What I’ve Learned from 9 Months on the Road…
I stood gazing in disbelief at the slick of oil creeping slowly down the tarmac.
As the burly French tow truck driver hoisted our van precariously onto the back of his lorry, he attempted to explain what was going to happen to Bertha, the green VW filled with all our worldly possessions. With what little French I knew escaping me, I was left staring blankly at his moustachioed face.
This wasn’t the kind of start I’d imagined.
Now, as I sit down to write this article — ten thousand miles, nine months, eight countries and two mechanical breakdowns later — I can honestly say that these moments of utter despair are as inspiring and essential to this experience as any of the joy and wonder.
My journey started long before I gave up the lease on my London flat, bought a van and started travelling.
Four years ago, I lost my mum to cancer. It was unexpected and brutal.
I wasn’t given any time to mentally prepare and truly say goodbye. Worse yet, grief has a knack for disabling your compass, and truthfully, I’m still struggling to work out where I’m heading.
Instead of drifting aimlessly, I worked hard at my career. Together with a close friend, I built a successful business that I’m immensely proud of. But as I sat tucked away in my little office in East London, I had the nagging sensation that the world outside was passing me by.
Then, in the summer of 2016, a brief jolt of inspiration gripped me. Maybe for the first time since losing mum, I felt an urge trying to pull me in a different direction.
I was going to leave the UK and travel.
Not just a holiday, or a gap year to ‘find myself’. I wanted to truly experience life (with my partner, if she agreed) on the road.
In a naive sort of way, I didn’t see this as a total change. We weren’t abandoning everything and becoming gypsies. In my eyes, I was simply moving the scenery. I’d continue to work full time, albeit from a different location every few weeks.
Lessons Learned
Everyone goes travelling for their own reasons, but most do so with the hope of finding some answers to questions about life and themselves. I was certainly in need of fresh inspiration, not just in terms of creativity, but for life in general.
I’m not going to pretend that a few months on the road has transformed me into a seasoned traveller with answers to all the big questions, but it’s definitely taught me a few new things, and reinforced some that I probably already knew.
Take the road less travelled. It doesn’t always have to be scary. Jumping off the relatively clear path ahead and trying to get a bit lost, was — and still is — my own way of finding some direction. Shifting orientation can alter the way you look at situations, or life in general, and this new perspective can be essential in plotting a new route forward.
Less is more. Packing light is ‘travelling 101’, but instead of embarking on this trip with bulging rucksacks, we filled a large green van with the essentials, as well a few luxury items.
I’ll come clean and say that I might have had some romantic notions of using the van as a camper and sleeping in it. It’s hard to resist the fantasy of going off grid, sleeping in a cosy van adorned with kitsch bunting and waking up to new breath-taking vistas each morning. But this dream came to a sweaty, premature end after nearly suffocating in the coffin-like sleeping compartment. This was followed by a mini-meltdown, caused by three nights with very little sleep.
Sweat and romance aside, the concept of packing your life into a van does teach you to re-evaluate what you actually need in terms of material possessions. I’ve come to realise you need very little, you rarely miss the things you leave behind and you probably don’t need such a big van.
You HAVE to follow your gut. What people tend to forget, is that following this vague, but persuasive instinct, takes blind faith and conviction; often requiring you to go against logic.
The next common-sense step for a 34-year-old in a steady long-term relationship, was getting a foot on the property ladder. But I chose to put all that on hold. Instead of settling down and planting roots, I decided it was time to wander.
The further I’ve come, the more I realise that my gut may have been right. Without seeking to, I’d identified a small window of opportunity. I was at a point in life where I could literally work from anywhere, I was financially independent, without a mortgage or kids to worry about. It was perfect timing for this kind of adventure.
Always follow through. You can follow your gut on deciding what you want to do, but the hard bit is committing yourself to doing it. I relied on the old motivational tool of holding yourself to account. If I told enough people I was going to go travelling around Europe in a van, I’d eventually have to do it, or look like a big, dreamy bullshitter.
