Latest Posts:
Tag

road trip

Browsing
In Vanlife

That Ugly 5 Letter Word.

3 Comments

In our modern world, it is the number one sought after thing. It holds an enormous and undeniable value to the human race. Some people refer to it as the thing that makes the world go round. And yet, it is somehow so taboo to talk about. We all strive every single day for it. It is constantly on our mind. It is all we talk about and, yet, it is something we tip toe around.

Money.

This ugly five letter word has been the cause of wars and rebellions, families coming together and breaking apart, lives being born and deaths occurring.

But what is money really?

Sure, we can manipulate it to hold a physical form of paper or metal, but otherwise isn’t it really just a virtual number? We let it constantly move up and down in our world and give us a value of our worth.

In Vanlife

Vanlife: It’s Far From Boring

2 Comments

 

Our previous life seems father away than ever. And yet, we are still learning how to live our new one. It has been five months since setting dsc_0055 out on the open road and we can honestly say that it hasn’t at all been what we expected. We tried not to have any expectations, but you can’t really get away from them all together, can you? Literally every aspect has changed in our life down to how we brush our teeth and the kind of coffee we drink in the morning. Having what is quite possibly the worlds smallest fridge has even made the way we buy food change. While we are still learning the best ways to do things, we are happy to say that for the most part, we are loving it. Don’t get me wrong, five of us in a van poses a challenge, but we have learned that this challenge is only really present when we are in cities.

Vanlife: A messy, claustrophobic and absolutely wonderful way of life.

In USA

California Dreamin’

No Comments

After spending almost a week playing in the cool white sand of the ever-moody Pacific North West our spirits were lifted and our colds were persistent. Myles and I can’t seem to get enough of the beach. Salt or fresh water, 40 degrees or 10, you can always find us at the beach playing like children in the sand. In our Vancouver beaches, we have the protection of Vancouver Island that breaks our waves and makes it so that our coastlines have much more swimmable beaches with less fierce waves.

The sheer force of the ocean here was probably the only thing keeping us out of the water. Well, that and all of the signs saying “people have died here, stay out of the water”. Still, our days were spent with bare feet chasing the tide as it went out and then turning around to run away from the crashing wave coming towards us. With sandy feet and salty hair, we decided that it was probably time to be better adults and take care of our nagging coughs. Without any intention to leave the beach-side, we thought the responsible thing to do would be to at least go to where its warm out; give our bodies a fighting chance. So, we packed our pups begrudgingly back into the van and headed South.

In Vanlife

Life With An Ever Changing Back Drop

No Comments

IMG_4412.JPG After an intense love affair with Colorado (for anyone who hasn’t gone, go and allow yourself at least double the time you intend to stay there, it is AMAZING), Myles and I headed north toward Wyoming. We were told by quite a few people that Wyoming was home to some of the most beautiful and ever changing scenery. After crossing the border and instantly finding some hot springs, a new found favourite activity of ours, we were very happy to be there.

After driving through Wyoming we stumbled upon this lonely Syncro wasting away. Our undying love for these vans got the better of us and less than twenty four hours later we found ourselves with the keys in our hands and a forty-eight hour permit to leave the country.

In The Hippie Diaries

Healthy And Happy? Or The Other One..

No Comments

Scroll through your Netflix and you will quickly be able to find dozens of documentaries on food and what it’s doing to our bodies. From GMOs, becoming vegan, juicing, and high sugar consumption, there are plenty of people out there that have dsc_0613 found that changing a little bit can make a huge difference. I am the first to admit I have lived (and still live) by them all. I’ve cut the sugar, stopped eating animals, have owned a juicer (really expensive – I would way rather eat my fruits and veggies) and really try to stick to non-steroid induced foods (ha-in our society!).

“You look healthy and happy.” You’ve heard those two coinciding, but I thought once you became healthy, you became happy. I never realized that once you became happy, truly happy, your health will sky rocket. I have heard of stress playing a big part in your life and even though I felt stress, I always convinced myself that other people had it worse.

Convinced my “stresses” didn’t matter, I was addicted to telling myself the amount of my stress was ridiculous. Since leaving for a life on the road I haven’t tried to be happy. I haven’t actively thought to myself about how unhappy I am and how I need to be happier and have more fun. Sure, I have become a far more healthy person but I haven’t actively thought “you need to eat this way or you will get fat” like so many diets tell you to. I have never seen a documentary about freedom causing your health to increase, so that couldn’t be whats happening.

As you may know, shortly before leaving I injured my leg – over and over again. After an initial knee injury left me almost immobile, I injured my ankle. Yep, same leg. I couldn’t kneel or squat and lost a lot of muscle in my leg and gained quite a bit of weight. I wasn’t healthy. You wouldn’t believe it but when telling people about my injury, I had a few people quickly respond img_2730 with, “Oh no, how are you going to work?” That was probably my rock bottom, my hate all with society, my burning desire to make a change – a big change.

After two and a half months on this trip I can now not only walk, I can hike. I can not only squat (still struggle a bit) but I can kneel on my paddle board. I can sit with my legs crossed again, I can even straighten my leg fully. This may seem common, after all I am only twenty-four, but let me tell you only eight short weeks ago I could not do any of this.

What have I done differently you ask? Well, that is a matter of opinion. It may just be time naturally healing (doubtful as my injury occurred late February, a sudden drastic improvement four months later seems unlikely) but in my opinion I no longer obsess with getting better. No longer do I spend every waking moment petrified that my knee isn’t getting better and if it doesn’t get better quick, good-bye future. If you ask Myles, it is that I have a reason to get better. I want to hike the mountains, I want to go paddle boarding. It is a much better motivation than getting better so I can go back to a job.

