1. All things have to start somewhere

The beginning of the year (2012) we decided to pack up our jobs and our beautiful home and swap England for the Americas -at least for a while and see how far we can go.

First we thought we are just going to go for a couple of months visiting friends and family but our attentions have been hijacked by some really awesome, shiny overland vehicles and right there we begun imagining ourselves travelling in one….

overlander 01 overlander 02

(photos: All copyrighted from Google Images)

We also preferred the idea to have our “home” with us throughout the travel, be self sustained up to 8-10 days, cook our own food, sleep in our own permanent bed, have our own onboard shower/ toilet (not to be fussy but finding a private area somewhere in the outback then digging holes when we’re in urgent need isn’t hugely appealing to us) also stop and move on whenever and as long as we wish without any complications of finding accommodation,check-in and -out etc on the daily basis. They were key concerns at this point and we both agreed that all these are important to us.

So like children in the sweet-shop with beaming smile on our faces, and with enormous enthusiasm we started browsing on the net with an intention of purchase one of these beautiful vehicles. Soon we realised the obstacles and complications of buying one in Germany (practically the only place to have good, reliable vehicles we wanted)
So it crossed our minds to build one on our own… How hard could it be? One thing followed by another -I can’t quite recall the exact moment when we actually decided but within a few days we ended up buying a 12 tonne, 17 years old, Mercedes ex-police rescue vehicle. <GULP>

On a rainy but bright late-April Saturday -not having the correct classified driving license, not having the space outside of our little terrace house to park it, not having the slightest clue where to begin, off we went to pick it up.