When I told people my plan, they imagined it as some kind of extended holiday. The automatic response was — ‘Oh nice! For how long?’ — my response, which was always met with some confusion, was — ‘I don’t really know’.
Although my friends and family were all positive and supportive, their questions often betrayed their own fears about undertaking this kind of challenge. That concern can eat away at your initial enthusiasm. It’s easy to start thinking about scaling things back, playing it safe. Maybe buying a house first and then travelling later. But I knew I had to go all in; that was just how it had to be. Nine months in, very few of those initial fears have materialised. The ones that did, were overcome.
Setting off is the hardest part. There’s only one thing tougher than maintaining the momentum of chasing that dream, and that’s the final push of leaving.
Imagine moving house and all the pain that it entails. Now imagine your new place is actually a Big Yellow Storage near Romford, your entire life packed up into a dark, dirty cage in a sadistic game of furniture Jenga. The experience was so horrific, we’d almost be happy to never see our possessions again.
Embarking on a long journey is a not just a logistical nightmare, it exerts an emotional drag that’s hard to break free from. The thought of shutting up shop on a ‘normal life’ is the real barrier for most people. For my partner, this meant leaving a steady job and all the security it provided. For both of us, it meant saying goodbye to our friends and family, knowing that we might not see them again for a year or more.
House sitting is a full-time job. The ace card in my grand scheme to travel Europe was house sitting. Or pet sitting, to be more precise. I happened on this phenomenon in its infancy, when I was researching cheap ways to travel. It basically involves living rent free in someone’s house while they are away, in exchange for looking after their treasured possessions, pets and plants. This could mean babysitting a labradoodle in a two-bed semi in Bristol, or mucking out a 12-horse ranch in Wyoming.
Discovering this niche was a total revelation. Most people couldn’t quite fathom the idea, when I told them about it. But after looking at websites like TrustedHousesitters, I realised that the prolific number of opportunities (especially for UK expats in Europe), meant it would be feasible to travel full time, using house sits for at least 50% of the trip and effectively halving accommodation costs.
But, as I write this, my partner isn’t doing yoga by the pool. Instead, she’s carefully scouring the backyard for dog turds and bagging them up. If this isn’t done, the beagles we are looking after, may (and did) tread in it, and then bring it into bed with them. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they have to sleep with us in bed, as per the owner’s request. If that’s not #livingthedream, then I don’t know what is.
Animals can be hit and miss. Sometimes a nightmare — like Coba the parrot, who nearly died on us — or a total dream — Sieb the cat, who came in, ate and then went out again.
Without even taking into account the time spent on animal care, there’s the administrative challenge of ensuring we’re kept constantly on the road. The art of lining up the house sits in a seamless row, creating a logical timeline with each sit within geographical reach of the next.
I can honestly say that I would have seriously struggled to live this house-sitting lifestyle while simultaneously working full time. It wasn’t long into the trip when I came to the realisation, that I couldn’t have done this expedition without my partner running the house and pet sitting side of the operation. After agreeing to join my adventure on little more than a promise of all-you-can-eat local produce and more sunny days than London gets in a decade, I think I’ve delivered. In the process, she’s adapted to the freelance, remote-working lifestyle, giving her an inspirational peek outside of the 9-to-5 world.
A change will do you good. One of the most positive things about being on the move is the ever-changing scenery. Life is different from one month — or week — to the next, and just as you get used to a place, it’s usually time to move on. This means nothing ever has time to get stale.
And then there’s the driving. This is a road trip in the truest sense, something which, on the overcrowded roads of my native UK, can be a stressful, soul-destroying experience. On the continent, things are different. Europe was made for cruising, and the number of campervans and motorhomes we see on the roads is testament to that. After fearing a two-hour schlepp on the English motorways, we now think nothing of a four-hour drive before lunch. On these open highways — which whisk you across international borders and through breath-taking scenery, with minimal fuss — it’s a pleasure.
