#vanlifemovement

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.⁣

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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.

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.

The sunshine on our skin was a feeling we’d long since forgotten, a sensation buried in the backs of our minds. Yet here it was, an unusually warm, dare I say hot day in the hinterlands of rural Albania.⁣

After many months of winter, of snow in Kosovo, freezing fog in Macedonia and countless icy mornings it was a welcome relief and a boost to our morale.⁣

We’d been craving a cool body of water to plunge into and wash away the driving sweat, but we settled for a bag shower on a dirt track nestled amongst the shrubs and canyons with the scent of wild thyme rising hot and citrussy in the air.⁣

I washed our clothes in the sink and hung them out to dry, and we watched the sun climb out of the sky and brush over the mountaintops turning them hazy purple and red. Sunsets could be a thousand shades of gold and orange, pale pink and even the occasional streak of green, but they were always purple here in Albania. The kind of purple that stained the mountain faces and electrified the lake waters; the kind that demanded you stop and watch.⁣

Late at night two men in a van came and dumped ten neat white bags on the ground in front of our van. We assumed they were fly-tippers, but come morning we awoke to the sound of saddles scraping past our van as two men loaded up their mules with the supplies they’d need to take to their village, a sight that always filled us with wonder and curiosity. ? ?⁣

We said good morning to them, folded up the washing and continued on our journey towards a curious little town named Pukë…⁣

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.⁣