Inside the ‘Tiny Home on Wheels’ Traveling the World

Wish you could downsize your living area without compromising on outdoor space? One millennial couple managed to live out this dream in a mobile “tiny home” with a “huge and unlimited” garden space for around $72,000.

Nicolas Chazée, a 30-year-old French/Italian citizen, and his 31-year-old French partner Mathilde Vougny have been traveling the world in a Land Rover Defender 4×4 vehicle, which they converted into a “tiny home on wheels.”

Chazée shared an inside tour of their globe-trotting tiny home in a video posted on August 4 from the couple’s joint TikTok account @nextmeridian.expedition. “This is our Land Rover Defender and we’re traveling the whole world with it. Let’s go check the ins and outs.”

The clip walks viewers through the different “rooms” of the couple’s converted Land Rover home, which measures around five meters long (around 16.4 feet), 1.9 meters wide (around 6.2 feet) and 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) high, Chazée told Newsweek.

He says their minute motor home, which cost €40,000 (around $44,300) to purchase and an extra €25,000 to equip, is probably around 3 square-meters (32.2 square-feet), “but our garden is huge and unlimited and changing every day as we move around the world.”

Custom-built tiny homes, which are usually around 100 to 400 square feet, have been a popular solution for those looking for a simpler lifestyle with lower costs and reduced environmental impact.

Just over half of Americans (53 percent) would consider living in a home that is 600 square feet or smaller, according to a 2018 survey by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). More than one in 10 (12 percent) said they’d prefer a smaller home following the COVID-19 pandemic in a March 2021 report by the NAHB.

‘It Has Always Been a Dream’

Chazée previously worked as the international general manager for a connected parking service startup called Yespark in Paris for four years, while Vougny worked for the United Nations as a program specialist on electoral assistance while based Brussels, Belgium, for five years.

The couple had the idea of living on the road on a two-week holiday in Europe during which they did a camping trip by car and found themselves wondering “how much it would cost to just keep going and not turn back to our jobs in Paris,” Chazée told Newsweek.

He explained: “It has always been a dream of ours and, at 26 years old, we both decided to make it happen. We started saving, cutting costs, changed to a smaller apartment and saved. And from that day on, it became a dream to travel the whole world.”

Their original objective was to travel to all seven continents and through 88 countries in three years, but that “will now become five [years] and possibly more,” he said.

The millennial couple wanted to convert a Land Rover Defender into a tiny home on wheels in a bid to go off-road and find the wildest camp spots off the beaten track.

“That’s why we wanted a 4×4. We also wanted a pop-top [roof] to be able to stand inside for comfort and rainy days, and made sure everything was in arms reach to make it comfy and livable for five years,” Chazée noted.

The best choice for them was the Defender, as it allowed for the pop-top feature and was an “easy car to fix,” with few electrical sensors “so, the vehicle wouldn’t lock itself abroad in the bush.”

Noting that Defenders have “tons of aftermarket options to choose from” when it comes converting it into a tiny home, Chazée said “before building the car we spent a year knowing all the aftermarket furniture options that could be installed to be sure it was exactly how we wanted to spend five years in a car. So, it just was the perfect option. “

Their home has a diesel heater for the cold nights. So, for example, in Alaska, when it was minus 15 degrees C outside, the couple were in T-shirts and shorts inside the vehicle.

The converted car also has an exterior hot shower with a curtain and shower hose, while “the bathroom is more manual, as we have a shovel on the car’s bonnet or use public bathrooms.” It also features a fridge, closets, electrical plugs, spare parts for maintenance and a bed “upstairs” as the roof comes up, he said.

“We’re in collaboration with multiple brands who helped us with accessories, insurance, parts and other [things] with financial help to stay on the road,” Chazée said.

The Challenges and ‘Sense of Freedom’

Some of the challenges of living on the road include having to secure a wild camp spot every night, making sure the water cans, fuel tank and fridge are full and that the car is working well, and having to do laundry every two weeks when passing through a town.

“The easy option is to go to a campsite but that’s a little boring, so we rarely do and find awesome wild bivouac [a temporary shelter or camp] spots. We move every day as this planet is big and if we want to finish in five years, we gotta keep moving,” he said, adding that they do a half-day of driving and a half-day of some activity.

The couple have been on the road for two and a half years and have already completed their travels to Europe, North and South America, as well as Antarctica (without the vehicle) and are now in Australia.

In December, they will be shipping the Land Rover to Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, a country in Southeast Asia, where they will drive to it to Central Asia for about one and a half years. They plan to then ship the vehicle from Dubai to Kenya and explore all of Africa within a year until they reach Cape Town.

“This will take another two and a half years from today. We’ve traveled to 28 countries and are now on continent number five,” Chazée said.

The couple have noticed a massive cut down on cost living from their life on the road, and “also a sense of freedom and joy,” he noted.

“We don’t want to do this forever, the dream is a world tour. The vehicle is a tool and not a means of life, for now at least. But we wouldn’t be able to come back to normal nine to five job,” Chazée added.

Have you built or bought a tiny home? We’d love to hear from you? Email s.kim@newsweek.com and your story could be featured on Newsweek.