Writing on the Road: Campervan Love and the Joy of Solitude

Sue Reid Sexton kept notes on her campervan trips to the Western Highlands of Scotland while writing two novels and recovering from relationship breakdown. This book is quite Zen-like, talks a lot about campervan travel, especially alone as a woman, and has some funny, and sad moments and many creepy crawlie stories.

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This book is not just funny (or sad) stories of campervan trips in Scotland; it is not just 'Zen and the art of campervan maintenance' (with stories of sweetness and light that will entertain or make you cry); and it is not just nature writing (with observations of wildlife in the western Scottish Highlands). But if you enjoy reading about how books are written and about recovery stories from relationship breakdowns, and if you like reading about women travelling alone and all the things that can go wrong (and right), about strategies for facing fear, dealing with creepy crawlies and noises in the night, and about surviving all that life throws at you (especially when you are over a certain age), then you will probably enjoy this book. Writing on the Road is by Sue Reid Sexton, who, while writing two novels (Mavis's Shoe and Rue End Street) over the past six years, needed to escape from her hectic household to create some space to write them. As the mother of two and a step-mum of four, Sue realised her only real option was to get into her campervan and have it function as a mobile office.
Whether she camped by a beach overlooking the Atlantic in the Kintyre peninsula with buzzards, golden eagles, deer, seals, surfers, other campervanners and dead fish for company, or in the hills around Glasgow, or on Skye, Morvern, the Cowal peninsula or even in southern France, her main aim was to switch off her phone, get out her laptop and write. Sue has made countless journeys in campervans in the last few years and thanks to her practice of taking notes as she travels, we, too, can enjoy her campervan experiences. In Writing on the Road Sue also writes about the many and varied practical difficulties of campervan life that she has had to overcome. They include locking herself out of the campervan at night miles from home; coping with local byelaws and negative attitudes to campervans and to women travelling solo; driving a hundred miles with a window open before she could empty a cracked toilet; and finding out the wrong (and the right) way to buy a campervan. We hope this book will inspire anyone looking for encouragement in the expressive arts to get creative and persuade any would-be campervanners to get out there and enjoy the campervan life.