We are Billy Hall and Leanne Kirby, and Willow!

We have had a passion for travel since we were super young, in 2018 we had our first long haul trip to Bali for 6 weeks which awoke the travel bug. We loved it so much that we saved all our pennies from working as a barber (Billy) and Retail (Leanne) for a winter backpacking trip THE SAME YEAR.. this time? three destinations! Thailand, Cambodia, Bali.

We were hooked! The adventure, the spontaneity..

in 2019 we saved up all of our pennies to travel again.. this time, with no time limit! We left in November 2019 with a one way ticket to Thailand, and for the first few weeks it was a blast! Then.. the world shut down!

We spent the first lockdown in Thailand, this story needs its own blog honestly, but from life being seemingly normal with tourism and freedom as a second thought.. it changed overnight!

The rules were simple: find somewhere to stay with its own cooking facilities.. or go into a quarantine hotel.. you bet, the search for an apartment was on!

To cut a long story short.. we were stuck in Thailand for 5 months in a tiny bungalow luckily looked after by a lovely Thai family who owned the land, We were living in a 4 bungalow complex with a Yorkshireman, Two Canadians and a New Yorker! We found ourselves good friends with a 3 generational Thai family who at one stage we had to rely on to get us our food and water as foreign citizens were unable to leave their complexes due to the restrictions!

Babysitting, visiting temples (once restrictions allowed) and learning sad life stories over socially distanced meals + drinks and after many months, flights booked then canceled and money lost, we finally made it back to the UK!

Even though we had spent so many months in Thailand, due to lockdown restrictions meaning we were literally unable to leave our complex for a period of time, our travel bug had not been satisfied AT ALL!

As soon as we returned to the UK and resumed ‘normalty’ INSTANT BLUES :’) we knew we had to change our lives for the better. “How can we make the excitement of travelling and new experiences a part of our lives though?” was the question we honestly had no answer to, but we were determined to try and answer it.

The same month we returned to the UK, Bill’s sisters friend was selling a 2004 Volkswagen T4. it had a rock and roll bed in the back, and a plug in fridge. A lightbulb moment lol as cheese as it sounds..That was it, the first van we had ever really even looked into and here we are going to view it. “if we can’t travel overseas.. lets just see our own country instead”

That summer, we travelled the UK in our T4 nicknamed ‘little donny’. We would work every week, save up as much as we could and depending on what we had would decide our weekend destination.. a lot of the time we would head within a 2-4 hour radius of Essex (where we grew up). We set up a little instagram ‘@donatellavansace; where we would post photos and videos on YouTube of our weekend travels to document our memories of our trips.

The freedom was exactly what we had been craving, meeting people, new experiences and places.. but this time with everything we needed in a little tin rolling box. We were sold, after spending a whole summer of weekends traveling in our van but sleeping at bills parents in the week.. as winter came we found ourselves spending work nights in our little van at local spots. I’d drive my car to meet Billy after work and we’d cook a meal and stay overnight just to feel the vibes of travel and adventure!

The weekend trips were not enough, we loved being in the van! being able to move your home wherever and whenever you felt like it was the best thing ever! but.. we couldn’t bloody stand up :’)

After building in some cupboards, a sink, adding a toilet (oh the luxury!) and repainting little donny we had just about maxed out her limits for comfort as a small wheel base mini van.

We knew we loved being in the van, we knew we wanted to continue being in the van..but how can we make this a more comfortable experience?!

The next summer we sold everything we had, my car, clothes, second hand homewares.. we went full thrift mode to save up just enough for a bigger van. This was at the peak of the covid van price hike. when everyone and their nan wanted a van to convert or deliver parcels! prices for second hand vans were CRAZY but we didn’t let this stop us.

Our little T4 had a killer engine, it hadn’t let us down at all on our trips and adventures so we knew we had to find something similar in a bigger van!

