How Campervan Life Opened the Door to Family Mountain Biking and other Family Adventures

What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year?

One of the biggest positive events this past year has been the arrival of Vangelina – our slightly dramatic, occasionally smoky, always needy campervan. Purchased to help us get a taste of mountain biking,
she’s ended up being a bit of a money pit (oh oil issues…), and nothing about owning her has gone quite as smoothly as I imagined. But despite all that, I’ve tried hard to stay positive (as I watched my funds dwindle), because she’s opened up an entirely new world for us as a family.

Thanks to Vangelina (and a Forestry England pass), we’ve explored more of England and Wales this year than I expected, albeit on two wheels, and we’re hoping to do even more next year. She’s given us a retreat from rainy hikes, a project to build together, and  more family adventures than I thought would be possible at one point this year. 😅

Vangelina’s sole purpose was to finally get us into the wonderful world of mountain biking. I’ve said many times how there’s nowhere safe to cycle where we live – which is such a shame, because the boys absolutely love getting out on their bikes. Having a vehicle with a towbar became our golden ticket: suddenly we could load up the bikes and head somewhere safe, fun, and actually designed for families.

What I thought would be a couple of gentle disused railway routes quickly turned into a full introduction to Pump Tracks and mountain biking life – a world of colour-coded trails, skills parks, and discovering just how many ways gravity plus a bike can make my adrenaline (aka fear response!) soar 😅.

One of the best parts of our year has been watching the boys amaze us with their resilience and fearlessness. They went from exploring blue routes to confidently eyeing up black trails within just a couple of months. They found something they simply can’t get enough of… and somewhere along the way, we realised this is becoming our family thing.

And one surprising positive event was the gift of an adventure from Adventure Mind. We applied for an adventure grant to walk all 3 National Parks this park – we didn’t get the grant (and sadly circumstances and soaring van costs mean we didn’t achieve our walking goals either 🙈) – but we did get a family ticket to experience Go Ape! It was an adventure we would never have had the chance to experience, and it remains one of the highlights of our year. For all of us.

I wonder what positive events await us in 2026…