“Why do you move so often?” Great question.
After we posted the other day about feeling a bit ‘travelled out’ we had some interesting responses. Several of you asked questions along the same theme: “Why do you move so often?”, “Why not stay longer in one place and soak it up?”, “Perhaps the constant moving is what’s grinding the fun out of travel?”. They’re all great questions.
Over the course of our 1029 days of travel so far, we’ve stayed in 715 different places (OK, we revisited the odd one!), averaging 1.5 days in each place (find a map of all our stops here). This average hasn’t changed much over the years:
We’ve averaged either 1.4 or 1.5 days at each stopover over the years before moving on
Even when the questions don’t crop up from others, we ask them of ourselves. Especially when we find ourselves in a fascinating place yet don’t stay around to soak it up or, like the other day, we find ourselves exhausted from constantly moving. So, what’s the answer? We’ve had a crack at summing up what’s going on in our heads below. I suspect to get a better answer we’d need to employ a psychiatrist or two, but we’ve done our best without one…
The Nature of Free Camping: Our budget’s fairly limited. We spent about £13,000 a year on the first couple of tours, since upping it to £15,000 a year for the last ones. We don’t try and travel as cheaply as possible, but we still do a fair bit of free camping, or using motorhome aires to keep our budget under control and allow us to go see some stuff, eat out and the like. Aires and free camps typically have an associated legal or moral imperative to shift on. The restrictions vary wildly between countries, but on the whole a couple of days is about the norm you’re welcome for. When we want to stay longer, we use campsites, but even using discount cards like ACSI these can eat into our budget.
Cabin Fever: When the weather’s bad with a forecast of rain for days on end, or there’s not much to see and do around us, we find ourselves moving on more often. This is simply to avoid finding ourselves with an eye twitch, rocking forwards and backwards, humming ‘Bright Eyes’, while staring unblinking point blank at the bathroom door.
Our Only Project is Travel: What do we do with our time out here on the road? Travel. Our current life project (if you can call it that) is travelling, we have other smaller projects, but by far the main one is to move about Europe and North Africa looking, sniffing, tasting, touching and absorbing. Further afield is on the books, but while Charlie the pampered pooch is travelling with us, Europe remains by far the simplest option. When we do kick off another project, we find ourselves slowing down to concentrate on it. Once it’s done we speed up again, avoiding boredom through exposure to new places and people.
Tail Wagging Dog Syndrome: this blog’s turned into something of an animal. A nice furry one, but what we bought as a cute fur-ball pup has now matured into something of an adult Woolly Mammoth (apologies for mixing up my animal metaphors). While we have this Mammoth on a leash, we have to question from time to time whether we’re leading the Mammoth or whether he’s leading us. Huh? What am I on about? Ah, yeah, what I’m trying to say is: are we shifting about all the time looking for material to write for this blog, rather than moving when we want, and blogging about it when we see fit? Our feeling on this one is yes, we’ve certainly been guilty of this in the past, but the other factors have far more to do with our incessant stick-upping than this one these days.
There’s Not Enough Time: I’ve left the biggest reason to last. There’s just SO MUCH TO SEE. Ten lifetimes wouldn’t be enough to scratch the surface of what this Earth has to offer. Europe and North Africa alone have kept us occupied for three solid years, and we’ve still not been to a fair few of the continent’s countries. There just isn’t enough time to get it all in! What’s around that next corner? Over the next hill? Just today we’ve been to see Tollund Man, an ancient fella killed then laid down in a bog some 2200 years ago, whose face appears alive. I was overwhelmed with a sense of history and mortality when I saw this guy, a sensation which is truly thrilling, almost akin to a drug. I wonder what will give me the next hit?
In summary, how we travel, how anyone travels, is a deeply personal thing. What works for one, won’t work for another. We’re constantly seeking out what works for us, noting that this will most certainly change over time. At the moment we’ve tipped the balance a little too far towards frequent moves, but now that we’ve recognised happening (again – looking back over our blogs it’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last), we can put plans in place to deal with it. We’ve too few days left before our ferry home to alter things on this trip, but our thoughts keep turning to longer stays in the coming.
Cheers, Jay
Regardless of a gnats bit of negativity you should be comforted in the fact that the infamous OurToursFanClub rallied and offered words of support. As you state the world’s a big place, fat chance of seeing it all. So slow down a bit. Take that great photo, look behind you and think how the fck did I miss that !!!
