The very first night out into the wild
it starts pouring rain through the ceiling.
Yeah. Hi there, I'm Elisa and this is Chris.
We both relocated to Barcelona, where we met.
Together, we renovated an RV for full time living and travel around Spain.
We wanted to Van life because we wanted to stop paying
really expensive rent in Barcelona and we wanted to live mortgage free.
Ultimately, this would allow us to work less hours so we had a little bit more
freedom and could spend time on things that were really meaningful to us.
After some pretty scary illness from burnout, I decided to quit my full time
job to try to heal for a bit and sort out kind of what the next chapter looks like.
We've both been living in Spain for several years prior
to deciding to downsize, and we'd been planning for about two years
just being really kind of detailed and taking it step by step
from downsizing our closets to ultimately, like selling all our things.
Eventually found our current tiny home.
We were actually able to buy this Van outright for around about 20000 euros.
And on top of that, we added some new solar, we added a new battery
and also we refurnished the insides to make it feel like home.
And, that was probably an extra 3000.
As far as monthly expenses, we tend to aim between nine
hundred to twelve hundred euro each month, and that includes all of our joint fees.
So any sort of upkeep with the RV, any campground fees we may have.
This includes gas, our Wi-Fi, just kind of our daily living expenses.
Restaurants or fun,
any travel expenses outside of that tends to come out of our individual pockets.
The day we were able to pick her up was the start of lockdown.
We managed to get everything into the RV within an hour and get out of town
before they like closed down the borders.
Yeah. Because it was lock down,
we weren't supposed to be crossing borders, we ended up finding a campground,
we kinda were able to make it home for the next few months.
We watched alot of things on YouTube, unscrewing things
and seeing what's behind, getting comfortable with it.
It was really just kind of throwing ourselves in
and giving us an opportunity to learn on the fly.
A big kind of motivator for going into this lifestyle
was to kind of get back to, you know, what people often call that oneness.
It also just gave us opportunities to build a life that felt more meaningful
to us and spend our really precious time on things that we really cared about.
We only kept things that were very important.
They're both beautiful, functional and meaningful.
It's not hard to be working one moment, letting the dog out
and kind of walking into the hills the next or being on the beach.
We've stayed in places where like 10 feet away from the sea.
You go to bed with the crushing waves, you wake up with that in the morning.
The two things that we have to consider every single day
are our basic needs, like water our gas levels, that kind of thing.
The least glamorous things about van life are probably pretty predictable.
You are more in charge of basic functions than you would be in a modern
kind of lifestyle.
We have to be very cognizant of how much water we're using, which
we actually feel really responsible for.
It's a great way to be gentler on the Earth, being responsible for our own
waste, going to the bathroom- where are we going to dump that safely.
You know, we usually only make it
about two to three days without having to deal with that.
Every time you move, you have to kind of sort out
the basic things that you need in life. Where is the water?
Where am I going to go to the bathroom?
Where do I get my food from? Where's safe?
I think just being in a van, you feel more vulnerable.
One very small door, one very small window , everything is street level.
Part of it is the research upfront understanding where are you going to go.
Looking at reviews, is this place safe?
For all the difficulties of first getting into the van life
and the hurdles that we had along the way.
Nature has really provided beautiful benefits
and really kind of rewarded us for all that work, makes it all worthwhile.
So as far as any regrets or anything, we've thought about this and no.
Even after a DIY project where we do our bed nook kind of above the cab.
We like painted it, got like new sheets the whole bit,
and the very first night out into the wild it starts pouring
rain through the ceiling. Yeah, even then.
Before we actually moved into the RV, wanted to buy some land,
and build a tiny house somewhere in Catalonia and North East Spain.
We thought, actually,
maybe it makes more sense to buy an RV live in that for a short time
and use this as a way to test out different plots of land.
You know, just get a feel for the place before we actually,
you know, spend a lot of money and commit to somewhere.
We'd love to build kind of a rental property
that you can then share this kind of mentality of slow living,
getting a little bit closer nature, taking a break with other people
and really give people an opportunity to enjoy it, too.
Thank you so much for tagging along on our tiny Spanish adventure.
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And if you'd like to know a little bit more about life
abroad and slow living in Spain, you can find my YouTube channel below.