#fromrusttotoroadtrip
This is our home. She’s a 2002 LDV Convoy, once a minibus, now a cosy cabin on wheels. She’s taken us to places that no minibus was ever designed to go. She’s travelled tens of thousands of miles with us over the past four years. She’s survived roads many 4x4s would cringe at.
Sure she wobbles and squeaks and moans and the brakes constantly fail and the rust is eating her inside and out, but she’s done us proud this humble van.
Her roaring engine turns heads wherever we go as people stop to stare and read out the letters L… D… V?
It never ceases to amaze me that the simple combustion of fuel that drives our engine can propel our little home all over the world. Our van is both the heart of our adventure and the very thing which enables it.
She’s taught us everything we know about mechanics, roadside repairs, replacing parts, and everything we know about building a home too. The constant problems that come with an old van are both a source of frustration and a motivation to learn, but they sure make for some interesting travel tales.
After all, it wouldn’t be an adventure without a few bumps in the road.
We spend our whole days moving. Scenes and images flitting past us in a blur of motion, trying to ingrain as many sights and sounds into our memories as we can. So much to take in, so many moments to keep. So when we finally settle down for the day, on whatever nameless piece of land, or road, or body of water we find, I like to sit with myself, and just be.
I listen to the sounds of birds or bells or the cry of the muezzin, I watch the sky fade from blue into purple then from fiery gold into black, like the extinguished flames of a fire. If it’s cold I’ll wrap a blanket round my legs to sit in the doorway for as long as I can stand until the night air creeps indoors and I am forced to close it. This silence allows me to take it all in, to digest the many experiences a life of travel hands me like gifts.
I wouldn’t want to waste one second of the time we’re on the road, this time we’ve worked so hard to earn, and this is my small way in which to appreciate it all. My memories are worth more than all the money I could earn, pressed safely between the pages of a book and encapsulated in photographs forever.
Pushing out into the milky blue waters, letting the warm liquid take my weight and making those first few strokes across the pool toward those snowy mountains in the distance; that was how this morning began.
Few things are more refreshing than an early morning swim, a chance to wake up and stretch, enjoy an hour of open headspace before the rest of the world rises. Not that there were many people around; the waters weren’t exceptionally hot but neither was the weather, and this was enough to put most off. The main appeal for us was that this pool was just the right size and depth for swimming in.
The steam swirled upwards in the thin winter sunshine, a herd of goats crossed the old Ottoman bridge with a tinkling of bells, and we swam. Back and forth, round and round, algae tickling our feet and the constant crashing of water falling from the pool into the river, staining it too that surreal milky blue as it filtered down through the valley.
The nights were cold and filled with starlit skies, alive with the croaking of bullfrogs and the rushing of river water. The days were peaceful and cool, broken up only by short visits into the nearby town of Permët.
We had a blissful feeling of completeness here, a sense of comforting familiarity we could seldom find on the road. This was the area we’d stayed in when we first came to Albania, and we loved it so much then we spent a whole week here. Little had changed in two years, apart from the damage caused by country-wide flooding had been repaired and the family of stray cats we’d fed were long gone, to be replaced by a timid yet local black dog who crept out of the shadows at night in search of food.
Sadly we didn’t have the luxury of time on our side this time, and after three short days we were onto our next destination in a bid to get our battered old van repaired before she could let us down again…
But we would always miss the milky blue waters of Benjë, tucked away in this furtive little valley, and we would remember this corner of Albania fondly.
Not every day on the road can be an adventure. We need rest days, van repair days, life admin days.
Days where we just chill, where we sleep in late and sip coffee gazing out of the back doors. Days where we clean the van from top to bottom or catch up on our work. Rainy days spent cosied up under blankets trying to catch the various leaks in our roof.
Contrary to our little highlight reel on here it’s not all epic roadtrips and new discoveries; for every day of exploring there’s a down day closely following behind (or two, or three…). Constant motion is exhausting; travel sometimes overstimulating. We need time to process and digest just as much as we crave new experiences and changing scenery.
As with everything in life it’s all about balance, and the days spent sipping coffee in bed are just as important as the days we’re out scaling mountains.
The SH75 was a road we’d been warned about.
Snaking its way through the endless mountainous landscape in the South East corner of Albania, this road was as long as it was arduous. Many of the roads here had not been paved since the time of communism, instead being left to the devices of nature and only those who were prepared to take the challenge of a day’s drive to their destination.
We left the beautiful Ottoman city of Korçë behind us and began to wind our way South close to the border with Greece. The road started off well, threading through fields and beautiful scenery, but by hour two it had descended into no more than a patchwork of half-assed repairs. By hour five the novelty had worn off and we were growing tired, our van battered and bruised from the relentless bumps.
