A family from Lincoln who have sold their home and almost all of their belongings to travel the world in a motorhome, have received an unbelievable gift to start their journey.
The Ballard family: Scott, 38, Michelle – formerly from Grantham -, 33, Rufus, 6, and Riley 1, have given up normal life and quit the rat race in favour of travel and adventure. Originally planning to purchase an older motorhome to travel in, the couple chose this method as one that would provide more stability to family life.
“Our kids love to travel and arriving at new places, hotels and Airbnb’s is a lot of fun. However, we decided that having our own base with our own beds permanently ready at the end of a long day was the best option. We have a lot of things to take with us for work, home-schooling, and general day-to-day fun and it just wouldn’t be possible to take it all with us if we’re travelling by any other means. We’ve tried this over the last three months, so we know from experience.”
But striking up a conversation with the right people meant the course of their journey took a very exciting turn! “We were contacted by Rachel, from the Erwin Hymer Group who had seen our story and had an amazing proposal for us – we just couldn’t believe it. They wanted to loan us a brand new, 2020 model motorhome for the first year of our travels!!! It was unreal!! Things like this just don’t happen to us”
The family, who have an ambitious plan of touring 25 Countries in Europe over the next 12 months have been deep in the throes of planning, preparing and emptying their family home ready for the next stage in their lives, could never have anticipated such a generous offer.
The Erwin Hymer Group are loaning the Ballard family a brand-new Compass Avantgarde 196 for their European travel. They heard the family were on the lookout for a motorhome that could serve multiple purposes and had enough room that Michelle and Scott were able to work while the kids were in bed.
“We work for ourselves and we fit our work in around time with our family, our main time to work is in the evening so for us, we really need separate seating and sleeping areas – The Compass Avantgarde 196 provides just that, we’ve really been very lucky.”
The couple have described how the generous offer has put their family at ease. “Initially there were some concerns about the reliability of buying an older motorhome, even though we would ensure its safety and reliability, you can never quash a mother’s concern! Now they’re completely at ease and so very thankful to the Erwin Hymer Group, as are we.”
And Why did they decide to make such a huge change?
“Why not? Life is too short to sit and wonder what if? We’re working really hard to make this amazing journey work for us; we’ll never regret changing our lives to spend more time with our family.” Read more about why on the Marmalade Tour website.
The family are due to collect their motorhome within the next few days and are looking forward to spending time in France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Eastern Europe, Germany and then who knows! You can find out more about the family and their travel plans on their website – www.marmaladetour.com
“It’s been a long and eventful route to get to this point, it took much longer to empty our house than we anticipated and we had issues with our house sale which ended up taking around 6 months all together, but we got there!”
They have a YouTube channel where they’ll be sharing their adventures, and you can find them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter by searching @MarmaladeTour
Find out more about them in this one-minute video on their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o1kiY4wAcI
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