Jamie Duff and Martha Constantine are living their dream, traveling around Europe in a converted van.
The 22-year-olds, who recently graduated from Multimedia in DCU, began converting their green 2015 Renault Master into a camper-van in May 2021.
They then embarked on the adventure of a lifetime in ‘Kermit The Van’, driving to stunning locations all across the continent and documenting their travels on Instagram and TikTok.
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Jamie and Martha have amassed over 3.5k followers on Instagram, and more than 8k followers on TikTok.
In their exclusive interview with Goss.ie, the Meath natives spoke about the highs and lows of life on the road, their experience with renovating a van, their favourite travel destinations so far, and more.
Take a look:
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Where did the idea to renovate a van and travel come from?
We always loved traveling, and we loved exploring new places so we would stay in Airbnbs all around Ireland. One day we were traveling to a new place in Portlaoise, talking about our plans for after we finished college and the idea of van life came up.
There were always pictures and videos of van life coming up on Instagram and TikTok and I thought it was such an interesting lifestyle that would suit us perfectly. That day we both decided we would love to do it and the next week we bought the van, and started to renovate it, so it was a quick turn around.
We always knew we wanted to travel but with Covid-19 and all of the lockdowns, we thought we were going to have to keep putting it off. Van life was a way that allowed us to travel but in a safe way so we really jumped on the idea.
How did you fund the renovations?
We both had a lot of savings from previous jobs. On the road we did some freelance work in graphic design and video editing to build up the funds to keep traveling.
What was the most difficult/frustrating part about renovating?
The fact that we didn’t have any experience was quite difficult, but we found almost everything we needed to know online through Google and YouTube. We had to make a lot of custom pieces to fit the shape of the van, because the walls were not perfectly straight and square which was pretty frustrating.
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What’s your favourite part about traveling?
We both loved meeting new people and exploring new places. Our favourite part of traveling was exploring the places that were off the beaten track, that we never would have been able to explore if we didn’t have a van.
We also met some amazing people along the road, most of them were in their own camper-vans. We felt like we had a special bond with these people and we could compare experiences and get recommendations from them which was great.
What’s your least favourite part about constantly traveling – if any?
We loved constantly traveling, being able to see a new place everyday was just amazing. The only thing that we didn’t fully enjoy is the lack of movement. When you live in a house, you have to walk at least a few steps between rooms but when you live in a van, everything is within reaching distance so you never have to move very far.
What has been your favourite place you’ve visited?
We both loved Italy, one of our favourite places would have to be Riomaggiore in the Cinque Terre. This cute fishing village was full of colourful buildings built on the side of a cliff. It was one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen. We were able to park the van really close to the village and walk down which was amazing.
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What travel plans do you have for the future?
We definitely want to travel around Ireland for a while because it’s such an amazing country. There are so many nice places in Ireland that we’ve never seen before. It’s right on our doorstep as well, so why not!
You had considered building a terraced roof on the van, tell us about that?
Since buying the van we have thought about putting a decking on the roof where we could chill out, eat, and work. We would essentially have a ladder up to the roof and have a decking area but that would definitely be down the line!
What is the most creative/innovative idea in ‘Kermit the Van’?
In my opinion the most innovative idea in Kermie has to be the dirty clothes hatch. It’s built into the side of our bed and it allows us to throw our dirty clothes into the basket so easily – out of sight, out of mind. We haven’t seen this done in any other van before. We love that because we built the van ourselves we could tailor make everything to suit us which really helped out in the long run.
@kermit.thevann 60 second van tour 🚐 #vanlife #vanbuild #fypシ ♬ The Spins – Mac Miller
Did your social media following happen organically, or are you actively trying to build your platform?
We originally set up the page as a way of keeping all of our memories in one place so that we could look back on one day. When we were on the road, we used our social media as a way of updating our families and friends about where we were and what we were doing which was really handy.
Once we started gaining some followers we started to take the social media a bit more seriously but we still posted goofy pictures and videos just like we did at the start, because that is what we have always enjoyed doing. We want people to follow our page to show them
How do you manage your spending on the road?
We were never too cautious about our spending because we wanted to have fun and experience all of the cool things in the places that we visited. We tried to cook as many of our meals as possible in the van, which made things cheaper but we definitely did treat ourselves to some tapas in Spain, and some pizza in Italy.
If people wanted to follow in your footsteps, and renovate a van, what tips/advice would you give them?
We couldn’t recommend doing van life more to everyone! During our experience, we’ve heard that a lot of people think that this lifestyle is really expensive and that it’s unattainable for them, but van life can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be. Especially with the immersion of remote work we think that this lifestyle is extremely doable for everyone.
You can follow Martha and Jamie’s journeys in Kermit the Van on their Instagram, and on their TikTok.
@kermit.thevann 5 things that just make sense in our Van 🚐 #vanlife #vanbuild #fyp #foryoupage ♬ The Office – The Hyphenate
