2025 Vanlife Festival Talks.
Your 2025 Talk coordinators for Vanlife Festival :
Glenn & Ngaire – Event Talks Coordinators
Vanlife Festival 2025 are excited to bring you our new dimension in our talks room,
not only do we have great talks; our Coffee morning chats and open discussions on
all van related topics (just like around the campfire) are open to all and are relaxed
with many traders dropping in for a chat, the team behind the festival will be popping
in for a coffee and chat also.
Glenn & Ngaire, your talks Co-ordinator Team, Red On Tour, brings a wealth of
experience and knowledge from the Goldmines in Scotland to Welsh valleys in a 4×4 Crafter. You will often find us lighting the campfire and chatting with strangers who become friends, we started with tents and motorbikes to VWT5’s to our 4×4 Crafter (The Bothy) and our new micro Camper (The mighty Atom) which we are building in our spare time.
Ngaire from the Islands has lived in some of the remotest Glens in Scotland and Glenn, works in some of the remotest places around the world. The coming together of these experiences brings a varied and diverse outlook from your
hosts.
Levi- Panel host
Levi will be hosting a panel discussion feature self-builders with diverse expertise, and full-time vanlifers sharing their stories and experiences.
Coffee and Chat
Relaxed and informal
Join us for a relaxed coffee and chat where we will talk about anything and everything van related, you’re not sure which van to go for how to fit out or just want a place to talk to a friendly likeminded person, this is the number 1 place to be at the festival. We will have a children’s area with some lucky bags to keep them entertained and cosy feel like you’re round a campfire, come any join us and feel the vanlife vibe buzzing around the room. This is also dog friendly (must be on leads)
Self Build & Full-Timers panel
Hosted by Levi
Join us for an inspiring and down-to-earth panel featuring a group of passionate vanlifers and self-builders who have turned vehicles into homes and hit the open road.
From DIY camper conversions to life lessons learned on the move, this session dives into the reality of building your own space and living full-time in a van, bus, or other alternative vehicles. Our panelists bring a wide range of experiences—some are just starting their journey, others have spent years on the road.
They’ll share tips, challenges, and stories about:
🚐 Designing and building a livable vehicle
🌍 Finding freedom through alternative living
🔧 Mistakes made—and what they’d do differently
🛠 Budgeting, materials, off-grid setups, and more
Whether you’re dreaming of your first build or already living vanlife, this panel is packed with real-world advice and authentic voices from the road.
Levi – Panel Speaker
Age: Eleventy-one… and a bit
Levi lives full time, off grid (mostly) in his self converted mini Artic ‘Mini Moo’.
You can visit this in the Field of Inspiring Dreams where he will be pleased to show you around. A retired registered Showman, Levi has spent the best part of half a century building and living in a variety of Nomadic Homes both for himself and others and is extensively travelled. He is also an ex VOSA advisor (of 10 yrs) and an avid campaigner for nomadic rights for over forty years both within the UK and abroad.
So, as well as practical experience and knowledge of all aspects of converting/living in vehicles, Levi has a good understanding of the legal, social economics, educational, medical and retirement needs of this lifestyle as well.
Jeremy – Panel speaker
Living in my Bus full time
Jeremy, Winner of Touch The Truck (Dale Winton), a singer and a poet has lived in converted coaches for over 30yrs.
He first lived on a coach in 1992 and has lived on the coach he has now
since 1998.
Florry The Lorry – Panel Speakers
Full Timers
Chris Brooks, his wife Catherine, and their dog, Rolo, live full-time on the road in Florry The Lorry a 7.5-tonne DAF LF45 removals lorry they converted into a motorhome.
After purchasing Florry in November 2017, they spent 18 months converting it to a camper van (except for the door, which is still broken!). Originally planning a two-year adventure, they’ve now been travelling Europe for seven years, with a special love for France and Menorca.
Life in Florry is all about freedom, exploration, and making the open road their home.
Ash
Full Time Van Lifer
Ash, 25 years old and a full time van lifer! She has self converted Her van and lives in it full time whilst working as a Civil Engineer. Ash also has a henna tattoo business, this is Ash’s 3rd year
trading at Vanlife and her first time on a talks panel!
Panel speaker
Glen
Meet Glenn Forbes – a part-time vanlifer of 9 years and seasoned motorcycle traveller who’s swapped traditional holidays for life on the road. When not flying for work or working from his van, you’ll find him at vanlife festivals or around a campfire. Passionate about off-grid living, Glenn’s always refining his self-sufficient setups. Now converting a unique micro camper alongside his 4×4 off-grid VW Crafter, he’s full of stories, laughs, and campfire chats. Come explore with him
Individual Speakers
A range of guest speakers will share personal stories, insights, and experiences from their own unique journeys – offering inspiration, sparking ideas, and sharing their perspectives on life and community.