Not convinced yet? Well, hear this one. Before I left I was diagnosed with having gall stones. The attacks are unlike any pain you have ever felt. My mom, a woman who has given birth three times, compares the pain to that of labor. I honestly wasn’t img_4080 surprised by this as everyone in my family has had issues with their gall bladder and has gotten theirs removed.

In a span of three months I had about ten attacks. Curling over with the most crippling pain I have ever felt and absolutely nothing I do helping even a little. Some landing me in the hospital with IV drips and promises of upcoming surgery to remove this little nuisance. I am proud, and incredibly surprised, to report that I haven’t gotten an attack since the second week of being gone. I am now having to tell my doctor to cancel the surgery. Turns out I didn’t need a knife to solve this problem.

Last one (sorry boys, this one might be a little too much for you), about a year and a half ago I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Basically, I stopped getting my period every month; my hormones were going more than normal. I was being told that it will more than likely be incredibly difficult for me to conceive (well, actually I was at a horrible walk-in that rather than sugar coating it, directly said that I will not be having children).

I was distraught so I went to gynecologists who sent me for blood work and told me that the goal was for me to get my periods back. Well this is only a start but in the almost three months I have been gone I have successfully gotten mine twice. Believe what you may but yet another victory for me (I am probably one of very few women who would get excited about this).

Writing them all here, I am actually shocked to see in black and white how unhealthy I was. At the time I never realized how bad I really was. It wasn’t until a couple of nights ago when talking to Myles that I realized how much healthier I have become. You can decide for yourself, it may truly be all coincidental, but whatever it is I’ll take it! Happy makes you healthy… huh, well that’s good to learn!

Let us know what you think and how you stay healthy!

In Vanlife

Vanlife Debunked

4 Comments

When we started this trip we had an idea of what it was going to be like. As much as we tried to do this without expectation and without any planning, nature set in and we couldn’t help but dream about our freedom. But, as always, reality is different. When we started this life, we were much like children at recess, running in circles basking in our new found freedom. We are now more like children after school – still running around hyped on sugar, but we know we have a little more time than the 15 minutes now.

In two months of Vanlife we have only paid to sleep once (I am writing this from an air-conditioned room in Saint Catharines, Ontario). We have slept everywhere from the mountains outside Lillooet to a department store’s parking lot in Wisconsin.

In The Hippie Diaries

The first explorers

No Comments

Myles and I consider ourselves pretty worldly, for our age at least. We have both explored different corners of the world, but we both agree that Vancouver island is unlike anywhere either of us has ever been. Perhaps it’s the expensive ferry ride to get here or the incredible charm of Victoria that makes people not want to explore further, but we have found ourselves in the clearest of waters and the most incredible of beaches without a single other soul in sight – and we are traveling in August, what should be peak season.

On our drive from Nanaimo to Tofino I tactfully convinced Myles to pull over at a rest stop along the way so we could nap. What I didn’t expect was Myles to come running back to me before my head could even hit the pillow and tell me to follow him. What he found literally steps away from the rest stop was a little lagoon filled with the clearest water either of us had ever seen. Fully equipped with a rope swing and lots of rocks for cliff jumping, the only thing that was missing was the hundreds of other people that would have been sitting there as well. Maybe we just come from a big city but I couldn’t help but feel like Vancouver Island was this absolutely gorgeous unexplored tropical island with lush rainforest and some of the most beautiful sights that was yet to be discovered by anyone else. If you don’t believe me, take a look at some of the places we’ve found, all without another soul in sight: 

Spoke Potholes, Sooke, BC

Holland park trail, Duncan, BC

CY Hampson park, Saanich, BC

Taylor river, Port Alberni, BC

East Sooke, BC
The funny thing about it is, we have been told by most of the locals that the northern part of the island is much more remote than the southern and central parts that we have already explored, as wild as that seems. Who knows what’s yet to be explored, one thing we do know is always have a camera close by!

In The Hippie Diaries

There’s a mouse in our house

No Comments

After spending the most incredible day driving around southern BC from Oliver to the small town of Midway, we found ourselves on a beautiful spot in the middle of the woods that due to the lack of people seemed like our private little Haven. We had spent our day driving through the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever witnessed and until now, I had no idea there were so many shades of green.

With the most colourful yellow and green birds singing to us while we made dinner it was so magical that every part of me expected them to start helping me do the dishes. We decided to go to bed rather early (our days really are so hard lately) and the magic ended there.

I couldn’t sleep with the sounds of all the wildlife all around us. A seemingly beautiful way to sleep but I couldn’t shake the fear of something crawling inside our van and chewing our wires. I calmed myself down assuring myself that if there was something here, the three dogs would let me know. After all, they love to think that they’re little hunters.

When the morning came we started our day like every other, reaching for our coffee only to notice that in our cupboard all our plastic bags had holes through them. All our rice, all our granola and oats, all leaking and full of holes. Nightmares, apparently, do come true! We peeled all our food out of our cupboard and Myles began banging on the outside of our van. I look inside and see a fat brown mouse scurry from behind out into our cupboard. I calmly (ha!) slammed the cupboard door and ran away leaving Myles to deal with our furry visitor. We decided that seeing as though he isn’t pitching in for gas, we would evict him and one trip to the hardware store got us the mesh wiring to plus our hole (we think he came in through our outlet plug in).

Unfortunately the only way to get him out of our house was to get mouse traps and try to catch him. Neither of us like killing anything and having to do it this way really upset us. We are now mouse free, and hoping it stays that way.