Beach Meet Ups – Saying Hi to Mike Hudson (and his van!) |

100 Feet behind you down the road you’ve just driven is perhaps a somewhat less than ideal position for a van’s brake pads to be found, or so we discovered whilst driving around the Pelopennese, Greece, in April this year. Still, what could have been a disaster was instead resolved quickly, and easily, by a couple of super friendly mechanics at a tiny gas station. Soon we were back to snaking along the coast; the sea a sheet of crinkled silver, roads lined with gnarled olive trees and abundant lemon groves. the island’s hills were a springtime patchwork of deep green, dotted with tiny stone houses wrapped in the shade of overgrown wisteria trellises.

We were heading north, to meet up with our friend Mike Hudson, creator of the website vandogtraveller.com and proud owner of a self-converted LDV Convoy, his home for what had been, then, just over a year.

We followed the jade coast further, the earth around us a warm copper, dozens of crumbling ruins greeting us on nearly every corner, feathered blue thistles and near transparent wild poppies decorating our dash. we crossed the Rion-Antirion cable bridge over the gulf of Corinth, and found Mike in the town of Antirrio.

Naturally, we headed to the beach, where we explored eachother’s vans, cooked a meal of coconut spinach pasta, falafel and hummus, and camped.

Mike’s van features a pressurised hot and cold water system, a 200w solar charging set-up, LED lights, a shower, hammock, pull out bed and fridge.

Mike was behind some of the inspiration for our very own van plan, with his detailed conversion posts and electrical know-how, and it was super fun to get to see a van we’d watched turn from a ten year old work van into a beautiful, cosy, home, for real, on a pebble beach somewhere in northern greece.