#bohemian soul
Our first few days in Albania were spent at this spot, enjoying a rare moment of winter sunshine, waking up to the soft tinkling of goat bells and the distant braying of donkeys.
The glassy lake waters reflected the steely grey mountains and smoke stacks which rose upwards in the still air.
Sure the water was cold, and the nights were even colder, but that didn’t stop us from taking a refreshing dip in the mornings with little fish swimming around our ankles. The warm air tingled against our cold skin as we emerged, revitalised, and headed back to the van to brew up coffee.
It’s simple mornings like these that give us time to recharge our batteries, to bask in our surroundings and plan the next leg of our adventure. This is the simple life we so crave, detached from civilisation, and our van which affords us this moments as we drive into the depths of beyond in search of a wild place to just be for a little while.
Living in 6m² of space really teaches you to prioritise what you need in life.
Before we started living in our van Ben lived in a small flat and I lived in a house full of clutter. During uni he moved into an even smaller caravan, and I eventually joined him. Downsizing came naturally to Ben, but it took me years to rid myself of all the junk I’d collected.
By the time we moved into our van we had just a handful of possessions each, only the bare basics; clothes, plates, blankets, our all-important camera gear. Yet still we continued to minimise, leaving behind anything we hadn’t used in the past few months, choosing between spare parts and extra shoes and selecting only the most essential items for our trips.
When we came to embark on our third long roadtrip we were surprised at how empty the back of our van looked- had we forgotten something? Where was all the stuff that had once filled that space? Were we just ultra minimalists now?
Having just a few cupboards and shelves for storage has forced us to live minimally, but it’s also taught us what few essentials we really need. It seems frivolous to need more than one pair of jeans, several sets of cups or heaps of items for “just in case”.
We’ve mastered the art of having just enough and we feel happier for it, our shoulders lighter without all these pointless possessions to weigh us down. Everything we need fits inside this van of ours, and everything we want is waiting right outside our door.
Over the years we’ve travelled our humble van’s back doors have framed a thousand views. They’ve shown us mountains, they’ve shown us shores; they’ve housed sunsets and sunrises, put on lightning shows and been blanketed in snow.
Hundreds of views, bordered by those strips of metal and wood, have passed beyond these doors like projector slides, temporary homes, our van the only constant as we go.
The view is our reward at the end of the day’s adventure; the more effort, the greater the prize. Adrift from civilisation, at the end of some nowhere dirt track, is where we can find the peace and solitude that we crave.⠀
We can become so overwhelmed by the vastness and beauty of what we’re seeing sometimes that our eyes become blind to it, but sitting from the comfort of our bed gazing out across the horizon has a way of grounding us and reminding us of where we are and how far we’ve come.
Like framing a photograph, sometimes all it takes is a little shift in perception to appreciate what’s been in front of you all along.
