Our first car with which we started the roadtrip / Vanlife life was a very ordinary family van. We didn't have much money back then and wanted to get going so we searched the internet for a cheap big family van where we would have enough space to sleep. When we found Kalli, a Kia Carnival, we decided that that is the one. It has two rows of seats in the back and our naive thought was simple, yes! Yes, there will be enough room for our stuff and us.

Without further ado we found a cheap one on the internet, looked at it right away and decided that it was our car. Within a week we have converted the car cheap and quickly to our first "Travelvan". Just a few Ikea shelves underneath. Of wooden slats we put a slatted frame on top with velcro tape. Underneath was all our stuff as well as our kitchen. We could’ve reached our stuff very easy by lifting the mattress which was all over the place and that worked well for us. After all, we just wanted to go. At that time, we didn't know that Kalli was awarded the golden carrot for the most unreliable car, but we wouldn't have given a damn at that time.

The experiences we had in and with this car were simply all we wanted back then, and we loved it. Even the fact that the hand brake in Greece tore us wasn't stopping from travelling any further and after all this that car carried us for over 55,000 km through Europe and showed us that you don't need much to be happy and to have beautiful experiences that you won't forget.

Here are some very old pictures of our Kia.

We drove Kalli for 1 year

and drove more than 55.000 KM