Nice to meet you!
My name is Paulo. I am originally from Brazil, but have lived in the UK since 1993, having also lived a few years in Germany before moving here. I am a graduate of Electrical Engineering by the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil, but don’t ask me to do anything related to this field as I have not exercised this profession in over 30 years. In the last 2 decades I worked as a Program / Project Manager for various IT companies, both in hardware and software. I am now dedicating time to some of my passions. Future will tell if I need to go back to the job market again, but I am trying to live a day at a time and for at least 12 months (perhaps 24) I have no plans to do so.
On a personal level, I am in my early 60s, single and have 2 sons, one of which is already a grown-up (so he says, at least) married man.
As you may have seen in the welcome page, one of my passions is cycling. I cycled many thousands of miles on long-distance cycle-tours. The longest trip I did on my bike was from Canterbury, in Kent / UK, to Rome in Italy. I followed the tracks of a known pilgrimage route called Via Francigena. During the 29 days it took me to get to Rome by bicycle, I slept in hostels, B&Bs, pensions, hotels and also in a tent on camping sites. A few of these nights in the tent were under heavy rain and while I was lying down on my air mattress, in my sleeping bag trying to sleep, I remember thinking, “I don’t like this at all. I need to buy myself a campervan and sleep on a proper bed”. And so, I did. The picture you see at the top was taken in June 2021 a few hours after I bought my 1st campervan, which is still the one I travel with today. It’s a 2007 Iveco Daily campervan, so not new by any standards, but it has been well kept and serviced, and it met all my “must have” requirements at the time. I did spend a humongous amount of time (and some money) making improvements after the purchase. The van was purchased brand new by the 1st owner with the purpose of being converted to a so called “racing van”. The racing comes from the fact it carried the racing vehicles, which in the case of the 1st owner was a racing kart. The 2nd owner was a motocross racer, and the van carried his motorbike under the bed. In my case it carries 2 bicycles, but there is no racing involved, quite the contrary. I like the slow pace of exploring places by bicycles (or occasionally on foot on a hike).
So, these are my passions: Travelling with my campervan, finding a nice spot to park-up for the night and exploring the area by bicycle during the day.
If you want to know more about us, don’t hesitate to get in touch and follow us in social media, if you want to be kept informat about our adventures. It is likely that social media posts will happen more frequently than blog posts.
Got questions?
Feel free to reach out.