Guest of the week: Jonas Näslund and Helena Lindvall, adventurers with motorhomes

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At 36 and 44 years old, Jonas Näslund and Helena Lindvall are well below the average age of motorhome travellers, but they have already realised the appeal of a motorhome. After falling in love with cycling while travelling in South America, they wondered how to transport their bikes down to southern Europe. A motorhome was the solution!

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Jonas and Helena took a full year's leave of absence and during this year they have experienced much of Europe, including Poland, Slovenia, France and northern Spain. The couple is still on their exciting journey even though the year is coming to an end. We have of course taken the opportunity to ask a bunch of curious questions! If you'd like to read more, you can follow the rest of Jonas and Helena's journey on the couple's Facebook page.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? How do you live when you are not travelling around Europe in a motorhome?

Luleå won the 2016 Swedish Championship gold in basketball, among other things. It is an important start in answering the question about us and who we are. Sport, and especially basketball, is an important part of our lives. In motorhome circles we can say that we are young, Helena is 36 years old and Jonas is 44 years old. We are a couple since about 3 years back and have lived as cohabitants in our rental apartment in Luleå for about two years. Jonas has an "adult" son who is 23 years old and lives in Umeå.

On a daily basis, we both have jobs in the non-profit sector/civil society, Jonas works for the Swedish Sports Confederation in Norrbotten and Helena is employed at Save the Children. In addition to the above, friends and family are of course important, but also proximity to nature and an active outdoor life.

How did you get the idea to do the trip you are doing and what gave you the courage to go?

We don't really see any of us as being particularly brave or difficult to set off. We have not seen any obstacles or had any fears before or during the journey. Sure, there have been times when our stomachs have tingled, but then it's more likely that we've been nervous about ending up in a narrow alley with a car that's too big among lively and honking southern Europeans.

The idea of going on a long trip with a campervan did not exist until the summer of 2014. In March that year we went on an adventure trip to Chile and Argentina, cycling in the Andes and northern Patagonia. Cycling turned out to suit us perfectly, sporty mountain bikes were purchased and we started to think about how we could transport these and ourselves into the forest and countryside for cool cycling. But where would we sleep? A motorhome was the solution!

Jonas Näslund and Helena Lindvall struck!

We came to the conclusion that we wanted a large garage in the car to transport the bikes, good and long beds and a not too big car. We went to Norrland's largest motorhome shop, saw a nice little rascal for a motorhome and made a decision almost immediately. In June 2014 we were motorhome owners, why a motorhome? We knew nothing about cars, engines and even less about LPG, electricity supply and things related to owning a motorhome.

During the 2014 holiday, we took the car and went on a five-week motorhome training camp in Norway and the Swedish mountains. The freedom and opportunity to get out/into nature made us fall in love with motorhome life. This while we were both a little hungry for new challenges in terms of work, the idea grew to study, get some new inputs and combine it with a motorhome adventure. In the summer of 2015 we left Sweden for a year on the road.

Can you tell us about your journey? How have you travelled so far and what is the road ahead?

As we live far north in an elongated country, it was a long journey before we even left Sweden. It took a couple of weeks to get down to the bridge and across to the rest of Europe. On the other side of the bridge was Denmark with the island of Mön as a favourite.

Then northern Germany with many days in Berlin, the Polish coast and then down through all of Poland and into Slovakia. A short turn into Austria to visit Vienna and then Hungary and further into Slovenia which we fell in love with. Austria was visited by us again with lots of alpine adventures before we rolled over into southern Germany and Oktoberfest.

Some beautiful castles later we were down in Italy to experience the area around all the lakes - Lugano, Como, Iseo and Garda. Crossed Tuscany and took a ferry to wonderful Corsica with absolutely magical nature. Back to Italy and southwards with Rome, Amalfi and Naples as the icing on the cake and then off to Sicily for a month. Italy was then crossed in a south-north direction in two days to then roll in and sniff a little on France and found that we would spend many lovely days there later in the spring when the temperature was more comfortable.

Northern Spain took us by storm, with the Picos de Europa becoming a favourite. Then followed the Portuguese coast down towards Lisbon and then landed for about a month on the warm Algarve coast. Further into southern Spain where we alternately followed the coast and more inland among the mountains.

The border to France was crossed at the Mediterranean where first the outskirts of the Pyrenees showed fantastic nature, a stop in Andorra and then further among mainly the mountains a bit from the coast, but also the French Riviera and Monaco have been visited. We then rolled northwards in France, making a detour into Switzerland and the German Black Forest.

Now we are back in France and have just left the Champagne district for Paris. After Paris, the trip ends for Helena who returns to Luleå as a new job is about to start. Jonas completes the motorhome year by travelling on his own to Normandy and then north through Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and the Swedish E4 to Luleå again.