GlorYa’s gang luvs ya x
Thanks GlorYa. We’re often in here for weeks on end with no-one to bounce ideas off but ourselves. The feedback we get through the blog’s therefore invaluable to maintaining our mental health, and we can’t say how much we appreciate and value it. Cheers, Jay
this is a great site, followed it since the early days. We’re taking possession of our first motorhome mid November, will be certainly using your blogs as a source of information. You certainly give the ball a good kick everyone day, keep it up and enjoy life at your own pace !
Its a fascinating conundrum and I think it has to come down to finding the right fit for you at the right time. We have just taken delivery of our new motorhome “Scoop” and are slowly exploring options for travelling that will work for us – we travel with a wheelchair and pooch. Thanks to information from your “Mammoth” we have set ourselves up with kit that gives us options for independent and hooked up stopovers. We love the flexibility and independence we have and that there is always an adventure around the corner. And if the weather is bad or health won’t allow then we can wait for the next trip, or, sometimes, head out anyway!
Hi Tam. I bow down to thee. Seriously, shifting about without a wheelchair’s more than I can be bothered to do sometimes. My hat’s off to you for the drive and passion it must take to get out there, good for you. Enjoy your wanderings and freedom, thanks for taking the time to write, cheers, Jay
As I and many others have said; so good to have you guys telling it as it is. It would be good to do some kind of long term survey of many people on this ‘shall we stay or shall we go’ issue.. You’re right. There’s too much to do it all. But do you want to? We’ve met people who only do the ‘natural world’ and never city sights. A bit extreme, but I do err in that direction.
Also hear what you’re saying re Charlie.. But as you say, so many Europe options for the time being.
Interested to know how your travelling life works out. We’ve been there too. Considering their options, as usual, budget dependent.
Hi Peter
Yes! Yes! If I could live for ever, and had an unending supply of energy, I’d do it all!
Whenever we consider going back to work a thought pops into my head ‘each day behind the desk or knocking down a wall would be a day gone, a day I could never get back, and a day of travel I couldn’t do’ and it puts me right off the idea of going back to work (probably stating the obvious there, sorry)!
The world’s just so enormous, and it’s quite impossible to know what’s going to give you a sensation of wild enjoyment or fulfilment until you get there and see it, smell it, taste it, do it. Yes, selfishly I want the lot mate!
I take your point though of course: it’s impossible to see it all. But I’m currently thinking I’m not going to let that stop me trying.
Cheers! Jay
It great to read your missives, they give a very clear view of what the pros and cons of your life on the road is like. We really have good so much out of them. We were surprised how warm t looked in Norway, but the price of booze puts us off esp after Spain. Have a safe trip home and we hope to see you soon.
David and Karen
Hey guys! The sun shone in Norway, and it was beautiful much of the summer, even in the Arctic. Most of the vans we met had smuggled in booze, some of them HUGE amounts of it too, although all for personal consumption. Not that I’m suggesting anyone does that, the border controls seem to be changing frequently, and getting caught with anything more than a few extra tins would likely cost one of your finest arms, and a leg too. Seriously though, given a choice between a dry trip to Norway and no trip to Norway, I’d lay off the booze for a few weeks. It’s stunning. Thanks, heading into Germany in a day or two then back to Blighty for that long-awaited Fray Bentos. Take it easy in the sun, and hopefully we’ll see you later in the year. Cheers, Jay
Last night bought the our tour year in a MH book first thing I do when I get home from a stressful day in the office is look at your blog, this alone drives me to keep going towards my goal of touring after work. Keep up the good work guys.
Thanks Jeff. Keep pushing on fella, we’ve been there too and there’s a pretty cracking life around the corner. Jay
What a good read! We are now guilty of not moving enough in the summer- we head for Greece and for the last few years, have holed up at Camping Thines in Finikounda for a good few weeks. Every year we say we should move a bit more but every year, the elastic attaching us to the lovely people we have met there pulls us back. We do try different places on the way there and back and do travel to other places in the year though.
I can see how the budget issue influences what you do but we know places where prices can be negotiated for longer term stays- just a thought.
And moving on… there’s also for us, the feel of the place….sometimes a place feels great and other times we’re quite happy to move on.
We were only talking the other day about where we live….I said ‘we’ve never been down that lane’ Pete said ‘We’ve never walked that track’ and we realised that the world is a bloody big place- even our village has places unexplored….. SO I am happy that you are moving on and exploring places and giving us a feel for what is out there…..safe travels and thanks.