And what an adventure it was! It was everything I’d hoped it would be and so much more. The aim for me was to experience a touch of slow travel, to travel by methods other than flying, and to meet people along the way.
The initial destination was a festival just south of Spain. The easiest way by far to get there was to fly to Barcelona and then head to the festival from there. However, that didn’t quite fit with the deconsumerism brief, so instead, 3 friends and I decided to go on a bit of a road trip and turn that into part of the holiday.
Three days in a car might not sound like much fun. But when you see it as part of the holiday, it becomes an adventure in itself. The route was planned via a series of beautiful swimming spots (from the Wild Swimming France book) and some friends of a friend’s house in Brittany. Yes there was a lot of driving (but an awesome chance to listen to great music and Adam and Joe podcasts), but it was also a brilliant opportunity to hang out with my friends, see the changing countryside, stop in places I never would have seen (including some lovely French towns), swim in places I would never have otherwise had a chance to stop at, and meet some really lovely people.
One of the highlights for me was the first night when we stayed with a couple called Fred and Vero. A few years ago, they bought a dilapidated old house and piece of land, and have been living there ever since, renovating the house and creating an amazing vegetable garden. Along with their two children, they’re living the slow life – growing a lot of their own food, sourcing a lot locally, renovating their own home in the countryside – it’s a style of life that part of meal really yearns for, but yet isn’t quite ready for. Talking to Fred and Vero was enlightening – it’s not been an easy journey, and they lived in a camper van for months with a young baby while they were renovating the house to a liveable standard. But everything about the renovation feels right – natural building materials, a composting toilet, the characterful details that come when you do a job yourself...
The road trip was followed by three days at a festival run by another friend. A couple of years ago, Anna bought a piece of land a few hours south of Barcelona and set about creating Boodaville. The idea was to create an eco tourism with positive environmental and social impacts. The site has no electricity or running water, and everything is done in the lowest impact way possible (she built the yurt herself using a guide downloaded from the internet). For the past couple of years, over her birthday weekend she has put on a small festival, and that’s why we were there. With my “love of it” hat on, we were running some fun games on the Saturday afternoon, but mostly we were just there to have fun.
Nothing had quite prepared me for the place to be honest. The site itself was beautiful, and I enjoyed the lack of electricity and running water on site – it takes you away from your life a bit and helps you to properly relax away from life. The other people there were, quite simply, brilliant. It’s not since I studied for my Masters at the Centre for Alternative Technology that I’ve met a group of people that I’ve clicked with so instantly. And they are the perfect people for me to be meeting this year – from people running bike trips across Bristol, to people involved in eco building and permaculture. I can’t really summarise the experience well, so I’ll just say that there was beer drinking, river swimming, late night dancing, scrabble playing, amazing food eating and lots and lots of chilling...
After all that chilling, it only seemed right to get back to civilisation a little and so it was off to Barcelona. I’d tried to find a couchsurfing place in Barcelona with no joy (people just get inundated with requests and it’s supposed to be one of the hardest places to find somewhere to stay). However, whilst at Boodaville, I bumped into someone I’d met a few times in Bristol and she invited me to stay with her in Barcelona. So I cancelled my hostel, got dropped at a tiny train station in rural Spain (only 3 trains a day...) and found my way to Barcelona.
For me, it was the perfect experience. I know I would have met people had I stayed in a hostel, but I wanted to meet people who lived there, not other tourists. Staying with Alice was just this, and a welcome surprise after I didn’t manage to find a couch surfing space). While Alice was at work during the day, I explored Barcelona (using as my guide a list another friend who used to give in Barcelona had given me), and in the evening she showed me around – we went for dinner in a squat, stumbled across some kind of festival involving samba drumming and fireworks, drank mojitos with some of her friends, chilled with her housemate... In there I also found the time to meet up with a couch surfer who had been unable to host me but was still enthusiastic to meet up, and we spent an evening chatting about sustainability and photography whilst drinking beer and wandering around the streets. The things I’ll remember about Barcelona are those moments, not the beautiful architecture or tourist attractions.
Too soon my time in Barcelona was up and I was off to Bilbao. A couple of couchsurfers had already offered to host me for my three nights there, and Diego kindly met me at the station before showing me back to their flat. Him and his girlfriend, Cristina, really couldn’t have been any kinder. They took me on walking tours of the city, fed me the best sushi I’ve ever had, took me to their favourite spots to eat and drink and showed me some amazing and unusual places (including the incredible hanging bridge). They even took invited me for a meal with Diego’s family, which featured the most immense spread of food!. For my first proper couchsurfing experience, it was amazing.
The journey home was a real adventure as well. I had to be in Hendaye by Monday evening and so I decided to leave Bilbao in the morning and spend the day in San Sebastian. It was probably the most touristy part of my trip. I found somewhere to dump my bags then spent the day ambling around and chilling out. I climbed a big hill, ate some nice food, drank coffee and sat and read my book on the beach. Late afternoon I ambled back to the station and found a train to Hendaye, where I got on my sleeper train up to Paris.
The beginning of the sleeper train was great. I had the four bed (first class!) cabin to myself and sat and read my book. At 10 another girl got on, and promptly announced she wanted to turn the light off. So at 10pm I was stuck in bed reading my book, not ready for bed. Later, two people joined, and I eventually went to bed at midnight. I didn’t sleep very well, but I did sleep. The train was more rattley and jerky than I anticipated, but I still enjoyed the experience and the adventure of it. Once in Paris, I got the Metro across to Gare de Nord, then the Eurostar to London. The Eurostar was actually the most hassle full part of the journey – there was quite a lot of queuing and waiting around. But arriving in London was wonderfully easy, and you walk straight off the train into St Pancras International station. Then a quick tube ride across London, followed by a coach back to Bristol and a taxi home.
All in all, it was about 20 hours door to door for me to get back. But I enjoyed the journey, and it felt like so much less of a chore than flying home which always feels like the worse part of the holiday.
Experience wise, it’s up there with my favourite holidays ever (the other would be my trip to the Philippines, which feels like the most similar trip I’ve done to this one, apart from the long haul flight either end...). I didn’t mind the long journeys, and actually feel they added to the experience. I also met so many people on the trip and that added to the experience massively. It’s the first time I’ve travelled on my own and I really enjoyed the experience and wouldn’t hesitate to go away on my own again.
Cost wise, it was definitely more expensive. The car trip down cost about £150 each for the car, ferry and petrol. But given that it was door to door (especially given the remote location of the destination) and that it included 3 days of holidaying, it felt like a bargain. The trip back cost about the same – the sleeper train from Hendaye to Paris was £50 odd (it would have been less if I’d bought the ticket earlier – closer to £35). The Eurostar clocked in at the most expensive part of the journey at £85ish, but if I was on a budget I could have chosen to get the megabus to London for just £4. The coach back to Bristol was about £6 (my budget choice over the far more expensive train). So yes, it’s more expensive, but that’s mostly because flights are unsustainably cheap at the moment!
And for me, it was worth every penny! Now I'm off to plan my next adventure...
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