Lo and behold.. a VW LT35 2005 2.5 TDI came up for sale on Facebook Marketplace. An ex motorbike transport van that was a little beat up, full of old ply wood, a hole in her roof from a forklift accident and had the wrong water pump fitted.. for sale just near Brighton! only a few hours drive from us. Number plate was BEZ6296.

We messaged to view it, angsty because of how quick vans were going we didn’t even know if it was still available let alone if we’d get a viewing! it had only been up a few hours.

that evening we set off to go and view our dream! on a little industrial estate near Brighton we met 3 men and big bez. A big red poppy on the front and the back completely empty, she felt HUGE compared to little Donny! we test drove her and as naive young 20 somethings, we sealed the deal. £2000 and a lot of confidence we had just bought our new home!

That night we drove little donny to one of our favorite spots on the south coast and celebrated with a glass of 21 crimes in a plastic glass! we couldnt quite believe we had just bought a huge Long wheel base van to turn into our home!

Once we got big bez back to Bills parents home, it was crunch time. We sold little Donny and had a few thousand pounds to turn big bez into a full time home for us both. Weekdays after work and weekends for MONTHS we worked on big bez on Bills parents driveway.. hours of research and doing everything DIY hyper focusing on watching YouTube tutorials and scouring reddit forums on ‘how to put a shower in a van’.. believe it or not back then it was a rare thing!

After months of work and help from family friends with the mechanics we figured enough was enough, we needed to hit the road, so whilst still working week days we would drive again for our weekend trips. no heating or cupboard doors but pure excitement and passion for being out on the road.. we would head off in our beat up VW LT35 with little money we had to local spots like Dunwich forest and Kithurst Hill.

We loved being out and about and walking the trails of the forests but we couldnt help but feel something was missing.. we spent months looking into rescuing a dog but despite our efforts we were unable to due to our living circumstances, all the rescue centers we tried wouldn’t let a van lifer adopt a dog. Then one moody evening we had just finished upgrading our cupboards in the van.. Bills parents returned from shopping with a little fluffy ginger ball nestled in their coat! The best surprise we’ve ever had! miss willow joined the big bez road trip club. A silent little Jack Russell x Patterdale who spent her first night so quiet, she slept perfectly in her new little bed bills parents had bought us and even used a puppy pad in the van in the middle of the night! Turns out training a puppy in a van wasnt going to be so hard.. But miss willow definitely found her sass + diva very quickly <3

Every week we tried to get an upgrade done, and after months of living for the weekend getaways we were not ready for what was about to happen.

in April 2021 on Bills birthday the weekend before another trip we decided to roller paint big bez ourselves. For some reason there was a HUGE feeling of new beginnings coming our way.. and with bill having left his job of 9 years to be a mobile barber around our local area he kept mentioning a feeling that we wouldn’t be back to our usual routine next week.. despite having several customers booked in. I couldnt help but feel the same, even though we had absolutely no plan of where we were going on the trip let alone a life change!

The following weekend, after Bills last customer we left for our trip. I would come along on bills days driving to each of his customers houses. at this point I had left my job and was trying to set up an online income of some sort so we could earn on the road. After trying to sell vintage homewares I was now selling homemade crochet decor items that I would create whilst waiting with miss willow in big bez whilst bill was cutting his customers hair + beards! (parking big bez was a nightmare!)

We’d decided on The isle of Portland for our weekend trip.. the weather looked the best there and we’d never been before! we had found a few good overnight spots on park for night.. so why not give it a go?!

That trip was a turning point for us, from seeing signs for new beginnings the entire trip we were both eager for a change. at 6am in the morning on the second day, I awoke to Bill telling me he had applied for 3 barber positions in Cornwall and 2 had already responded.

Although this was a total life change, it almost felt like such a casual conversation, almost like it was just expected. it sounds so woo woo but it really was like a higher power telling us what to do.

Bill had booked an interview with a random little shop he had picked out in st ives on Google Maps for the next day. we had a few hours to get ourselves from the isle of Portland to st ives and figure out our new lives I guess!

