Matt Sims
We’re here once again at the NEC show and I bumped into Caroline Mills. Caroline is a travel writer, an author of many books and a prolific motorhomer. But there’s a story Caroline has which is about her travelling off with the kids in a motorhome on her own as a mum with three children. Is that right? It started a long time ago, didn’t it?
Caroline Mills
It started a long time ago. We’re actually almost at the other end now of travelling with three kids because they’re now grown up. I had to go to the States for some work and on the way back, I took my 18-month-old daughter on a road trip in Iceland.
Matt Sims
In a motorhome?
Caroline Mills
This was actually just a road trip in a car. It was just for three days. Aside from her being 18 months old, I was pregnant with my second child. We went off. It was before mobile phones. We went off on these volcanic tracks and had the adventure that should have been of a lifetime, really. It was before Iceland was even the tourist destination that it is now. And that fueled the adventure spirit, I suppose.
When I got back, people thought I was absolutely mad but I wasn’t prepared for it to end there. I took my then 2 and a half-year-old and 10-month-old son on a motorhome holiday to Canada, where I hired a motorhome and travelled around Nova Scotia. It didn’t go quite according to plan. But again, I wasn’t prepared to let that end the adventures.
Caroline’s European adventures
With my husband, I then took the two children all around Europe. We took time off work, went through 15 countries, various principalities as well, for several months. And when we got back, the issue that we had – which was why we had to take time off work – was that my husband couldn’t generally come with us. But because I’m a travel writer, the children could come with me.
It then got to three children. When my youngest was 8 weeks old, we took off in a motorhome down to Austria travelling through northern France, down through Germany to Austria. It’s sort of grown from there. As they’ve grown older, we’ve done ever more challenging trips. So we’ve gone to the Baltic states across to Finland, we went into Russia by boat, then went up through Finland across to the North Cape of Norway, zigzagged our way back through Norway and Sweden and Denmark. We’ve been on countless trips around France and Germany.
We’ve covered the Alpenstrasse which goes from the Austrian border through to the Swiss border all the way through the Alps. We’ve toured down through Slovenia and across Croatia and then back up again through Austria. We’ve travelled out to Poland. We covered southern Poland, Silesia and Malopolska, two regions in the south of Poland, and came back through the Slovak Republic.
Then more recently, we travelled back out through Poland to Lithuania and toured the whole of Lithuania up to the Curonian Spit, which is a beautiful UNESCO heritage site. The most gorgeous Baltic beaches are not what you would expect necessarily of a Baltic state. We’ve got to the point where they’re now of an age that, realistically, they’re going to start not coming away because they’ve got lives of their own and they’re at university. But I’m continuing because of my travel writing. I continue to travel all across Europe on my own instead.
Matt Sims
That’s amazing. So your passport is very, very stamped! As are the children’s.
Caroline Mills
Yes and no. I mean, obviously for the likes of Canada, yes, we needed stamps. But for most of Europe, we just go from country to country. There are no particular borders anymore. There’s the border between Slovenia and Croatia you have to stop at. Occasionally the borders with for example Lithuania we had to stop at. That was more because you have to show the papers of ownership of the motorhome.
With Russia, there’s this option to go from Finland. You go on this particular boat trip down through the Saimaa Canal. Anybody either with an EU passport or a British passport is visa-free. Although we had to show passports, we didn’t have to get visas beforehand. Everywhere else in Europe we’ve literally just been able to travel without showing countless passports all the time.
Matt Sims
You did this married, but Dad couldn’t come. You run a farm, don’t you? So Dad was really busy with the farm. And because of work, you had to travel, so you decided to take the kids with you.
Caroline Mills
Yes, absolutely. Sometimes they had to come with me if I had a particular work project that I needed to go to a particular place for. And it may well be that they just had to come with me because the situation on the farm was such that Dad couldn’t look after them at that particular moment. Sometimes, it was quite deliberate for them to come with me on that particular work trip to give them the experiences of travel and the adventures that I knew that they would be able to have touring through Europe. Very different as opposed to climbing on an aeroplane and going to a city and staying in a hotel for three days and then coming back.
Travelling with children
We’ve been able to go to so many different places off the beaten track, places that are potentially never heard of and we’d certainly never heard of within countries, as opposed to just going to the capital city, for example. We’ve done those too. But I also quite deliberately tried to take each child away individually from time to time to give them some me time.
