Matt Sims
So I’m here at the Campervan Advice Centre, an exhibition stand at the NEC Caravan Campervan and Motorhome show, and I’m here with the lovely Kat ‘Wandering’ Bird.
Kat and I have both been on the stand all week, giving advice, hints and tips to lots of customers and prospective buyers at the show who’ve come to ask the questions that they probably wouldn’t like to ask anywhere else. And both of us have been presenting. Kat, it’s great to see you!
Kat Bird
Hi. Thank you very much for having me!
Matt Sims
So tell us a bit about you and how you got into this wonderful world that we call motorhoming. You’re a motorhome owner, aren’t you?
How Kat started motorhome life
Kat Bird
Yes! We’ve got a motorhome. So we bought a motorhome about five years ago, and we bought it for one reason only, and that was to tow our motorbikes around Europe. We both ride motorbikes. And we wanted a more cost-effective way of doing it because we tour with our daughter and getting hotel rooms and B&Bs when we were travelling was getting really expensive.
So one day we drove or rode past a motorhome with bikes on the trailer. And we thought, ‘we need that!’ We bought a motorhome. It was wrong for us in every possible way because we didn’t know what we were doing, but we still loved it and we took it to Europe.
We made so many mistakes. And whilst we were over there, we loved it so much that I actually decided to quit my job. I used to be an air traffic controller for London. I quit it about four years ago and we have been touring pretty much full time give or take 2020 which we don’t talk about.
Matt Sims
And you did something even more interesting before you were an air traffic controller. What were you doing before that?
Kat Bird
I was a helicopter Hiller navigator in the Royal Navy.
Matt Sims
Amazing! So you’ve gone from helicopter navigator to air traffic controller to full-time motorhome lifestyle blogger. Is that fair?
Kat Bird
Yes! Well, now it’s sort of split. We’ve had a boat for a long, long time. So we’re split between the two at the moment. But we are hoping that soon, now that things are opening up again, we can become more motorhome travellers again because you can get a lot further in a van than you can with a boat.
Motorhome layout
Matt Sims
So what motorhome have you got now?
Kat Bird
We’ve got a Swift 685 Escape now, so it’s got the end lounge which we love. It’s below three metres, which makes things cheaper for travelling around Europe. It’s 6.7 metres so it’s not too bad on the ferry and train.
Matt Sims
And so what was wrong with the first motorhome you bought? You said it was a disaster.
Kat Bird
It was! So first of all, it had an overcab bed, which was perfect for our daughter, but it made us over three metres which meant that for all the tolls in Europe we were category four.
Matt Sims
This is the height of the motorhome?
Kat Bird
This is the height, yes. If you’re over 3.01 metres, you become category four, so it becomes a lot more expensive. So that was our first mistake. The second mistake was that it had an end bed, which is great, except that when you’re all up and then it rains all day, the only place we all had to sit was in the dinette. And we were driving each other crazy because we seem to be rain magnets and it rains a lot when we go anywhere. We’ve spent a lot of time, the three of us, in a very small dinette space and we needed that extra living room. So that’s why we ended up going for our second van which has an end lounge and we love that. We now have a dinette and an end lounge and it works brilliantly.
Matt Sims
So buying the right layout is really important for people listening to this that haven’t bought one yet. What advice would you offer them in terms of doing research on a layout?
Kat Bird
Well, my advice always is to go into a van that you think you like, shut the door and imagine that you cannot leave for 24 hours. We had awful storms here the other week. Imagine that that happened to you. So it’s great when you’ve got an awning and you’ve got outside living, and it’s a lot easier, but if you were stuck in that van for 24 hours, how would the rhythm of it work?
One thing my husband and I are different on is that I’m an early bird, I will get up early and I like to start working and get on with the day. My husband likes a more gentle wake up. So if we had a layout with a drop-down bed over the saloon area, I couldn’t sit anywhere when I got out of bed early, so that layout wouldn’t work for us. Similarly, if our daughter – she does occasionally still travel with us – if she came to stay, but we all had one living area, we wouldn’t have a separate space for her to sleep.
So it’s kind of working out how it works for you. If you’ve got kids and you want to put them to bed earlier than you, if they’re going to sleep in the saloon, where do you then sit for an evening? There are all sorts of different rhythms that people have in the way that they use the van, which is why there are so many amazing layouts, but you’ve just got to find the one that’s right for you.
Payload
The other thing that I suggest you do is to look at the payload. Payload is so important and so many people overlook this. You’ve got the maximum weight that the vehicle is allowed up to, is insured up to, and then you’ve got the weight that the vehicle is when it comes out of the dealership. The difference between the two is your payload.
300 kilograms sounds like a lot, but when you imagine you’ve got two of you, that’s roughly 150 kilograms, and we’ve got a dog so that’s another 15-20 kilograms. If you’ve got kids, that goes on top, that’s 200 kilograms before you’ve even blinked.
And then all of your pots, your pans, your bedding, your tins, your food, your everything – generator, solar panel, awning – it all has to go in that payload and it can disappear like that really quickly. So those are the two places that I suggest people look at and try and get the biggest payload you can get.
Matt Sims
But you’ve got a solution, haven’t you, to payload? I heard you mention this to someone earlier. Tell us what that is.