In general, we can say that our interest in the outdoors and the climate have influenced a lot where we have travelled. We wanted to avoid snow this year and discover, for example, the Alps by bike and hiking shoes instead of skis. In the planning stage at home, we put up a giant map of Europe on the wall in the living room, googled and pinned places we wanted to visit and approximately when.

So an idea for a travel route has been there from the start even if a lot has changed along the way as tips have appeared on blogs, Facebook or along the way. Slow travel - discovering for a long time and in depth has been our melody.

Have you experienced any unexpected hardships or difficulties while travelling? Tell us about it!

We have not experienced any direct difficulties, the difficulties that have arisen we have been able to handle, but some more or less self-chosen hardships. We love food experiences and decided to cycle from the coast of Sicily up to a small cosy town, Ragusa. There we had booked a room in a hotel and dinner at a Michelin restaurant.

When we set off in the morning, the sky was blacker than black and after an hour of cycling there was so much water flowing from the heights that the cars almost slid sideways and even worse for us on the bikes. Five hours of cycling in horizontal rain, we were completely exhausted, happy and cold when we finally checked into our hotel.

Another adventure occurred when we were to cycle up Austria's highest peak, Grossglockner, the plan was to cycle 3.3 miles up the mountain with an average slope of 12 per cent. After 8 km uphill, however, we drove into the wall, not literally but we did not move on, there were real storm and gusting winds that meant that we did not move forward / upwards. The professional cyclists sat in piles at the rest area and chose to turn around, as they made the assessment that it was simply too dangerous, then we happy exercisers also turned around.

Another time we ended up on side roads during a hiking trip over a mountain pass, which resulted in us crawling and hanging in chains had to get down along plunging rock walls but it went well even that. It happens a lot during a year but overall we have so far been lucky that nothing really unpleasant has happened.

Can you tell us about any special places or experiences along the way?

We've visited and experienced lots of gems of places around Europe, it's hard to pick just a few, but here are some of the ones that have stuck with us:

Corsica - Magical island with a nature that offers a wonderful mix of outdoor life, sun and swimming. There are hiking trails at high altitude that cross the entire island and also crazy beautiful road sections along the coast both by bike and by car. The west coast and Bonifacio on the southern tip are two real gems.

Slovenia - Small country that has everything! Green hills with vineyards, high peaks like in Velika Planina and around Lake Bohinji, beautiful capital city, Europe's largest cave system and the Mediterranean Sea. We had the opportunity to live and work with an amazing Slovenian family for a week. We helped in their organic farming and business and thus got a very good introduction to the country and the people.

France's mountainous countryside - Incredibly beautiful! We are particularly fond of the area on the edge of the Pyrenees, the villages around Millau and the Gorges du Jonte and Gorges du Tarn. Not to mention the Gorges de Galamus. Or the mightiest of them all, the Gorges du Verdon, just north of Antibes. The villages and countryside are so accessible and offer every service imaginable, even if it's just a small village.

Leba - In this Polish coastal town there is a national park with giant sand dunes wedged between the sea and a lake. Well worth a visit!

Zakopane - A hiking paradise in the Tatra Mountains! Very accessible and popular with the Poles themselves. Here you can quickly reach high peaks and experience beautiful alpine meadows and lakes at high altitude. A few miles south, if you go into Slovakia, there is the same unbeatable nature, but far fewer people along the trails.

Picos de Europa - In northern Spain, where the peaks of the national park provide a view of the sea, it's delicious. There are also beautiful lakes and the Camino de Compostela pilgrimage route crosses the area.

Ronda - A town in the mountains, about 10 kilometres north of Malaga. Built on rocky ledges. Just a must if you are in the neighbourhood.

How do you finance the trip and how is it possible to be away for as long as you are?

We have eliminated almost all costs at home, cancelled everything that can be cancelled, rented out the apartment and sold the car. Now we did not have much time to save money for the trip, but in a short time we managed to keep a high savings and together with some digging in the "life buffer / savings" we managed to get the budget together.

Our budget for one year was/is around 300 000 SEK (including everything). It's kind of a middle ground, not a luxury but not a low-budget version either. Privately, it has worked well to maintain contact with family and friends. We have both been on leave for a year from our jobs.

What are your plans when you get home? Will you continue as before or has the trip changed your mind?

We feel fortunate to have been able to make the journey we have made, we have and have had a fantastic adventure. Perhaps the priorities have changed somewhat, but it still feels great to return home to everyday life with new energy.

What is your dream destination?

We can say that even though we have been travelling in Europe for almost a year, there is a lot more to discover and we are by no means done with Europe. But there are three other trips we have talked about and we want to do. A journey of discovery to British Colombia in Canada, a hiking trip in the Himalayas and cycling among the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

Thank you Jonas Näslund and Helena Lindvall, for sharing your experiences and thoughts!

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