Road trips are fantastic for children, in particular teenagers. It’s brilliant when they’re little, but when they become teenagers and they might have a few issues to deal with, for example, a road trip is fantastic because you’re both sat side by side, there’s no eye contact, you’re not having to try to talk about difficult situations or issues that they might have that they want to talk about. Then all of a sudden, they start opening up and talking about whatever it is that they’re having a bit of a problem with. And then you can talk about the scenery that you see as you go at the same time. That’s always been a thing, to make sure that I give my time to each child individually as well as the three of them together. But when we are together, my God, do we have some fun.
Matt Sims
I bet. It sounds like it. The children aren’t children now, are they? How old are they now?
Caroline Mills
So the eldest is now 23. I’ve got a 20 going on 21-year-old and an almost 18-year-old.
Matt Sims
So they’re taking you now, are they?
Caroline Mills
Almost! It’s kind of come full circle. This year, we’ve just been discussing plans. My son is working and in full-time employment now. My youngest child is about to go off to university and so wants to do her own thing for the summer and earn a bit of money. So I’ve been talking to my eldest daughter. All of a sudden we’ve gone from the 18-month-old with us in Iceland to us probably going to go back to Scandinavia. We’ll go and do a road trip together ourselves. So I’m looking forward to that one.
Travelling as a solo mum
Matt Sims
Beautiful. There’s stunning scenery there. That is incredible. I was really inspired by your personal story of a mum heading off on her own with kids – not on your own, but as the only responsible parent.
I speak to so many people where the women aren’t prepared to tow or to drive and will leave that to the man. And there’s absolutely no reason to do that. There’s lots of fear around going off with children as a single mum, you know what I mean when I say that. I believe it’s irrational. What would you say to those women that are in that position right now?
Caroline Mills
Go for it. It’s a vehicle with a steering wheel and a brake pedal, just the same as a car. You don’t necessarily have to go and buy the biggest motorhome that you can find. It’s still possible to have fantastic adventures in a smaller campervan if that’s what you feel comfortable with.
Actually, having children has been brilliant in terms of being able to drive. For example, if I’m in a UK motorhome with a steering wheel on the right-hand side, obviously going through Europe, we’re travelling on the left. It may be that my vision is not quite so great on, say, a corner or something like that or coming out of a junction. So the kids are there. And they can say ‘Yes, the road is clear.’ I’ve not got to try and pull out blind.
Matt Sims
They’re a great copilot!
Caroline Mills
They are absolutely a great copilot. If we’re going around hairpin bends on the mountain roads and mountain passes, they can call out to say, ‘There’s nothing coming so you can swing out if you need to,’ and make sure that you’re not going to meet the bus coming the other way, all that sort of thing. There’s also this misconception that Dad has to do all the manual bits and pieces to do with motorhomes and camping. That’s just not the case. Get on and do it and you’ll have the most amazing time.
Matt Sims
You’ve also done a lot of trips on your own though, haven’t you, as well?
Caroline Mills
Yes, absolutely. Again, as part of my work, fairly recently, I took a trip driving right the way down through France to the Pyrenees. I covered a trip called the Route des Cols, which is about 900 kilometres through the French Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast down to the Mediterranean coast. And from there, I then travelled through France from Vignemale, which is the highest mountain in the French Pyrenees.
I travelled through France avoiding motorhomes and taking the cross country route up to Mont Blanc, the highest mountain, obviously, in the Alps. And from there I then went on through Switzerland, Austria, through Germany, across to the Czech border, and then back up through Germany, back through Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, back to the UK. I’ve done other trips down through Holland, down through Germany, down to the lakes in Italy and Milan, down to the south of France and back up around.
The most recent one, which was fairly mild by comparison, was simply down to the south of France. There’s a new touring route all to do with food and drink called La Vallée de la Gastronomie. And so I’ve been touring that from the south of France. It finishes at Dijon.
Matt Sims
Amazing. And do you tour around the UK as well, or are all your travels around Europe?
Caroline Mills
The UK and Ireland, as well. I’ve taken my youngest daughter to Northern Ireland and took my son off up to the North Coast 500. I specialise in the UK and European travel. So it takes me right the way through.
Safety while travelling with children
Matt Sims
What would you say about safety? Travelling on your own or even with children, are there areas of concern that people should be aware of?