A creativity boost. As someone who tries to stay creatively stimulated, travelling generates a constant supply of new experiences and ideas. Although it can sometimes be exhausting, the kind of slow travel that this trip entails gives you plenty of down time. Staying in a place for three weeks means there’s no rush or pressure to see everything. It gives your brain time to process things.
It’s inspired me to take more photographs than I’ve ever taken. I’ve started sketching again for the first time in ten years, and found myself having more to say in my writing.
Taking the good with the bad. There are two sides to every travel-adventure coin. The constant change means you have no continuity, nowhere to call ‘home’ and are rarely in one place long enough to build truly meaningful bonds. This lack of stability can be daunting, and it was one of the things that loomed large before setting off. We’ve found that you often have to rely on each other to give yourself that sense of stability.
People are strange. Jim Morrison never uttered a truer word. One thing this trip has reinforced, is my understanding of how different we are as people. It may sound like an obvious thing to say. But it’s only when you are living 2000 metres up in the Swiss Alps, with a Trump-voting conspiracy theorist that you realise that some folks are the polar opposite to you. And when you are housesitting for them; you have to humour them.
On this trip we’ve met a variety of sorts, from Brexit voting UK expats, who are quite happy to see the UK leave the EU while they remain. To born-again Christians, preaching faith healing to lapsed Catholics in the French countryside.
They’re also wonderful. Regardless of political differences, belief systems, or general eccentricities, everyone we’ve met welcomed us into their home without any hesitation, and trusted us to care for the things they love and value the most. Spending a few weeks in someone’s home lets you walk in their shoes, and sample their way of living. Spending time with them exposes you to conversations and points of view you may never have considered.
You’ll miss the animals too. It’s particularly hard saying goodbye to them when you know you won’t see them any time soon.
Shit happens. All kinds of shit. Travel infinitely increases your life experiences and the more you expose yourself to, the more chance you have of stuff going wrong. There are of course things you can do to prepare, but it’s only when the ‘shit happens’, that you really start to learn things about life and yourself.
The lessons are endless and it’s pointless recounting them all here. You can only really learn a lesson by directly having the hot red flush of embarrassment burn an experience into your soul. Word to the wise: always check your fuel before driving into the mountains and always have breakdown cover.
Working remotely is a gift. My need (and desire) to keep working on this trip has dictated a large number of our decisions. Topping the list of considerations when choosing where to stay is a decent high-speed internet connection. This means going ‘off grid’ isn’t really an option, unless I’m taking time off for holiday, or the connection dies. The rapid onward march of technology in recent years and the widespread adoption of high-speed internet in Europe has unlocked the door to places that would not have been viable for me, three or four years ago.
The upside of me staying connected, and therefore working my regular week, has also made this trip financially viable. Travelling is expensive, and it usually takes big chunks out of your savings. But six months into the trip, I was actually saving more than I did when I was renting a flat in London. It’s given me an insight into how much the cost of living is affected by our choice of location, and inspired me to think more about where I’d want to end up when we eventually finish this journey. I‘m sure this is something that will become a global conversation as more and more people are able to work remotely.
Compromise. I feel extremely privileged to be in the position I’m in. But I also know that the freedom and adventure that long-term travel can offer, comes at a price. It’s a constant parade of compromises that have to be carefully navigated.
If there’s one thing this trip has taught me, it’s that life is about trade-offs, and with enough dedication, you can always get what you want, if you are okay with not getting everything you want.
Where Next?
With months of travel plans laid out ahead of us in 2018, I’m looking forward to seeing more of Spain and Portugal, before winding our way back to the UK for spring. Maybe I will have changed my mind about travelling after completing a full circle and spending a year on the road. It may be time to settle down. All I can say at this point is; I like not knowing.
Ed Roberts-Graver is a Creative Consultant at the Creative Development Studio The Late Misters & Curator of IN / DEVELOPMENT.
