were watching six bulls being killed, but it’s their tradition and it was great to witness something that’s been part of their culture for hundreds of years.”

Another highlight for the couple was a hike they completed in the Pyrenees, in southern France.

Sarah said: “It was meant to take us four hours but it turned into a 10-hour hike that at one point was genuinely really dangerous.

“We ended up scrambling up a waterfall and went the wrong way and ended up on a cliff face, it was terrifying but really amazing. It was a complete adventure.”

When their three months in the EU came to an end, they travelled to Morocco where they will stay for a further three months before they are able to re-enter the EU.

In December, the couple plan to go to Italy, Austria, Luxembourg and Belgium.

They have loved their sabbatical so much that they are now planning to extend it by a year in order to cover eastern Europe.

Sarah said: “We’re trying to figure out a way to make this lifestyle sustainable.

“We had a lot of savings which helped and we don’t spend a lot while we’re travelling but we need to keep making some money for things like emergencies and if anything happens to the van.

Phil plays the saxophone and has been busking and performing at gigs throughout Europe to help fund the couple’s journey, while Sarah has been trying to set up a business coaching and selling digital products remotely from the road.

She added: “We use a location app called Life360 to track each other while we’re apart… when Phil is out busking in the evenings, it’s nice to know where he is, and I can see when he’s coming home.

“It’s little things like this that we’re adapting how we live so that we can keep travelling and we can keep exploring new places for as long as possible.

“The journey so far has been such an adventure and we’re not ready for it to end.”

To follow Sarah and Phil’s journey, visit: www.instagram.com/thetaylorbrowns/.