#girls who travel

LIVE

Guys I have so many posts to make, it’s overwhelming… but I really just can’t believe I took these over 2 years ago now!!

Where we wish we were right now: floating on a still lake, beer in one hand, charcoaled sausage in the other, no care in the world and nothing but summer vibes.⁣⠀

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Where we actually are right now: Sheltering in our van from the relentless Cornish rain, some of which is slowly soaking the rug on our floor, curled up with a cuppa tea and the heating on.⁣⠀

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Happy Sunday everyone ⁣⠀

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Photo by @brisingamen_designs ⠀

I wash everything by hand in our van- underwear, tops, cardigans, you name it, using whatever river or lake water is available nearby. We take a trip to the laundrette once every two months for our bedding and that’s it. It saves money, but I also enjoy doing it in some weird, old-fashioned way.⁣

Maybe because it reminds me of when I was younger. We were always moving between houses, hauling all of our stuff in this big old yellow Mercedes truck to and fro across two countries. I got used to washing my clothes by hand in the sink of whatever house we were in that month, always a different bedroom or kitchen to get used to.⁣

Maybe that lack of permanence in my formative years is what drove me to eventually get a van. Those memories of brushing my teeth in a lay-by or sleeping in the footwell of our truck seemed like hard done-by times back then, but I look back on them now with a sort of fondness and nostalgia at my unusual childhood.⁣

There are many hundreds of little reasons that made me want to travel; moments that seemed innocuous at the time now resonate with a deeper meaning and inspire me to push on further. Movement is in my soul; it makes my spirit restless to sit still.⁣

Often challenges can be the most defining points of our lives, whether we realise it at the time or only once they have been overcome. Maybe one day we’ll look back at these times we’re living now, cast a fresh gaze upon old memories, and I wonder which of those will stand out, and which will fade away.⁣

99% of the time our van is not as tidy as it looks in photos.⁣

It’s a tiny space, but it gets messy just as quickly as we can tidy it again.⁣

Camera gear, shopping and clothes end up scattered across the floor, cupboards open while we’re driving, things fall over and smash on bumpy roads.⁣

We squeeze as many days as we can out of our bedding and clothes before we have to wash them again, probably a few too many. When the cab’s not filled with puddles from the rain it’s usually coated in dust and mud.⁣

Living in a van is far from the idyllic few minutes in which we snap the photos for our feed, before the mess overwhelms us again.⁣

It’s challenging living your life in a 6m2 space shared between two of you. Our bed is our sofa, our office, our dining room; our kitchen doubles as a bathroom, a washroom, a hallway.⁣

But that hour in the morning when all the clutter is cleared away, ready for the day’s adventure ahead, and those moments when we crawl into a freshly made bed with clean sheets from the laundrette, it’s little moments like these that seem somehow amplified and make us appreciate the simple things in life all the more.

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