Tread The Globe
But we’re not your average adventure travellers, in fact some would say that we are insane to take on the kind of challenges that we do!
But this is not how our story started! Life is all about evolution, and some of life’s moments have led us here, and to the realisation that LIFE IS TOO SHORT
Motorhome Mums
Kath is one half of Motorhome Mums and lives with her wife Sue. They are both retired police officers. Kath was a detective for the majority of her policing career and in 2019 received the Queens Policing Medal (QPM) for services to policing, receiving her medal at Buckingham Palace from Prince William. After Kath retired, the pair decided to hit the road in their beloved motorhome and spent 2.5 years travelling and living in their motorhome. As part of keeping busy in retirement Kath became a Youtube creator, posting a weekly video for the channel. This new found freedom allowed for the pursuit of new adventures and rekindling old passions for hiking and wild swimming. However, through a twist of fate; an incident with a pheasant, Kath and Sue were left stranded in the Highlands of Scotland for a month. Whilst there, they fell in love with the area and with the help of the BBC’s Escape to the Country, they found their new home where they are now settled and getting familiar with Highland life.
Travel writers and wild swimmers
Lola Culsan, John Weller and Danny Weller are a London-based family of travel writers and wild swimmers, known for their immersive adventures and off-the-beaten-path discoveries. Authors of Wild Swimming Spain, Hidden Beaches Spain, Outdoor Swimming London and now Wild Guide Morocco (March 2025), they spent five months exploring Morocco by campervan – uncovering hidden waterfalls, desert oases, and remote mountain villages. Lola is a Jamaican-born, half-Spanish writer and former stand-up comic; John is a photographer, writer and lifelong wild swimmer; Danny is a linguist, journalist and explorer. Together, they share a passion for freedom, nature, and meaningful travel.
Travelling.giants
We are a van life family that has spent six years exploring the UK. Their latest adventure tackled the challenges of male infertility, leading them to discover a path to parenthood. This journey culminated in welcoming their newest member, enriching their unique story and love for travel.
Insanity Travels
Juggling work and caring for parents, I purchased my 1st van, after mums death and becoming the sole carer for dad the freedom to be away but close was a lifesaver and led to the van name “Sanity”. Covid, dads death and my own cancer made van life more precious. Using my inheritance to buy a 4×4 van I spend 6 months a year travelling with my dog. Favourite trips are Northern Spain, Portugal and France. Also Belgium and the Netherlands during bulb season, staying by fields of hyacinths; an amazing experience. UK trips to the stunning Scottish Isles. I use quite locations found via apps, a bonus for family, at least they know where I am as I am rarely home.
Roaming Hind
Skipton photographer Laura, escaped an 8 year abusive relationship whilst dealing with the loss of her son’s father to cancer. She stopped drinking alcohol and smoking, and converted her Honda CRV into a mini camper on a budget so she could get as close to nature as possible.
Indi van a jones
It’s true…money doesn’t buy happiness , I’m the man that lost everything but was happier owning nothing
I converted a van into a campervan to live in with next to no experiance so I can work to live not live to work
Who would of guessed that 1 impulsive decision 4 years ago would lead to this
Who would of known that running away from reality was the best choice I’d ever make
The Great Escape
Let us introduce ourselves. We are Andy, Becky, Grace, and Billy.
We went straight into full-time van life in 2023. We spent 10 months custom building our 12 ton Iveco lorry ourselves. It was one huge project, but the end result was a beautiful home suitable for the whole family.
We are excited to talk with like-minded people at the Vanlife Festival this year. We will be telling ‘OUR’ story. We look forward to seeing you there.
Nikki, Billy & Pablo
After health scare for Nikki we thought sod it let’s retire early, buy a bigger new van and bugger off somewhere. So that’s what we did. At 57 we thought life’s too short and we can always work again so we jacked in our comfortable decent paid jobs.
Just to complicate it on 6 November at 9:30 in the morning we got married and at 4 that day we were getting on the ferry.
Now we are back with Pablo our rescue dog, which wasn’t part of the plan, to sort out stuff and then go again for longer.
Zoe
Hi my name is Zoe and I was brought up in the campervan scene and then I bought my first Vw T2 when I first had my family but became to expensive to keep, so switched to a caravan. My love of camping carried on and then when my girls left home we brought our Vw T5.
A few years later I saw an advert for VLF and Damo asked me to display my van. Well that is where our life changed. Meeting people we had never met before, arriving in vans, lorries.
A whole array of different types of vehicles and it wasn’t what you came in it was the journey each and everyone had been through which really I found inspiring and so unique to anything that I had experienced before .
Little did I know that the people we met would soon be friends that become family. The following year we started crewing at VLF which I have found amazing meeting people that I would never had met before and the ethos of VLF is amazing, welcome in everyone regardless of who you are or what you drive.
