Meet the couple who have been travelling non-stop for 15 years, visiting a total of 85 countries to date – and find out how they’ve financed their adventures without using the bank of mum and dad.
Lauren Winslow-Llewellyn, 34, and Craig Hubbard, 41, have shared their non-stop travel approach to life – valuing time over material things.
So far, their highlights include horse riding in Kyrgyzstan, winter in Arctic Norway, a black bear leaning on their van in Canada and a wild orangutan following them up a river in Indonesia.
How do they do it?
The couple, from Sussex, choose one corner of the world to explore by road, while living in a van for six to 12 months. When they are ready to move on, they sell it to go backpacking and work in hospitality to fund their next adventure.
‘We don’t work in high-paid jobs. We usually work for minimum wage, in restaurants or housekeeping,’ Lauren said in a TikTok video. ‘Even still, we do a great job of saving up as much as possible and living a frugal life so we can spend our money on experiences instead of things.’
Lauren and Craig were inspired to start travelling after graduating from university, with Craig ‘not ready to start a career’ and Lauren prompted by ‘a simple conversation with a friend’ who was about to embark on a gap year to travel.
‘I had no idea what that meant and it intrigued me enough to sign up immediately and work full time to save up,’ she told MailOnline Travel.
The couple, who met while waiting tables together at Pizza Express, spent the next year working full time at the restaurant and saved around £5,000 each to travel to Australia on a working holiday visa in 2008.
Realising that their money wouldn’t last long if they stayed in hostels, they moved into their first home on wheels later that year and their non-stop travelling lifestyle was born.
‘We bought a station wagon car a few days later and lived in the back of it for nine months,’ Lauren said.
‘It wasn’t an ideal home. It leaked really badly in heavy rains but somehow we loved the lifestyle and the freedom it gave us, which led us to living in more vans around the world… never a small station wagon again though.’
Since then, the pair have bought and sold seven vans in which they have explored 32 countries around the world.
When they are not travelling, they work mostly as waiters as well as coffee baristas, bartenders and hotel housekeepers to top up their travel fund. They also document their travels via their blog, nonstoptravelling.com.
Other standout travel moments for the couple are seeing a pride of lions in South Africa, swimming in crystal clear lakes and exploring Cappadocia with a stray dog for company.
Also among their highlights is witnessing ‘wild orcas in Shetland’ and ‘swimming in the bluest, coldest water we’ve ever seen in Albania’, they added.
MailOnline first spoke to Lauren and Craig eight years into their travels, during which time they had lived in five different vans.
Starting in Australia, they kept their costs down with cheap day trips to beaches and free sight-seeing activities.
Then on a U.S road trip from Alaska to Florida, they braved howling wolves, cold showers and smashed windscreens while living in a van measuring just 60 sq ft (5.6 sq m) inside.
Since then, the pair have continued the same lifestyle and ventured to more adventurous destinations.
‘We’ve spent a few winter seasons in the Norwegian Arctic, hiked to yurt camps in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, explored some stunning areas of Myanmar on an E-bike and hitchhiked our way through Armenia,’ Lauren said.
Their latest chapter of travelling has also seen them return more frequently to work in the UK, instead of abroad, since they have ‘used up all the working holiday visas available to us and our age bracket’.
But the couple’s favourite thing, when it comes to a life of travel, remains unchanged from when we first spoke to them.
‘The best part is the freedom to park up in the wilderness with a jaw-dropping view and be in the best place to witness sunrise or sunset from your doorstep,’ Lauren said.
‘It’s also very rewarding just living a simple life down by the river.’
And the challenges?
‘The biggest are mechanical problems, which cause a lot of stress as it’s not just your car but also your home,’ Lauren said.
‘Some places are more tricky to camp than others with rules banning campervans, and finding simple things like water or a bin can be a struggle.’
And the process of buying and selling a van is ‘usually quite stressful’ as it involves ‘trying to find a trustworthy vehicle that won’t cause too many problems’, she says, adding: ‘But the feeling of finally getting the van, doing a quick renovation job and hitting the road is unbeatable.’
In all their years of travelling, the couple have only had to move out of their van on one occasion, on a trip to the U.S when temperatures dropped to -20C.
‘So we slept in a motel for the night,’ Lauren said.
And they have encountered some safety issues living and travelling in the van, from a stranger trying to get in to people threatening to slash their tyres.
When it comes to their relationship, the couple said they have been ‘pretty inseparable’ since they started dating in 2007, which meant that ‘transitioning into life in a small van was very easy’.
‘We’ve both got our own roles,’ they added.
‘Craig’s the driver while Lauren is the navigator – we usually don’t have a satnav and just use a paper map or a free offline map app. Craig’s the chef and Lauren is the washer-upper.
‘Lauren’s the cleaner while Craig’s the maintenance man. Lauren also does all of the travel planning and takes the photos and videos.’
When it comes to their favourite countries, the U.S is high on the couple’s list for its ‘variety of landscapes, wildlife and friendly people’, they said.
They also praised Norway ‘for its dramatic mountains rising out of the sea and for the Northern Lights’.
Among their least favourite places are Lithuania, where they felt ‘a rather unfriendly vibe’, and Egypt, which they said was ‘too intense with people constantly trying to get money from us’.
The countries that most surprised them were Spain and South Africa.
‘From family beach holidays as a kid, I thought that was all Spain really had to offer,’ Lauren said.
‘But it’s such a huge country with varied landscapes and really impressive mountains.’
She added that Cape Town in South Africa was also better than anticipated due to its proximity to nature and lively waterfront area with ‘musicians, food markets and a backdrop of Table Mountain’.
When asked what’s next, it’s no surprise that they revealed they plan to spend the next year backpacking around the world.
They recently arrived at their first stop, Oman, and will head to local islands in the Maldives for a budget trip followed by China and ‘hopefully’ Pakistan, they said.
‘Our plans go a little vague after the first six months so we’ll see where we end up,’ they added.
When asked about their lifestyle preferences, the couple said: ‘We love variety and find we get bored in one place, doing the same thing over and over. Working in one place for six months is usually our limit and then we start to get itchy feet.’
What attracts them to a life of non-stop travel? Seeing new places every day, hiking different routes, wildlife and experiencing different cultures.
‘We always try to mix up our travels so we don’t become complacent,’ they added.
‘If we keep visiting beaches, they become a bit same-same so by going to a mountainous country next, we can have a whole change of scenery and appreciation.’
Reflecting on the past 15 years and how travel has changed, the couple said it is becoming ‘more challenging as the years go on’ and hinted at the possibility of one day settling down.
They added: ‘It seemed a lot easier when we were younger, without iPhones and we just found our way around each country with a Lonely Planet book.
‘I think also as places become more populated it’s taking more research to find hidden gems.
‘So the idea of having a little patch of land to call home one day and maybe travel a few months a year instead of a full year is sounding more appealing.’
For more from Lauren and Craig visit nonstoptravelling.com and nonstoptravelling.com/blogs. You can find them on TikTok here – www.tiktok.com – and Instagram here www.instagram.com/nonstoptravelling.