Caroline Mills
Yes, there are. I don’t want to call it wild camping because it’s not wild camping in as much as we are in a motorhome, but we rarely use campsites where there are other opportunities and other facilities. So in France and Germany, we will potentially use the system of aires or France Passion site where you can turn up and stay for free, providing you buy a bottle of wine or a jar of honey or whatever it might be. So we never book ahead. We rarely know before lunchtime where we might be staying that night, but the freedom of that is phenomenal.
The only thing I would say with that is that if you don’t feel comfortable somewhere, be prepared to move on. There have been occasions where we’ve turned up at an aire, for example, where the motorhomes can stop overnight legally and safely, but actually, we felt just slightly uneasy and then we moved on. Simple as that. Always know there’s the backup of a campsite if you feel the need to be in a campsite.
I actually love the freedom of aires, and I’m quite prepared and I do all the time use aires when I’m travelling on my own. They just provide that freedom that, even travelling alone as a solo female, is really quite liberating. And going off and walking in the mountains, I don’t have an issue with it. I’ll get up at the crack of dawn to make sure I get, say, up halfway up a mountain or something by sunrise and get the best photographic shot or whatever it might be.
Matt Sims
And the reality is if you’ve got a problem, one of the wonderful things about the community worldwide that go motorhoming is everyone looks out for each other, don’t they?
Caroline Mills
Absolutely. And that’s certainly been the case when I’ve been staying on a Stellplatz in Germany. If I’ve had a bit of an issue with a hookup cable where there have been facilities such as electric hookup points, I’ve had people that have been able to come and help or will just turn up and say, ‘Do you need any help?’
I do get a lot of looks for being a solo female mum on her own with children. It is obviously quite a rarity in the motorhoming world. But there are so many people that will help and there’s also the whole network of dealerships, accessory stores, all that sort of thing. So if there’s a bit of a problem with the fridge, you just turn up and they will always help.
Matt Sims
Yes, definitely. So what would you say to mums and women listening and getting inspired, I hope, as I was by your story and who may be hesitant about taking the plunge and heading off on their own or with the children? What would your message to them be?
Caroline Mills
Go for it is the very short and simple answer! Go for it. What I would say in terms of a few tips is that the one thing that makes me feel so much more relaxed is that I have made sure that the kids are as fit as they possibly can be. They are really, really strong swimmers. They are really fit and agile and active. So when I pull the handbrake on and they say, ‘We’re off to climb a mountain,’ and I think that they’re just going off to a small slope not far away and then I suddenly find them waving at me from hundreds of metres up, I don’t have to panic because I know that they are capable and responsible and know what to do in situations.
And that’s not to give them extreme bushcraft skills or survival skills or anything like that. But it just takes that pressure off when you are on your own, as the solo parent at the time, of being able to relax and enjoy yourself knowing that they are capable of looking after themselves and taking a little bit of common sense and responsibility with that.
European locations
Matt Sims
What a great tip. What a great education your children have had as well.
Caroline Mills
Yes, very much so. I’m conscious I don’t just take them to what I would regard as sanitised, classically children orientated attractions or locations. Yes, we’ve gone to the theme parks. Europa Park is a fabulous park for babies up to teenagers in Germany. That’s brilliant. I also make sure that they go to all sorts of places that will educate them. That is part of their education. So they’ve learned about Monet at Giverny gardens in France. They’ve learned about Van Gogh at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. But we’ve also gone to what is classed as really hard-hitting places – the war graves around the Somme, generally because of personal family history. But we’ve also gone to really hard-hitting museums in Berlin.
Strangely, when we were in Poland, I knew that we would be travelling close to a little village called – I don’t even know how to pronounce it – Oświęcim, otherwise known as Auschwitz. I asked the kids and explained to them, ‘It’s entirely up to you if you want to go to it. It’s not going to be pleasant.’ All three of them wanted to go. We had a very quiet journey after it to where we were then staying.
But the amount that they got out of that trip, and learning about shared European history, was quite profound. I had a lot of questions to ask. But then I had a lot of questions to ask when we were staying in Rouen about Joan of Arc, who hundreds of years previously was burned at the stake. You’re talking about burning women. There’s some pretty horrific stuff out there, but they need to be educated about it. And I think they get far more out of it than just taking them for a nice walk in a lovely park.
Caroline’s publications
Matt Sims
Your story is an inspiration to men and women. I’m inspired. For dads going away on their own, men going on their own and for dads with the kids it would be a challenge. So thank you very much for sharing all of that. You’ve got lots of travel plans this year. Where can people follow you and read what you’ve written about? Tell us about the publications and about your books.
