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In The Hippie Diaries

Are You Living The Life Of Your Dreams?

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Remember when you were younger and your body allowed you to do so much more? Maybe it wasn’t your body, but your mind…? Regardless, you didn’t watch your footing when running on a rocky shore, there was no careful consideration of where to put your bad knee … you were lighter on your feet and could bounce back with a little scrape.

At what point did I start carefully placing my footing? At what point did I start to worry about falling. I remember NEVER thinking about these sorts of things when I was younger. I know, I know I sound like I am ready for retirement with all this “back in my day” talk… I mean I am only 26.

retirement, kalamalka lake, nature, landscape, scenery, vanlife
Vernon, BC

Somehow over the years I have become more cautious. Maybe it is something that comes with age or maturity… whatever it is I DON’T LIKE IT!! I take pride in acting as young as possible and living by the general thought of just because you age, doesn’t mean you have to grow up. I honestly love the process of aging. I love LIVING. But why does living have to mean getting more fearful of being hurt?

When we tell people we are full time nomadic travelers who work as we explore and try to have as much freedom and as little responsibility as possible, we generally hear one of two things. Either “That’s great do it while you’re young, before you settle down and have kids…” or the very opposite “You’re supposed to save this time of your life for retirement. Go to work and earn money now so you can do this when you retire.”

The truth is, I hate both of these sayings.

The first, while I understand is incredibly well intentioned, makes both Myles and I never want to have kids. I HATE when people say your life is over when you have kids. Why? Sure, you have more expenses but why does this little bitty life form that you get to raise mean you no longer get to matter? Why can’t you both matter?

Wouldn’t raising a child who is gaining life experiences by traveling all over the world and meeting everyone along the way become a better person? Doesn’t it sound better to learn abou

t World War II in Germany rather than in a cold classroom? I don’t know if we will have kids (we will probably adopt), or if we will home school them if we do but I certainly don’t want my life to be over.

The other saying is a notion I understand more. I completely get that every generation before mine had to live this way. But the beauty of our modern day is I don’t have to. As long as I have a computer, I can work from anywhere. This is one of the more beautiful progressions humans have made and I plan to take FULL advantage of it.

couple, travel, dogs, lake, summer, road trip, traveling, nomad, retirement
Armstrong, BC

I can’t imagine doing this while I am old.

So many of the things Myles and I do, the places we go, the way we live our life, I couldn’t imagine doing it when we are older. Learning to surf in Bali likely would NOT have happened if we were 68. Jumping into an ice-cold river in the middle of the day for a refreshing bath, we probably would have had a heart attack if we were past retirement. Staying in questionable

hotels and meeting some of the best people in Thailand getting food poisoning and dancing on the beach until the sun came up – nope not that either. (well, maybe that one.. I hope we are that cool when we are older).

camper, nomad, road trip, vanlife, van life, camper van, retirement

While I hope I get the opportunity to live long enough for retirement, and I hope that I will still be living a life I love, I am pretty sure that my concern for falling or hurting myself will only increase. I am quite positive my ability to run up mountains, dive deep below the waters surface and spend long hours dancing in a thunder storm will become less and less as I filter through those years.

This is why I don’t wait for retirement. Instead, I will love today and dream endlessly for tomorrow.

What do you think? Are we young kids being beautiful rebellions or are we actually on to something?

In The Hippie Diaries

Make a life you’re obsessed with

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Ever sat there and thought about your life and realized how much you lived for “one day”? Saving for a house, waiting for the right time to get married, to have kids, for school to start, for a big promotion? I consider myself a decently aware person, of my surroundings and actions and habits, I make an effort to be present and aware. However until today, I have never realized how much I put my for now on hold in hopes for my some day to come true. While I sit here and watch all my stuff get sold and talk about this trip, it doesn’t quite feel real to me yet. No way, I’m not the girl who is going to pick up my life and move it into a van with my family and travel my little corner of the world! Yet it is happening – just over two weeks from now! We have uninsured our vehicles and made our little van our daily driver. Spending more and more time has done something completely unexpected. I realized that for possibly the first time in my life, I am living right now and loving every second of it.

