Meet Mini Pearl, Our Cozy Caravan
and find out why a “voortent” is essential for camping in Europe (NL2)
Howdy! Thank you for reading Expat Life—musings from a Dutch-American couple as they navigate life in Europe, Mexico, and beyond. This post is #2 in my NL (NL = Netherlands) series, where I write about finding and buying our home in Appingedam and our lives as Nederlanders.
If you’re not European, camping in the Old Country can be a huge challenge. Of course, you can grab a backpack and a pup tent, buy a Eurail pass, and rough it. I did that in my 20s and loved it. But I’m a tad older now and want a comfy bed, a coffee maker, and a few other necessary essentials.
In my last post, I wrote about how difficult it was to buy a car without being a resident. As a few people have pointed out, you’d probably have the same problem in any country, including the U.S. Everyone wants you to have an address: the tax man, the insurance guy, etc.
The only other recourse you have if you want to camp in Europe in comfort is to rent an RV, which can be quite expensive, or import a car from the U.S. and buy a camper here in Europe, also an expensive proposition. But when there’s a will, there’s a way, as they say.
Now that we finally have our shiny red late-model Mazda CX5, we need a camper. Due to the pulling power of the Mazda, the camper needs to be small and lightweight. Other than that we aren’t too picky. Right away we find a camper that fit our needs.
It’s an Elddis, a British-made camper touted as the camper’s camper. We pretty much took one look at it, haggled over the price, and bought it. The Elddis is about 12 feet long—quite compact, but it has lots of windows and all the necessary components: fridge, stove, sink, toilet, nice cupboards, and best of all a gorgeous voortent.
What’s a voortent? It’s something we’ve never seen in the states when we’ve camped. But here in Europe, voortents are practically a standard piece of equipment if you have a caravan (which is what they call campers or travel trailers here in Europe).
Essentially, the voortent connects to your caravan with a slider thingy, doubling your “indoor” space. It has removable side and front panels, so when the weather’s good, you open up the sides and have a canopy to provide shade. When it rains or it’s chilly, you close up the voortent and have a cozy sitting area.
It’s where we eat all our meals, sit and relax with a glass of wine in the evening, and basically enjoy the view. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We decide to stay in a cute campground in Breezand, Camping de Tulpenweide—or Camping Tulip Fields, owned by a young couple named Ferdy and Tanja. The tulips have already bloomed, but we love the location close to the beaches of North Holland and surrounded by pasturelands and beautiful farms.
But we need a million things like bedding, dishes, and clothespins. Our list is growing by the second. It’s amazing how much stuff you need to camp in style.
Lucky for me, shopping happens to be one of my favorite pastimes. First we buy two “splinternieuw” bicycles (see photo above). Can’t wait to jump on those! Then we buy a table and chairs, duvets, sheets, towels, dishes, pots and pans, a trash can, food, dish soap, paper towels, TP, a cutting board, knives, forks, and spoons, and a corkscrew. Whew, I know we forgot something…. I know, pillows!
Here’s a pic of our first meal in our happy place.
If you missed my previous posts, catch up here!
Of course we want to go camping in Europe!
We plan to do the National Parks out west in 2026. I really like your little camper with the attached extra space. I want to buy an inTech Sol Dawn camper. It is only a little bit bigger than my beloved "Lucky Oyster" Shasta Compact. I want to try boondocking in BLM (Bureau of Land Management) locations while we're out west. To embrace off grid camping has always been an interest of mine.