We pulled over by the side of the gravel track when a clunking noise underneath our van grew loud enough for concern. There, by the roadside, we reattached a piece of our steering column as well as a shock absorber that had rattled so loose it was about to fall off, all the while minibuses went hammering past us, honking and waving in solidarity or offering help.
Our van patched up, we descended the final few kilometres which took hours due to the state of the road. Night fell and we were still meandering down this hellish road, dodging potholes and herds of cattle until finally we made it into the safe clutches of Permët, the first town we’d ever visited in Albania, and the sense of relief and familiarity overwhelmed us.
Coffee. I could talk for hours about it. Turkish coffee, Bosnian coffee, espresso, mocha, bónbón, iced, hot, sweet, black…
Drunk slowly in the morning, soaking in the view. Knocked back in the passenger seat pulling my shoes on and hurrying to start the day’s adventure. Drunk in a little nowhere cafe over light conversation amidst a silver cigarette smoke haze.
Coffee is integral to the start of any day in the Balkans, be it paired with lokum, or baklava, or a shot of rakia and a cigarette- the Balkan breakfast way.
But possibly the best way to take our coffee is brewed up on a little camp stove inside a chipped old enamel pot, prepared by a warm-hearted local by the fire in their home.
The hospitality in the Balkans is unparalleled, unfaltering, woven into their every way of life. It’s impossible not to feel touched and almost taken aback as we, coming from a country with such closed doors and minds, are not prepared for this level of kindness.
And it’s this warm welcome that will keep us coming back to the Balkans for many many years to come.
Driving down these lonesome dirt track roads, icy waters below us, empty mountains all around.
Miles and miles and nothing but silence, nameless peaks stretching toward the sky dusted with patches of white. Those sunset clouds splashed unusual shades of deep purple and dusty rose pink casting a colour haze across the landscape that’s hard to describe, the fleeting kind that comes only after rain and lasts just a few minutes before it’s gone again.
Our tyres ploughed through deep, sticky mud to reach the small ridge that would become home for the night. We wrapped our faces in scarves against the cold and scrambled down the bank to skim stones across the lake’s frozen surface; they bounced and echoed with a bullet ricochet sound that reverberated around the valley and clattered through our ears.
These were the only noises we would hear all night; no birds, no cars, no wind or rain, just us above this frozen lake as the colours slowly melted and the stars came into view.
So much of Albania was just wild land, beautiful places that would not appear on any hiking trail or in any guide book, free to explore, yours to enjoy. With no fences or barriers to hold us back we could pitch up and call anyplace home for the night, and that was just the kind of freedom we craved.
Oh how good it was to be back in this land again.
We’ve driven some interesting roads during our time in the Balkans, but this really pushed our van to the limits! Would you believe this was a numbered road on the SatNav? We really need a 4x4 for our next adventure…
Join us in this week’s episode as we leave the snowy wonderland of Mavrovo National Park and attempt to find an alternative route down the mountain. Paved roads really aren’t our thing, so we test out a mixture of snow, mud and low-hanging tree branches on a track that was certainly not designed for minibuses.
Later we make it to the famous Lake Ohrid where we’re treated to another incredible driving road, and a surprise encounter with some wonderfully hospitable locals.
This video is really the essence of what travelling’s all about for us. If you enjoyed the video please don’t forget to Share, Like and Subscribe, or consider joining us on Patreon to help us keep on creating content
Living in a van for us has only ever been about one thing: adventure.
It’s not about living the dream on a beach somewhere, it’s not about having the most aesthetically pleasing home we could build, it’s about taking that home on wheels out into the big wide world and seeing how far we can push it to its limits.
Our van is a vessel for our photography as we travel around seeking out documentary projects and video opportunities. It’s a place to rest our heads at night before we continue our exploration the next day. It enables us to travel to far flung corners of the countries we visit and encounter locals wherever we go.
Our van to us is so much more than a van; it’s our home, it’s the heart and soul of our adventures, and it’s taught us some valuable lessons along the way.
Whether we’re camped up beside the most serene and peaceful lake or bumping and crashing down a dirt track mountain road praying the suspension doesn’t break she’s there with us, our constant companion. We might be thousands of miles from where we began in a country where we don’t speak the language or broken down by the roadside but we will always have the comfort of our home on wheels to return to standing right there beside us.
There’s something about a dirt track road which never fails to excite us. It holds within it the promise of adventure, a challenge, and no guarantee of if we’ll make it to the end.
Driving around Albania is very much a game of chance; sometimes you’ll find yourself on the smoothest paved road, other times that road will unexpectedly run out and you find yourself bumping down miles of relentless gravel and rock. Sometimes we’re up for the challenge; sometimes it proves too much for our old van and we are forced to backtrack.