Bill had spent many years as a kid in Cornwall holidaying with family, but I had never been before! having always heard bill sing its praises I was so excited to see it, but also apprehensive.. we are just about to move across the country in our van with literally £50 in our bank. This was usually enough for our weekend fuel and some lidl food.. but for a whole life changing move?? it better work out eh!

We headed to Cornwall, St ives was the end destination, we had NO IDEA where we would end up, just that bill was attending this interview and that was that! Bill drove me to Porthmeor beach before he headed off and that was the first time I had ever seen a Cornish beach! I was shook, I couldn’t believe how blue the water was! we grew up on Canvey island where the beach water is the thames river and is a dead spit for an instant hot chocolate in color. The weirdest feeling of calm in such a chaotic whim decision kind of time was the theme.

Bill headed to his interview and got the job, not only that but his boss was an absolute legend, they got on so well and from then.. it was official, we had moved to Cornwall. Bill was to be a seasonal summer barber in st ives, and we’d better find somewhere to stay!

We’d found a small gravel car park at the top of St Ives to wild camp, keep ourselves stealth and bill could walk into town for work. I would spend my days crocheting and keeping our little instagram page going, selling on Etsy and IG stories crochet pumpkins and bunting.. shout out to those who supported us back then it really means the world!!

That summer flew by so fast, wed spend evenings barbecuing on the beach, the weather was incredible from April to October.. along the way we had been kicked out of our gravel car park, more vans had started to arrived and the council had knocked on our door to tell us the site was unsafe due to high levels of radon. We all had to leave, and to this day its still gated off! 0.0

With huge thanks to Bills boss, we found a piece of land to rent for the summer. But now the season is over, what’s the plan?

With the money we’d managed to save from the summer we decided to go all out for us.. our usual trip was just a few hours away but this time we were going to do something we had ALWAYS wanted to do!

Scotlands NC500. We were SO excited. We had to get Big bez a new set of tires before we left which took a huge chunk of our savings but we were so excited to set off.

I’d had an idea, back then the only people documenting vanlife were YouTubers, and reels had only just become a thing. TikTok was just really taking off for our age.. why not daily vlog our trip? It was one of those ideas that just randomly comes to your head and you know you have to act on it.. if that makes sense?! and literally as soon as I had that thought, I made a mini trailer of the last 6 moths of our lives.. I put a bunch of clips together of our summer in Cornwall and told the story, then sharing our plans to daily vlog our trip in 2 weeks to complete Scotlands NC500. I posted it to our instagram, TikTok and accidentally Facebook. we had just a few thousand followers across TikTok and Facebook at this point and within a few hours of posting this video our accounts had hit near 40,000 on each platform.

It was time to set off for our adventure to Scotland, we were completely overwhelmed, excited and god know what else for this trip, we had suddenly a huge audience following us on this journey and we had no idea what we were doing.. we are not travel bloggers were just bill and leanne, we don’t plan ANYTHING.. But that’s always been us.. really just f***ing around and finding out :’) and that’s exactly what happened.. I kid you not within a few hours of us setting off.. our brand new tires that we’d just had fitted a few weeks prior nearly blew out on the motorway.. and of course we were daily vlogging the whole trip, we caught the whole thing on camera.

The first experience of our longest trip so far this was!!! We were frantically trying to find somewhere that could fit us in for a tire, luckily we managed to find somewhere LAST MINUTE! it turned out the people who had fitted it had fit it wrong, which is kinda crazy.. but we got our money back! At least we didn’t die eh!!

That evening I edited the days happenings.. our first daily reel of many.. and it completely changed our lives over night.