Caroline Mills
I’m a freelance writer, so I write for many of the main camping, motorhome and caravan magazines. I’m actually the editor of Touring Magazine. That covers camping, it covers motorhomes, it covers caravans and it actually covers glamping as well so that if you’re not too sure yet about digging into your pocket to buy a motorhome or a caravan, you can do all those angles. It covers motorhome hire, all that side of things.
I’m also the author of about nine different travel guides, some of which are region-specific. I’m the author of Slow Cotswolds for example, and specifically camping related The Camping Pocket Bible. I’m the author of Cool Caravanning which is a personal selection of fabulous English campsites. It’s more to do with location and having a wonderful view rather than making sure there are hair dryers in the amenity block.
And then the most recent book, which came out last year is Camping Road Trips France and Germany, which is 30 adventures with either your motorhome, your camper van or your tent. It’s basically bringing together 30 of the best trips that either I myself alone have done or with the children throughout France and Germany. It covers so many different areas of the two countries.
It covers, for example, following the Cider Route in Normandy, which you’d think would be only for grownups but actually, the kids found it fabulous because you’ve got all of these little apple signs. When they were younger they would look out for them. That was their thing, to spot the apple sign. And then when you arrive at a cider farm – I couldn’t taste the cider anyway because I was driving – you might buy a bottle. They also sell apple juice. And so the kids had this collection of bottles of apple juice as they went around.
There are fabulous tours which are great for not just children, but for couples of all ages and for families of all ages – tours through Germany, the Alpenstrasse being one of them. Actually, one is from the Bertha Benz Memorial Route. You talk of me being an inspiration – actually, she is the most phenomenal inspiration and it is because of her, the wife of Carl Benz, that the motorhome even exists.
Her husband, Carl Benz, had created this motor car. Everybody pooh-poohed it and thought, ‘That’s not going to take off. Why would anybody want to drive a motor car? We’ve got the train.’ She took it without his permission and took her two sons and drove the first-ever long-distance motorhome trip from Mannheim down to Pforzheim.
It’s not a massive route now, but back then there would have been no brakes, no fuel, obviously no petrol stations. She was having to stop at a pharmacy and was using fuel there. Of course, the stigma of doing this alone as a woman was quite phenomenal. The stigma of taking her husband’s vehicle away without permission was quite something. She is a true inspiration.
Where to find Caroline’s work
Matt Sims
Amazing. So where can people get your books?
Caroline Mills
On various websites. You’ve got Amazon, obviously. You’ve got www.thatleisureshop.com – to quote a cliche, all good bookshops and independent bookshops around the UK.
Matt Sims
Brilliant. Well, we will look out for that. And we will watch your further travels with great interest. You mentioned Touring Magazine. That’s a digital magazine, isn’t it?
Caroline Mills
Yes, it is. It’s www.touring.co.uk. And we are forever uploading new touring inspiration, new road trips, advice and tips and practical information. But it’s there really as inspiration whether you already have a motorhome or a caravan, or whether you’re just thinking about getting one. There are lots of great tips, advice and inspiration.
Matt Sims
And first-hand experience. It’s a great magazine. And your experience is prolific throughout it.
Caroline Mills
It is very much all to do with first-hand experience and not just my own experiences. There are articles there about people that have converted a motorhome to go on long trips through South Africa, for example, people that have hired a motorhome to New Zealand or Australia. And then obviously, in the main, content to do with travelling and touring through Europe.
Matt Sims
Caroline, thank you so much for talking to me. It’s been brilliant to hear your story. We’ll leave you to get back to what’s been a very busy show. Enjoy the rest of the show. We’ll speak to you soon.
Caroline Mills
Thank you so much. Lovely to talk to you.
you’re just thinking about getting one. There are lots of great tips, advice and inspiration. Matt Sims
And first-hand experience. It’s a great magazine. And your experience is prolific throughout it.
Caroline Mills
It is very much all to do with first-hand experience and not just my own experiences. There are articles there about people that have converted a motorhome to go on long trips through South Africa, for example, people that have hired a motorhome to New Zealand or Australia. And then obviously, in the main, content to do with travelling and touring through Europe.
Matt Sims
Caroline, thank you so much for talking to me. It’s been brilliant to hear your story. We’ll leave you to get back to what’s been a very busy show. Enjoy the rest of the show. We’ll speak to you soon.
Caroline Mills
Thank you so much. Lovely to talk to you.
