Shropshire pensioners return home after YEARS travelling the world in campervan

Marianne and Chris Fisher, the couple behind Tread the Globe, have visited 29 countries and travelled 92,000 miles.

Author: Molly HookingsPublished 11th Sep 2024
Last updated 11th Sep 2024

Marianne and Chris Fisher, a retired couple from Shropshire, have returned home after four years on a worldwide trip.

They covered 92,000 miles over 29 countries in a 20-year-old campervan, which they named Trudy.

Chris told us: "I look at the van and I think, 'do you know where this has been?' It's parked up next to Mount Fuji, it's driven past the Taj Mahal. We've been down the Las Vegas strip and had elephants walk around it in Africa. I look at the van and I can't believe she's done it."

In 2018, Marianne was recovering from donating a kidney to her friend and decided "life was for living".

She said: "We decided to just go for it. And it's interesting because when we said we were driving around the world - even us - we were terrified of the prospect, but we realised that we were just driving to France. And then we were just driving to Italy."

Chris and Marianne set off in 2020 after retiring from the NHS. They said they had to improvise during the COVID pandemic: "The first lockdown, we spend 95 days in the van, living in a car park, in Old Town, Istanbul. But it ended up being a magical experience. The mayor sent down a food parcel. The police turned up with food for us. It became a really nice moment."

Family, friend, and locals gathered on Sunday when the couple finally returned to their home in Shropshire.

First for all the latest news from across the UK every hour on Hits Radio on DAB, at hitsradio.co.uk and on the Rayo app.