A young British couple touring Canada in a converted van with their leash-trained cat have said their mobile home is one of the “best life choices” they have ever made. Rhys Toye, 32, from Camberley, Surrey, and Eloise Gebbie, 29, from London, were travelling in New Zealand when they fled for Canada on March 16 2020, making it an hour before borders shut during the Covid-19 pandemic.
They bought a 4,000 Canadian dollar (£2,170) van nicknamed “Vaniel Craig”, which professional carpenter Rhys renovated with discarded materials to install a kitchen and bed, then began exploring from Vancouver over long weekends and using annual leave. Now permanent Canadian residents, the couple stay in an apartment only during the coldest winter months and travel in their van the rest of the time accompanied by their adventurous feline companion, five-year-old Marishka, whom they adopted in October 2020.
“If you’re fortunate enough to save up the money to buy a van, and you’re thinking about doing it, do it,” Rhys told PA Real Life. “It’s probably one of the best life choices I’ve ever made.”
Rhys and Eloise met at a gig in Brighton in 2017 and became friends before starting to date at the beginning of 2019. The couple explored New Zealand in a van from September 2019 and had their hearts set on Canada next.
Rhys had already secured a Commonwealth visa and Eloise landed one while travelling, but in March 2020 Canada announced its borders were shutting because of Covid-19. The couple scrambled to get there in time so they didn’t waste their visas, fearing they would have only one chance to visit the country thanks to strict immigration policies.
Eloise said: “I was at work reading all the news, trying to get on Skyscanner, looking for flights which had gone up to 6,000 (New Zealand) dollars each, because everyone was just trying to get home. “It was crazy, I was panicking that we were not going to be able to get there.”
They sold their Toyota Previa they had bought for 3,000 New Zealand dollars (£1,327) to a German teenager at the last minute – swallowing a 1,000-dollar loss in their urgency to leave. “We were going to drive it to the airport, leave the keys and a note because we were so desperate,” said Rhys.
The couple made it to Vancouver after a 14-hour layover in Hawaii and transfer from Seattle, with the border agent telling them they made it “with an hour to spare”. Needing a new van, Rhys found a Ford E-250 on Facebook Marketplace and negotiated the price down from 10,000 Canadian dollars to 4,000 (£2,170) – the entire sum in his account at the time.
Rhys began making cost-effective renovations to the vehicle, which they named “Vaniel Craig”. He built the van’s interior using salvaged pallets, job site offcuts and a skip-sourced kitchen cabinet, paying only for ceiling plywood, insulation, curtains and wallpaper.
He made additional modifications including installing an electronic roof vent for 200 dollars, a battery-powered fan for 150 dollars, and power bank for 500 dollars to keep the van cool after welcoming a furry friend into their home. The vegetarian couple keep their food in a cooler and cook on a portable stove.
In Vancouver, while working as a vet tech assistant, Eloise fell for Marishka, a domestic shorthaired tabby who had been handed in to her practice during September 2020. Eloise said: “I sent a picture to Rhys and was like ‘I really want this cat to come home’… I don’t know how else to say it, but I felt like this was just our cat.”
Marishka hated being left alone, even for short periods while the couple enjoyed their active lifestyle of hiking and camping, so they trained her to come with them. For Eloise’s birthday in November 2020, they took a weekend trip to the Sunshine Coast, followed by her first overnight wilderness camp at Stave Lake – where coyotes were drawn to Marishka’s scent.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and I could hear a pack of coyotes howling, and they were scratching up at the van to try and get in,” Rhys said. “It was a bit tense, because obviously in Canada, you’re very exposed to dangerous wildlife.”
Rhys and Eloise always make sure to secure the van, however, and avoid walking Marishka late at night. Eloise added: “Especially when you’re camping in a tent, you have to be really careful that once you’ve cooked, you have to change your clothes so you’re not bringing food smells into your tent, because it doesn’t happen very often, but bears can attack you.”
Because of the pandemic, they stayed in Vancouver for four and a half years, paying 1,000 Canadian dollars (£538) each per month for a one-bedroom apartment, including bills. They initially explored Canada part-time from their home base, before heading down the US West Coast after borders reopened.
“Our goal was every weekend, we wanted to be sleeping somewhere new,” Rhys said. “As long as we were back on a Sunday night before work, every weekend, we’d just try to push where we could go.”
They loved Canada so much that they applied for permanent residency in June 2021, which was eventually granted in November 2023. They recently saved up to take two months off, giving up their apartment and driving from Vancouver to Toronto through British Colombia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario from September to November 2024.
On their road trip they saved money by wild camping instead of paying for official campsites, while a 100-dollar fuel tank lasts them up to 900km. Their monthly food bill dropped from 600 Canadian dollars in Vancouver to 400 dollars on the road, including cat food.
“One day we took a really long drive in Saskatchewan, we were driving through the night,” Rhys said. “It was pitch black, and we could just see this beam of light, coming down to the road like a rainbow.
“It was the Northern Lights, and we just pulled over into a country lane, and we sat there for hours.” The trio stayed in a Toronto apartment this winter as temperatures plunged below minus 10 C, but will hit the road again in late March.
They plan to travel to Halifax via Quebec and New Brunswick while documenting their journey on YouTube and respective Instagram pages @rhysontheroad and @eloise_g._.
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