3 weeks road trip - but how?

We - that is my husband and our 3 children (born in 2010, 2012 + 2014) - started camping "already" in 2021, but more on that later...

Since I - Chrissy - was on sick leave for a long time, I still had all my vacation entitlement from 2023 and wanted to "burn it" somehow, but then please do it sensibly with a trip! So it occurred to me that I would really like to go on a road trip through Italy. And that would take at least 2-3 weeks - I thought to myself ;)

Unfortunately, my husband doesn't have much vacation and the children only have a maximum of 2 weeks of vacation, except in the summer. Friends of mine didn't have 3 weeks in a row either. So I looked online for a travel buddy (male/female) who also likes camping or at least doesn't have a problem with it. Because many people still have the same idea as before: 1 cm thick sleeping pad, sleeping bag, small tent with no room in it, etc. etc.

My husband was in agreement with this because we trust each other and know what we have in each other.

Since the mindset of the travel buddy was important to me, I only posted on the relevant sites and mentioned what was important to me. For example, that I'm not looking for a fling or anything like that - *sigh* yes, a lot of "men" still think that. Anyway...

For a long time, no one got in touch. And because I didn't want to go all alone, I thought that it might be a cool way for my teenager to discover the world. You can imagine what 13-14 year olds are like these days, who have a special affinity for media and technology.

So I wrote a letter to the headmaster asking for a week off school after the Easter holidays. I justified this with a kind of digital detox and cultural trip - at least that's how I had imagined it! Surprisingly, the headmaster even approved this - as a big exception of course ;)

It would have been an exception either way, since I don't have to use up my remaining vacation days every year. So, happy about the approval, I continued to prepare for the trip.

And then suddenly Peter* got in touch on one of the platforms, having seen my travel buddy ad. It quickly became clear that it could work. We spoke on the phone, exchanged ideas and decided relatively quickly that we would travel south together. I didn't leave my son at home though! Firstly, it was important to me that he was there and secondly, I didn't want to tell the headmaster "Oh, you know what, the exemption from school is no longer valid".

Since I basically wanted to visit friends in Sicily first - which made that the number 1 goal - we decided to drive towards Genoa on day X (with two cars - so a little more independent of each other). Our first stop to "restore our ability to drive" was in Lörrach at the 3-country camp.

So my son and I pitched our pop-up tent and were - quite understandable at this time of year - alone on the camping meadow, which I found quite pleasant, not having to stand between the mobile homes ;)

We had a little something to eat with Peter in the adjacent restaurant, drank something alcoholic ;D and then went to bed.

The night was quite cool at around +1°C, but we were well equipped and therefore did not freeze.

*= Name changed for personal reasons.