#fromrusttoroadtrip

[tilldeathdousart]

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

Snapshots from our van.

One of the tiniest storage areas in our van is the place where we keep our toothbrushes and toiletries. It was made by a happy accident, where two pieces of cladding overlapped, and it’s turned out to be one of the most useful things we have in our tiny home.

Follow the hashtag #Fromrusttoroadtrip to follow our van conversion project and our travels around Europe! 🌍 

[vanlifers]

👈@fromrusttoroadtrip "There's no finer view than watching the sun set behind Mount Olympus, turning the sea gold and purple, with a cool ocean breeze drying a fresh load of clean washing.⠀ ⠀ We love getting messages from aspiring vanlifers, and the number one question we get asked is: How do you guys afford to travel?⠀ Well we wanted to give you a detailed answer so we've written a short article explaining our budget, our work and our travel ethos. So if you'd like to know a little bit more about vanlife on a budget you can check it out over on our website - link in bio⠀👆🙌 ⠀ ⠀ #Follow the hashtag #Fromrusttoroadtrip to follow our van conversion project and our travels around Europe! 🌍" ⠀ #Folkgood #Greece #Homeiswhereyouparkit #Mountains #Mountolympus #Optoutside #Outboundliving #Projectvanlife #Reformlife #Roadtrip #Sheexplores #Sunset #Takemoreadventures #Travel #Travelling #Travelinladies #Van #Vanlife #Vanlifers #Vanlifediaries #Vanlifemovement #Vanlifejournal #Vanlifemagazine #Wanderlust #Welivetoexplore #Wildernesslifestyle #Wildcamping #Womencrushwednesday

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

I once heard that to enjoy the wild, sometimes you must succumb to boredom, and it’s kind of true. In a contemporary society, so full of distractions replacing actions, boredom can seem like a radical thing.⁣⁣⁠

5 minutes spare? Check your phone. Waiting for the bus? Check your phone. Having a lie in? Can’t sleep? Bored? Check your phone.⁣⁣⁠⠀

Never for one moment in this technologically enhanced culture do we need to suffer boredom when there’s a million things to do at the flick of a screen, yet these things serve no purpose other than to pass time. They have no meaning, they create no lasting memories, challenge or stimulate us. Often we don’t notice the voices in our phone screens, billions of them chiming in at once, how loud they call until we shut them off.⁣⁣⁠⠀

Silence.⁣⁣⁠⠀

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Our nights camping in the valleys of North Wales were a deliberate motion to disconnect ourselves for a few days; without even a lick of signal we were forced to make our own fun.⁣⁣⁠⠀

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Camping in the wilds of Snowdonia with nothing but a tent and a car to hold our supplies forced us to live deliberately, in a way that not even our van enables us to. For the bare minimum of comfort there’s the arduous process of setting up a tent, inflating a mattress, collecting firewood, coaxing a fire into life and preparing a meal on its white hot coals. By the time all this is done, and we’ve spent the best part of an afternoon seeking out a camp spot, there’s little else we want to do than fall into bed beneath the stars and soak in the absolute silence around us.⁣⁣⁠

Without the temptations of TV, or the endless scroll of social media at our fingertips our thoughts can breathe, and by physically distancing ourselves from our problems for a while we can gain a deeper perspective. The picturesque valleys of North Wales, crowded with flocks of sheep and little else, offered us the one thing we’ve been lacking these past months: solitude.⁣⁠

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

Brewing up Turkish coffee in the Welsh mountains on a stormy day- the perfect antidote to a sleepless night.

⁣⁣Perhaps we should’ve expected the  inevitably wet British weather on our camping trip to Snowdonia, but not knowing what to expect was all part of the fun. We’d spent a rather long time trying to find a suitable camp spot that day, eventually settling in a small, untouched patch of pine forest that had not yet been logged unlike its surroundings.⁣⁣

We busied ourselves pitching the tent, lighting a fire and preparing some dinner, and it was only once we had just finished setting up camp that the heavens opened. As our campsite quickly flooded with rain and the fire crackled and hissed, struggling to stay alight, Ben and I frantically began lashing a tarp to the surrounding trees, cutting pieces of cord with an old hunting knife and tying them to whatever branches we could find as rain streamed down our faces and up my sleeves.⁣⁣

You’d think this would’ve been the last straw at the end of a challenging day, but somehow as we sat eating fajitas in the car by the light of the fire that glowed beneath our newly constructed shelter, we caught eachother’s eyes and couldn’t stop giggling. Sure we were wet and cold, our tent was damp and our socks were soaked, but we were having fun nonetheless. We were out here alone, not another human in sight, just battling with the elements and keeping each other company.⁣⁣

The fondest memories we make aren’t always of the best times, and even the best-laid plans often go awry, but we embrace every moment of freedom we can find. Where adventure waits, there lies challenge, and we are prepared to follow. ⁣

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

We’ve only been wild swimming for the past year or so, mainly in Cornish quarries, Alpine lakes and once in the blue Danube, but this was by far the coldest water I’ve swum in.⁣⁣⁣⁣

After a night spent camping in the Welsh forest, sheltering under a tarpaulin from the deluge of rain, we hiked most of the way up Mount Snowdon on a typically blustery Autumn day.⁣⁣⁣⁣

We’d hiked through the Pyrenees, driven the length of the Alps, travelled across the Carpathians and explored the Accursed Mountains, but never did we realise the beauty of the mountains which lay on our very own doorstep.⁣⁣⁣⁣Snowdon was every bit as wild, every bit as barren and every bit as breathtaking as the mountains we’d explored so far, although perhaps its beauty simply struck us so poignantly because it had been so long since we’d seen a landscape this untouched.

