‘We’ve seen things that we could have never imagined’: Inside one family’s van life adventure

After a road-tripping honeymoon through the Rocky Mountains, Kallie and Dylan Bergamaschi felt inspired. So much so that three years later, they have made a life of it.

The couple left Adelaide behind and now travel spontaneously, only planning three to four days ahead.

The family of four, Kallie, Dylan and their two children Lincoln, four, and Zephyr, 10 months, are travelling the country in a refurbished bus they call Nelly – a project they worked on over five months.

“Our original inspiration came on our honeymoon in 2017 after we road-tripped through the Canadian Rocky Mountains. We loved how much time we got to spend together compared to our everyday 9-to-5 lives,” says Dylan.

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“We started to really believe that there was more to life than what we get sold by the majority of the population.”

Like many, Kallie and Dylan were of the belief that they should stay put and inject all of their time and energy into creating a base for their growing family, but after a while their desire to travel had them re-evaluating.

“Up until this point we had spent our whole adult lives saving for and renovating our house so we could ‘properly’ support our new family,” Dylan says. “We started to discuss the prospect of buying a van when we got home to do a bit of travelling on weekends and holidays, after that it quickly escalated to ‘let’s buy a bus’ for a more permanent lifestyle change and to travel Australia.”

When the Bergamaschis purchased their bus, it had a very basic fit-out: a Bunnings bench and a bed frame. After finishing their house renovation, they began stripping Nellie back to “a blank canvas”.

“Kallie is a house designer by trade so she was able to draw up our vision into a layout and guide of what we wanted and we worked from that. It took us about five months of weekend work and late nights to complete, with the exception of a few additions and alterations,” says Dylan.

“We completed the whole renovation by ourselves with the odd set of helping hands from friends and family, and with a lot of coffee consumed.”

In August 2018, Dylan, Kallie and Lincoln hit the road for four months before returning home to Adelaide for Zephyr’s birth. After a few months they returned to life on the road.

Dylan and Kallie took inspiration for their style from the house they had just renovated, really making it feel like home, and a few local Adelaide coffee shops.

“We used vivid white to try keep the space open, and warm timber to give the home an earthy feel. We are really texture driven, so bringing some grooved ply into the mix worked really well in this space,” says Dylan. “There are some days we would love to make the bus a little more open, but the practically behind this just wouldn’t work for a family of four.”

Adjusting to life on the road, especially with small kids, comes with its challenges.

“Finding drinking water to fill up our tanks, running out of gas when you’re cooking dinner in a national park that’s over an hour away from the closest town or having to find and use public bathrooms is sometimes tough,” says Dylan.

“Having to use laundromats all the time or not having the option to wash clothes and having the dirty clothes pile up. Never having a fixed bathroom or sometimes a place to shower for extended periods and having to always wear thongs in said showers. “

On the flip side of the struggle there’s a whole lot of reward for the family. Most notably, a sense of discovery.

“We’ve seen things that we could have never imagined and connected with it in a way we never thought we would,” says Dylan. “The best part of all this is the ability to do it as a family and watch your children discover, grow and explore things a vast majority of people will never see and gain the same respect for it all as we have.”

This story was first published in Domain.com.au