We alternate here between the desperate need to escape from civilisation and the sweet relief that tarmac provides.
But the Balkans offer everything we lack back in England; unpaved roads, a slackening of regulations, the freedom to roam. There are rules but nobody pays attention to them. There’s a general lack of fucks given. Nobody’s all up in your business telling you where you can and can’t be or what you can and can’t do. For some the craziness may be overwhelming; to us it’s a breath of fresh air.
We find peace amongst the chaos, freedom weaving through rough dirt roads, and adventure waiting for us around every turn. And that’s just the way we like it.
What I love are slow mornings, waking up to the sunlight stroking my face, climbing out of bed to make coffee and cracking open the door to appreciate the morning view. A little walk or a dip to refresh my body and mind, and a moment of contemplation before we consult our maps to plan the day’s route ahead.
What I don’t love is being woken up at 7am by someone insistently honking their horn outside our van, stumbling groggily out of bed to be greeted by a police badge.
They ask us where we’re from, what we’re doing here, and we reply that we’re sleeping and is there a problem?
“No problem,” he says, and gets back in his police car and drives away. Well then why the hell wake us up?!
These are the stories of two very different mornings parked in the same camp spot. Setting up camp is a little like flipping a coin; you never know what the result will be, but you can be sure it will make a good story.
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.
Join us in today’s episode as we hit up Mavrovo National Park in Macedonia for a dose of snow and winter vanlife!
We’re not exaggerating when we say this was one of our most exciting adventures and therefore one of our favourite episodes too!
Feeling euphoric after three days broken down we’re relieved to finally make it to Mavrovo National Park where we venture high above the mountaintops on treacherous roads all in the name of adventure.
We also give you guys a rundown of how we live and survive in our van during the winter months and tips about preparing your van for the cold and snow.
Join us on a winter adventure over on YouTube NOW! If you enjoyed the video please don’t forget to Share, Like and Subscribe, or consider joining us on Patreon to help us keep on creating content ⠀
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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.
When we arrived in Albania on an unseasonably warm January day our hearts were fraught with a mixture of emotions: comfort, familiarity, but also a degree of hesitation. We had fond memories of our time in this country, but were they simply painted bright by nostalgia, and would our second visit live up to expectation?
Our answers to these questions came on just our second day here.
We’d spent the day basking in sunshine, washing our van and dipping our bodies into the icy waters of Lake Prespa, and were just beginning to enjoy one of those spectacular Albanian sunsets which painted the mountains the particular shade of purple that was so ingrained into our memories. We went to fire up the engine but our van refused to start; the batteries were too flat, the air too cold. The engine got slower and slower until it had no juice left to give. We were now faced with the prospect of a night here with no power, no heating and no light; we’d seen approximately three cars all day and the light outside was rapidly fading.
Yet somehow, whether by miracle or fate or pure coincidence, a car approached just two minutes later. We waved them down, explained as best we could what had happened, and the man along with all six members of his family came over to help us. We had no jump leads but this didn’t deter him, and in the most Balkan display of ingenuity and problem solving he had our van running in no time by swapping our battery with the one from his car, starting the engine then swapping them back around while it was still running. He even fixed the loose positive terminal with a screw.
Feeling like we’d been a burden we offered him a shot of rakia as a thank you and his face lit up; they then immediately invited us to join them for their son’s birthday party at a nearby restaurant. Instead of spending a cold, dark night in our van we spent the evening drinking, sampling local cuisine, having conversations via Google Translate, eating homemade baklava and birthday cake and toasting each member of the table with a hearty, “ë!”
What a welcome back into Albania.
Ever wondered how much it really costs to travel in a van?⠀
We get asked how we afford to travel all the time, so we thought we’d make a little video talking about our budget and how we make an income on the road.⠀
We give you guys a full breakdown about our daily and monthly spends, how we plan for unexpected costs, breakdown cover and insurance, the differing living costs in the countries we’ve visited and some helpful tips about living cheaply.⠀
We also talk about how we make an income both off and on the road, including how we save up for our adventures working jobs back in the UK and how much we make from YouTube.⠀
Living cheaply and exploring the world is what we have been doing for the last four years- low budget travel rewards us with longer trips away and less time saving back in the UK.⠀
Discover how we do it in tonight’s video, out on YouTube NOW! If you enjoyed the video please don’t forget to Share, Like and Subscribe, or consider joining us on Patreon to help us keep on creating content ⠀
Our last few days in Macedonia were spent enveloped in a freezing fog which shrouded our view and promised snow which never came. We woke up daily to frost inside the windscreen and icicles hanging off our van. The fog wrapped itself around every plant, every rock and every being, leaving each wrapped in thick kisses of ice, turning the entire landscape silver and white without a snowflake ever falling from the sky.