Kat Bird
What, the trailer?
Matt Sims
Yes!
Kat Bird
So we have a trailer with our bikes and we have a storage box on the trailer. We put as much stuff on the trailer as we possibly can. You’ve got to be careful because obviously vehicles are only weighted to tow up to a certain amount as well. So it is getting that balance right. But yes, we do try and put as much as we can on the trailer to lighten up the van.
Matt Sims
What impact does that have when you’re travelling on the continent?
Kat Bird
What, that towing?
Matt Sims
Yes, in terms of having a trailer.
Kat Bird
So I think we’ve always towed. That was the main reason for getting the van was to tow, so pretty much every trip we’ve ever done we’ve towed motorbikes. We now have a classic car as well to add to the list. So we’re a travelling circus – we have a classic car, two bikes, a motorhome and a spaniel!
Matt Sims
What car have you got?
Kat Bird
He restored a Porsche – I’m going to get this wrong. It’s a Porsche 550. It’s an old classic. I mean, it’s a replica. The originals are ridiculous money, so it was a replica, but it was a lockdown project to keep him out of my hair, I’ll be honest. It’s brilliant. But now he wants to take it around Europe to do all the different circuits. So that’s our plan for the next couple of years, is to go around and do a lot of the racetracks that he wants to drive this car around.
Matt Sims
I’ll be following that. That will be fascinating.
Kat Bird
Yes, we’re hoping to go and do Belgium and Spa this year. We’re talking about doing Lamont whenever that’s allowed. Apparently, they do classic car days and things. I don’t know a whole lot about that world yet. It’s quite new to us. But it’s quite good fun learning about.
Destinations in Europe
Matt Sims
It’s one I love secretly. That’s another podcast for another day. We’ll get him on! And you’ve been all over Europe, haven’t you? You were speaking here in the Insight theatre and you’re a bit of a celebrity at the show. People have been coming and queuing up to speak to you. And I’m honoured to chat with you now. Tell us a bit about where you’ve been in your motorhome.
Kat Bird
So we’ve focused a lot on the UK, and then we’ve done a lot of what I would call Western Europe. So we’ve still got a huge amount to see. But we’ve done a lot in Norway – Norway is beautiful.
We’ve done a lot in Italy. We are mountain people – we love the views and the nature up in the mountains, and also with a dog it’s a lot easier than going down to Southern Spain when it’s too hot for them. So yes, we’ve done a lot of the Pyrenees, a lot in the Alps. The Dolomites, which I’m talking about at the show, were just incredible.
But then also, we’ve gone to places like Croatia and Slovenia. Germany I love as well. I could spend months exploring Germany. It’s just beautiful. There are so many incredible places to see. My bucket list grows, it never actually gets anything ticked off it – or it does, but I just keep adding stuff as well!
Matt Sims
So with restrictions lifting on travel from here in the UK, what’s your plan for this year, 2022?
Kat Bird
Oh, this question makes me so nervous, because whatever I say now, it will change at some point.
Matt Sims
We’re not going to jinx it, I promise!
Kat Bird
So our next big trip – we’re hoping to do a couple of little trips before then – our next big one is Germany, and we’re going to take the Black Forest. If you’re a biker, the Black Forest is one of the best places for riding a motorbike. It’s amazing. So we’re hoping to go down there, and then that’s going to link into Belgium and taking the car to Spa. So that’s in May.
June is my daughter’s 21st birthday. If I say that quick enough, it doesn’t sound so bad. We’ve promised her, pretty much her entire life, that we’d take her to Vegas for her 21st. So what we’re going to do is hopefully hire an RV and do a road trip through Yosemite and Death Valley from Vegas to San Francisco, which I think will be epic. And then, if the stars align, we’re hoping to go up to Norway in September or October time to do that again, because it was just incredible.
Follow Kat’s social media
Matt Sims
People can follow you on your YouTube channel as you do these trips, I assume, can they, and on Instagram?
Kat Bird
Instagram I update pretty much every day. Facebook is brilliant. We’ve got an amazing Facebook group. I set it up for total beginners because most Facebook groups are quite scathing towards beginners and asking basic questions.
I wanted a place where people could come and ask those basic questions because if you don’t know, you don’t know. And half the time you don’t know what you don’t know. So that group is set up for that and there are some lovely people in there. We update that as well, as well as YouTube. I try and upload videos once a week or so just to keep everyone up to date with what we’ve been up to. And then the biggest place is the website.
Matt Sims
Tell us where these places are – your handle on Instagram and YouTube and the name of the Facebook group.
Kat Bird
All of them, pretty much, are Wandering Bird Adventures or wanderingbird.adventures. That’s for YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. And then the website is www.wandering-bird.com.
Matt Sims
Fantastic. Well, we look forward to following your adventures and expeditions! I’m going to certainly watch with interest. It’s great to chat with you. Thanks for taking the time out of the show. We hope to see you very soon!
Kat Bird
Thank you so much for having me!
Matt Sims
Travel safe.
Kat Bird
Thank you, it’s been fun!
Keith Gooden
Thanks for listening to the Motorhome Matt podcast. Remember to check back here for more episodes full of hints and tips and helpful advice. We’ll see you soon for another Motorhome Matt podcast brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com.