Within 24 hours we had hit 100K on Instagram alone, TikTok and Facebook were closely following, it was like the flood gates had opened for our account it was crazy! and we continued to daily vlog our epic journey through Scotland in the WINTER with snow, deers, haggis and all the ups and downs of living in a van! Big bez made it through -15 degree nights, steep ass hills and soooo much more! Shameless plug but you can watch all of this still on our platforms if you want to see what happened! XD

That trip pretty much turned us into influencers over night, we continued daily vlogging our experience living full time in a van and after working the next summer back in Cornwall alongside brands reaching out and wanting to work together, we managed to save up for another bucket list trip!

We had done it, we had saved enough to go to Europe for the first time ever! we couldnt believe it .. so many people have told us how incredible it is for camping and now we are finally going to experience it for ourselves! I feel like I need to mention at this time too big bez really was not cutting it for full time living XD her battery system that we had installed was failing when we didn’t have a lot of sun and often our fridge would cut out, as well as having several coolant leaks due to our bespoke heating system.. we headed back to Essex to get a few problems sorted and made our way to the euro tunnel.. or Le shuttle as its called! we are going to EUROPE baby!

Our first European road trip was an absolute blast, I always think experiencing something for the first time like that is an excitement you just cannot recreate, it was incredible! we did 3 months in France and Spain daily vlogging the whole thing before returning to Cornwall for Christmas and sharing what it like living in a van during winters in UK storms, separating for the first time in our many years of being together for Christmas as my family had now moved to Cornwall and bills still remained in Essex which actually got us our first controversy.. people thought we’d split up, some even thought I was dead as we paused our daily vlogging + bill vlogged solo for his week heading back to Essex lol.

since then we’ve been on numerous trips to Europe, documenting traveling with a dog.. food and travel vlogs, heading to countries such as France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, before doing our maiden voyage to Morocco in big bez! we shared the entire process of getting a dog to Morocco as well as our first experience and the realities of living in a van in Morocco.

After 4 years of epic adventures in big bez, things were starting to break. her shower system had worked properly a handful of times, and honestly.. we had made minor changes since we left Essex that day for the isle of Portland. We had been enjoying the adventure too much, and there were some things we wanted to change about her that would’ve been almost impossible to do for a van of her size.

Bills dream van since we started all this stuff was a Mercedes 814D ‘Vario’ a van that was always in the back of our minds but due to them being a 7.5 tonne vehicle it meant that we can't drive it on our usual license. If we wanted a van above 3.5T we would have to take a C1 License course to drive a vehicle that size.

We had a bit of a mishap with buying a horse box to convert which you can watch here.. and then the universe really pulled out the big guns. An absolute unicorn van came up for sale on eBay.. a Mercedes 814D ex Leicestershire police van with a box on the back! previously used as a hostage and siege communications unit, it had been sitting in the police headquarters for years but serviced to the nines and only done 13,000 miles! and the best part? the numberplate read ‘T998 NAY’ Nay?! neigh?! like a horse? the universe really was laughing here :’)

We couldnt turn it down, it was exactly what we needed! Bills dream van and my dream amount of space! This van was a manifestation for sure and we took the plunge and bought it! We documented the whole process of completely renovating it and turning it into our home on wheels over on our instagram, Facebook and TikTok.. you can watch the full series here

Weirdly with this series going viral we actually had members of the Leicestershire police team who actually used to drive Goliath contact us! Telling us some really cool stories about the van, even one mentioning Goliath was hit by a falling tree after a big storm in the UK which coincided with a dent Goliath had on the cab. The ex officer mentioned the team couldnt believe how strong Goliath was.. the size of the tree vs damage was almost funny!

We found so much police gear in the van such as an old vehicle ticket book, vehicle keys with ‘Goliath’ keychains and not to mention all of the serious telecommunications gear that was on the back.. straight from the 2000s! The police had told us a story that it was originally commissioned for a hunting van but once it was built the original buyer never collected it.. so the police bought it and kitted it out to be what it was when we got it!