We were camped up on the peaceful shores of Lake Prespa, undisturbed by anyone, wrapped up in thick layers of blankets against the minus temperatures outdoors.
Truthfully, the Macedonians were used to colder climates this time of year, and -7°C at night was the result an unseasonably mild winter; we had returned to the country expecting snow, and we were leaving disappointed on that front.
But we were leaving confident that we had made the right decision to return; after cutting our time here short to leave for Greece in December we’d been aching to explore more of the country, and we’d been fortunate enough to enjoy an extra two weeks here getting to know the southern regions and the Macedonian way of life.
We’d met some lovely people, experienced welcoming in the Orthodox New Year with rakija and fireworks, witnessed the crazy tradition of jumping into ice cold water on Epiphany Day, sampled delicious food and learned so much about a country that had never even been on our radar.
That morning we left for Albania with conflict in our hearts; we were leaving for a country we’d long since fallen in love with, but we were leaving behind a blossoming romance with a land that had stolen our hearts and captured our souls.
Truthfully we loved the entirety of the Balkans, but we had found a special place in the very heart of the Balkan Peninsula, and when our trip was finally over Macedonia was where we’d be yearning to return.
There we were, waking up and jumping straight in to the hot, sulphurous waters of the second spring we’d visited in two days, way out in the Macedonian countryside, full of optimism for the day ahead. However, it wasn’t long until things began to take a turn for the worse…
This episode isn’t all roses, and what happens ends up causing us quite a bit of bother! It’s worth a watch so you can avoid making the same mistake we did.
Will we make it in time to one of North Macedonia’s most beautiful National Parks? You’ll have to tune in to find out!
For your daily dose of faith restored in humanity, head over to our YouTube channel NOW to be the first to watch!
If you enjoyed the video please don’t forget to Share, Like and Subscribe, or consider joining us on Patreon to help us keep on creating content
We knew nothing about converting a van when we started, not a single thing.
There was no guide, no manual for what we wanted to do; just an idea between us of travelling around the world in a camper van.⠀
We couldn’t afford one outright, certainly not the dreamy classic VW camper everyone imagines themselves driving off into the sunset in, so we built our own.
We bought a cheap van halfway up the country and drove it home through the night; we didn’t care that it was rusty and covered in tie-dye spray paint, we were just excited to see this tin can sitting in the driveway and the whispers of freedom she promised.
It was a long, arduous 10 months converting it over the winter, with many trials and errors and the bad weather against us. We faced many setbacks; leaks, holes in the metal floor, a saggy roof, but we had so much still to learn back then.
Summer came around and with it our first break for freedom; we thought it would last forever. But all too soon it was over, we returned home to save some more pennies and set about rebuilding our van with newfound confidence. This happened once more before we ended up with the van we have today and we do love it.⠀
It’s got character and charm, a few dents and scrapes but a lot of stories to tell. But most of all it’s the product of skills learned and perseverance, and the tenacity to follow our dreams even in the face of challenges.
If you want to learn more about how we built our van then pop over to our YouTube channel to watch our van tour
Ever wanted to camp up on your own private island for a few days?
Us too, and although this small patch of land that gradually disappears into a fine point and sinks into Lake Prespa isn’t technically an island it was as close as we would probably get to one in our van.
We were surprised to find a small village at the end of this long and bumpy track, emptied of all its inhabitants for the winter as an icy slush began to fall from the sky. Boats littered the shores of the lake, empty and lifeless without people to navigate them. We were the only forms of life for miles, basking in the peace and solitude we craved.
The really special thing about this place was that it sat on the corner of three countries; behind us was North Macedonia, to the side of us was Albania and in front of us was Greece. The Greek stretch of land was dotted with streetlights at night, the Albanian side had a few but the Macedonian side had none. Moody mountains wrapped in snow clouds dominated the skyline, islands and pelicans punctuated the lake’s glassy surface, and soft drops of ice gently pelted the roof as we sat cosied away inside our van cradling cups of mountain tea.
By morning the snow had cleared, replaced by brilliant sunshine and swirling vapour clouds. It was warm enough in fact for a dip in the lake, its cooling, shallow waters sought after by Macedonians in the summer but unsurprisingly empty during the winter. Still, it was good enough for us whose last shower was too long ago to bear thinking about.
A fishing boat sailed past as we were drying off, then we packed up and moved on in the direction of Lake Ohrid, Prespa’s neighbouring lake. Here we were to watch a hundred people dive into its icy waters for the chance to be the first to catch a cross blessed by a priest and thrown into the waters as part of the Orthodox Epiphany celebrations, with nothing to warm them up afterwards but rakija.
Perhaps we weren’t the only crazy ones after all.