⁣⁣⁣⁣Feet hot and aching post-hike, and feeling a little less than fresh three days into our camping trip, we pulled the car over next to Llyn Dinas on a whim. After a brief walk around its shore to a spot that looked suitably clear and shallow enough to climb into, I stripped off and put on my bathing suit, then eased myself into the water. It was instantly, numbingly cold, probably no more than 10°C, taking my breath away and the feeling from my toes, but I pushed myself to lower my shoulders and swim a few armlengths out into the water.

The water was invigorating, crystal clear, Autumn-hued leaves adding little splashes of colour to the glassy surface and that view- 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸! Luscious forested banks framing rugged peaks toward which the water stretched infinitely- this is what I focused on as I swam a few short lengths trying to warm up, and eventually my body adjusted to the temperature and I was blissfully floating.⁣⁣⁣⁣

Nothing could compare to this feeling; cold wild water, empty open space. Warm chlorinated pools could never recreate the exhilaration and freedom that swimming in wild water provides. The cold shock was said to improve your circulation and do wonders for mental health, and floating here, fully immersed, I could see why that would be true.⁣⁣⁣⁣

Wild swimming had been at the top of my agenda for our trip to Wales, and I sat in the car shivering afterward, wrapped in as many layers as I had packed, feeling truly accomplished in myself for having gone in.⁣⁣

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

I remember this moment well. Not one week into our third roadtrip, still giddy with the highs of freedom, we had just entered the French Alps. It was our plan to cross the length of the Alps in their 1,200km entirety, a feat we were not sure had been accomplished yet by road.

Except our van was beginning to make some worryingly loud noises as we decelerated down a hill, and we rolled into the town of Briançon with our first bout of breakdown anxiety.

It was here in the confines of a LIDL carpark that we identified a propshaft issue, but, unable to find a French mechanic who was willing to work on a weekend, we pressed on.

We spent a chilly but scenic night at just shy of 2,000m high on the shores of Lac du Mont-Cenis then pushed on toward Italy in the morning. Shortly after crossing the border however, the noise was now a permanent feature and a growing concern, until finally we pulled over and phoned for a recovery truck outside an Italian cafe. We spent five hours here waiting for rescue, drinking espresso, chatting with the locals in my best Italian, then finally succumbing to boredom and heat fatigue as we baked in the sun at the roadside.

After a good long while we were taken down the mountain on the back of a tow truck and it was just like the good old days, as though we’d never left the continent in our (t)rusty LDV. We were offered a hotel and help with the repair bill by our breakdown company, but I insisted we stay with the van. Much to everyone else’s chagrin we three spent a cold, miserable night confined to our quarters in the garage courtyard, dreaming of the hot shower and comfy bed we could’ve had.

But I knew I was right in my decision, and if three years of travelling thus far had taught me anything it was this: the van was our comfort, our safety, our home. When she stops we stop, and where she goes we go.

~ This image was created as part of our “Transient” travelogue project. ~ Stepping away from the Instagram frivolities and fakery, “Transient” serves as a close and intimate portrayal of our lives in an attempt to remove the romanticism of travel and capture a raw and honest self-documentary inspired by the images and stories of the new age travellers of 1980’s Britain.You can view the full project and others over on our website lbjournals.com.

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

Another day of life in the wild.⁣⠀

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One of our last few days in Bosnia, spent amongst snow and pine, sprucing up before our big journey home-bound. We’d be returning worn out and penniless, with a broken van and a clutch of precious new memories, yet we did not regret a single moment of the last six months.⁣

It’s a taboo subject to talk about money, but we left for this trip with just a few grand between us. For six months of living and travelling over 15,000 miles- that’s not a lot.⁣

And so to anyone who says that we are privileged: you’re wrong. Our lifestyle is not a privilege, it is the product of hard work, ruthless saving and months of rigorous planning. All in the name of following our dreams, all in hope that someday we might be able to make the money to sustain doing what we love. All for that little taste of freedom.⁣

And it was worth every freezing night, every stale loaf of bread, every skipped meal, every dinner scraped together out of leftovers, every push to get to the next fuel station and every questionable road. We have not lived well but boy have we lived.⁣

We’ve driven spectacular roads, spent evenings in the company of welcoming locals, sampled cuisines and cultures from all walks of life, been to unbelievably remote locations and captured it all through the glass of a lens.⁣

See we’re not just doing this for a jolly, to escape the 9-5; we’re doing this because we have a passion and the tenacity to chase our dreams. We sacrificed comfort and security for the promise of something so much bigger.⁣⠀

You don’t have to be rich to travel; we’re proof of that. All you need is a dream, and the desire to chase that dream.⠀