Goliath had a huge L shape working desk at the front as you walked in, a ‘coffee’ station for the police as we imagined it. a big generator which sat on metal checker plate and then a heavy duty sliding door separating the entrance to the box from the ‘interrogation section’. There were red lights above the door with signs ‘DO NOT ENTER WHEN RED LIGHT IS ON’ and ‘NO ENTRY INTERROGATORS ONLY’ one of which we have kept in Goliath on the front door!

It really was a right bit of kit. it took us 8 months to turn Goliath into our new full time rolling home, we had lots of issues with the GRP box leaking but luckily it was solid as anything and just needed some repairs.. pain staking repairs that did have us quivering every time heavy rain fell.. we had already fit the kitchen before we discovered some of these leaks so we took a hell of a lot of steps back!

After pretty much completing Goliaths interior, Bill had been taking his C1 course alongside the build. He finally had his test but failed the first one. We were itching to get away on Goliaths maiden voyage so we managed to book one for the following month, in the meantime winter was in full force and we had torrential rains and storms in Cornwall! living in any type of vehicle around this time certainly tests your patience with mud and bog. Although as we were able to upgrade and add features to Goliath that we never had in big Bez, it was ridiculously comfortable and convenient! we fit a TRUMA D6E combi for our shower and heating which meant we could shower anytime we wanted! Even a ‘climate control’ temperature setting for our heating so anytime the box drops below a certain temp the heater would kick on and keep it so toasty! we felt like ROYALTY.

The day was finally here for bill to take his test.. and guess what had happened the night before? Storm Goretti! it had caused absolute chaos in Cornwall, with trees down cars squashed.. and with Bills test being at the arse crack of dawn meant when he headed off in the morning from St Ives to Camborne to get to the test centre, he was amongst the first to discover the amount of road blockages from fallen trees!

all 3 main exits from St Ives were closed and it was looking like he wasn’t going to make his test! Luckily he’d managed to figure out a back road detour, an extra long one but alas he made it to his test! and passed!!

It was time to take Goliath on his maiden voyage. We had planned to head through France + Spain and back to Morocco to finish the van as it deserved! we had been quoted above 10,000 pounds for a respray in and around Cornwall, we had tried so many companies for a quoter and some of them didn’t even want to touch it! When traveling Morocco the year before we visited a place called ‘Tafroute’ and noticed the amount of vehicle sprays that were being done there. We wanted to explore the idea of driving all the way to Morocco, getting the van sprayed for less that the price quoted to us in the UK! And that’s exactly what we did.

You can read more about it here and watch the full series here

After painting Goliath with the guys at the garage we were nearly finished our epic maiden voyage adventure, we decided to go out with a bang and drive Goliath all the way down to the Tropic of Cancer through disputed territory of the Sahara. An insane amount of trust in Goliath we headed through miles and miles of desert during a heatwave with temperatures hitting 40 degrees celsius! you can watch the full adventure here.

Fast forward a little and after leaving big bez in storage whilst we went away.. we knew it was time to give Big bez to someone who would continue to love her and take her on adventures.. the problem, was she was in dire need of TLC. We had been living in her for 4 years and things had broken and been used and abused! as she was she wouldn’t have been worth anything. She needed some welding and a lot of mechanic work, it would be a costly sum. Was it worth it? of course it was. We couldn’t let big bez die after all of these years.

We decided to raffle her to one of our audience member for £5. this would allow us to be able to financially cover the repairs she would need and restore her fully to probably the best shape she’s been in her life! a full interior rebuild, mechanic work, welding, a new electrical system.. she will be ready to give someone the adventure of a lifetime! and that’s exactly where we are at right now! The draw ends in just 3 weeks on the 25th of November!

Thank you so much for reading our story so far, i’ve been rambling for hours! its been tricky to sum up the last 5 years of our lives and i’ve missed out som big chunks that you can watch if you wish, many ups and downs and many adventures.. and we are so grateful to have you as part of it.

Looking forward to updating this page when we have our next! see you soon xx