S

In The Hippie Diaries

The good, the bad, the new life

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The date is set, our van is in the shop, our notice has been given, we are selling our possessions. There is a lot of worrying, excitement, and anxious time that goes on behind the scenes. Preparing for life out of a van is a mixture of every emotion. There is so much unknown that you are overcome with feelings you never felt before. Much like weeks before you’re about to fly away to an unknown land, the feelings are overwhelming.

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There has been some hurdles we have had to overcome. From our hearts telling us this is right, our head telling us this is not possible and our dogs panicked about us packing, our house being in shambles. Imagine having to sell pretty much everything you have accumulated in your life, sounds stressful right? Now imagine having to sell it all in only 30 short days. Yes, spontaneity sounds fun, but the unromantic reality sets in when you are scrambling to sell/donate/throw away almost everything in your 2 bedroom apartment in order to down size to life in around 50 sqft. The reality of your prized possession getting a quarter of what you value it, knowing you can’t bring it with you.

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With still having three vehicles, and a house full of stuff we can’t bring with us we have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. On top of that, worrying about where money will come from and getting our van back in time before we have to leave our basement suite. Trying to focus on the positive and good has been our everyday struggle. Breaking down what we have to accomplish into smaller pieces has been key. Yes, we’ve gotten overwhelmed. Yes, we’ve broken down. Yes, we’ve become closer than ever. No one told us it was going to be easy, but you better believe it will be worth it!

In these stressful times we love hearing from you! Please don’t hesitate to message us. Much love.

In The Hippie Diaries

Turning dreams into reality

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dreams

“The difference between dreams and reality is action.”

That’s what they say at least. If you ask us we would say it’s work. A lot of work. And tears, and doubt, and fear and regret. But also a lot of excitement; A lot of learning and a lot of fun. Selling all of our stuff has proven both liberating and at times, painfully difficult.

Something we once spent months saving up for was selling for a mere $50, it was heartbreaking. But everything has now turned in to “That’s another tank of gas that can get us another 450 km.” Almost to a fault we found ourselves scrimping for everything. Milk has become a luxury item. Selling has become addictive – this dream will become reality.

Our motivation for this lifestyle is in part due to experiences we have faced in the last couple of months. We decided that we wanted to live, really live. So we decided to complete an obstacle course style race called Tough Mudder. In our training I ended up hurting my knee, tearing my meniscus and leaving me useless to my previous physical job. Not even a week following my injury, Myles got into a car accident that left him with a ton of soft tissue damage and a severe concussion (his fifth one).

This left us, once incredibly outdoorsy people, in the house on the couch and intolerant to light and sound. This quickly turned us both to dark thoughts and on a lonely road to depression. One sunny Saturday we were sitting on the couch, my knee raised with no lights on and our curtains covered and our TV so low it was almost inaudible and we saw our dogs sitting with their heads under our curtains just looking outside.

When we realized how much this was effecting our dogs, how much it was effecting us.

We vowed to take our life back.

After talking about our dreams we bought a hammock so we could lie outside, some dark glasses so Myles could handle the sun and a chuck it for our dogs to run through our yard. We went to physio, the gym and everything else we could think of to regain our strength.

This was it, this was our chance.

We were liberated. We can be anything. All that was left was to decide who we wanted to be. After dozens of long conversations and staying up all night dreaming together we decided that our dream world was one spent traveling and spending our days together, happy and stress free. We wanted to discover ourselves and explore our own backyard.

If we are going to do this, we are all in.

We want to experience all this lifestyle has to offer. With little money in savings we will need to work along the way, berry picking, selling crafts, house sitting, farm work, anything that will help us to keep going. But there is one thing we have agreed on: we vow to use nothing more than paper maps and word of mouth from those we meet to keep us going.

For us, the journey is about getting lost, staying in the forest, trading for goods as much as possible, learning to live off the land. Everything is going to be new, the food we eat, the way we think, the places we sleep. For some, this may be scary, but coming from a state of pure vegetation and not having a reason to get up, it is a more than welcomed adventure.

Our dreams are going to become our reality.