Bella - our new mobile home

Our new campervan is called Bella which means beautiful.  That’s shorthand for Bella Vita – a beautiful life, which is what the campervan enables for us.  We traded in our very large 5^th wheel mobile home for a much more convenient size campervan,    We used the experience of the 5^th wheeler, to help us define what we needed in a mobile home.  Something that was both big enough to travel in for several weeks at a time, and small enough to park in the supermarket, or at a freedom camping site.    

Bella has enough storage for all our biking, walking and camping gear.  The storage area is now full of boxes with outdoor gear, and Ross’ first job as new owner was to install a bike rack on the back.  

The kitchen is compact, with just a two burner stove top and a sink. We’re working out what we can cook with these facilities, as we prefer to eat “in” after a day outdoors.  There are great advantages in the compactness, such as being able to reach the bench-top from the dining table.   Although the kitchen is small, the fridge is a good size which suits us.   

The bathroom Is a particular joy with a surprising amount of storage for such a small space. The shower is one of the most creative solutions to space-saving we’ve ever seen in a mobile home.  It has a wrap around screen which you use for the 5 minutes each day you are actually showering.  At all other times, it’s part of the circulation space between the bed and the living area.  This diagram from the manufacturers website may help to see how that works

The other stand-outs for space saving are the dining area which makes use of the drivers and passengers seats and the bed, which glides up and down at the touch of a switch. During the day, it’s up out of the way, allowing easy access to the storage space.  At night, it’s an easy climb in and out of it.