UPDATE ALERT! (May 4th) Currently on the road travelling many of the lower 48 states, with the plan to be in British Columbia late summer. Often not having wifi, nor caring to be connected to technology, we are immersing ourselves with the beauty of what this world has to offer; the beautiful landscapes, wildlife, trees, and ultimately enjoying ourselves and each other, while respecting the history of the land. So far we have travelled across Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Dakota > heading towards Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Montana.
Here is our pride and joy, Moon Warrior! She's a little dirty in this picture, and missing a couple lights, but this is pretty much what she looks like right now. We have taken out all of the cabinets and pretty much stripped the inside into an empty shell, a playground for ideas. It is now time for our vision and idea's to come to life. We are hoping to be completed by the middle of May and hopefully be on the road heading West. Oh, you can also see our home guard dog, Beanz in the very left hand corner. Woof Woof! Power to the people! Stick it to the man!
Here is our pride and joy, Moon Warrior! She's a little dirty in this picture, and missing a couple lights, but this is pretty much what she looks like right now. We have taken out all of the cabinets and pretty much stripped the inside into an empty shell, a playground for ideas. It is now time for our vision and idea's to come to life. We are hoping to be completed by the middle of May and hopefully be on the road heading West. Oh, you can also see our home guard dog, Beanz in the very left hand corner. Woof Woof! Power to the people! Stick it to the man!
OUR DECISION TO BUY A 1992 TOYOTA WINNEBAGO WARRIOR
Ever since we have met each other, we have connected on a unique and special level. We both absolutely love to travel and adventure, and have spent hours discussing the sort of lives that we wish to lead together. One has to be honest, its quite difficult to live in the suburbs, in an increasingly capitalist and privatized society and mindsets. To believe that we have control over our own lives and voices, when in reality, everything we do is controlled by those in power, how we live our every day lives, our work, even how we choose to spend our spare time, staring numbingly into mindless technological devices and screens. Only meeting one another in bars, or at shopping malls, ignoring the beauty of nature around us, yet ignoring how this beauty is being vastly jeopardized by privatized governments only vested in their own interests of profit and 'success'. We spent a year downtown Toronto while I finished my masters degree at OISE, and that was quite different than growing up in our home town of Orillia, where it takes us about 7 minutes to drive to work. From my personal experience, I will never choose to live in a big city again, attempting to make conversation with people in the elevator, only to watch them put their headphones in their ears and pretend as though they didn't hear, or to watch countless bodies crammed into subway carts, heads down and eyes glued to their telephone screens, To watch, one human out of a hundred, stop to say hello and offer a homeless body money, warmth, or a smile. However, this is not to say that wonderful organizations and protests do not happen in big cities, or that special connections between humans does not exist or happen, it was just the every day observations of individualism, ignorance, or unkindness that truly urked something deep within my veins. Along with studying social justice education, and the privilege of travelling has been something that has truly opened my eyes and replenished my soul to believe that there is so much good, kindness, and caring in this world, that there is power in the people, to overcome, resist, and live our lives the way in which we wish to. We spent almost a month in Costa Rica, travelling and sleeping in parking lots, beaches, and national parks in our small yet comfortable van. Upon returning to the hustle and bustle of Toronto, the constant honking of horns, street cars, and sirens, and bright lights, we began to realize we didn't need the accumulation of possessions that we owned, we didn't need all of this space, secluded and trapped 12 floors up. We yearned for the outdoors, we yearned for cooking our dinners and breakfasts upon campfires, and listening to the birds, trees, and winds around us. Then, after travelling across Thailand for a month, that was it, we decided that we did not want to live our lives in debt, under the guise of people who truly didn't care about us. We wanted to take back our own lives, to revisit our souls to understand how we can truly contribute to those and the land around us, to fight for a better life, of respect and gratitude for not only nature, but each other and those around us. Thus, we decided to trade our gas guzzling 2011 GMC sierra for a 1992 Toyota winnebago to live out of, and travel.
WHO ARE WE?
My name is Lauren, and recently with my partner, and our little shorkie Beanz, we have purchased and renovated a 1992 Toyota Winnebago Warrior that we recently travelled across Ontario and all the way out to Vancouver Island this past summer. We have both always shared a deep passion for adventure and travel. In addition, we have always discussed how we can lead more conscious lifestyles while still enjoying our many passions of hiking, backpacking, and travelling. Our recent travels before purchasing and renovating Moon took us to swimming with whale sharks in Los Cabos, Mexico, to surfing our favourite beaches in Dominical, Costa Rica, to volunteering at the Elephant Haven Sanctuary in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. We then made a conscious decision to seriously downsize our over consumerism lifestyle and focus on what is truly important in lives. We found that it is hard to balance the sort of lifestyles that we
want with 9-5 day jobs 5 days a week and decided that we do not want to reproduce capitalist traits of
individuality and Western 'success'.
want with 9-5 day jobs 5 days a week and decided that we do not want to reproduce capitalist traits of
individuality and Western 'success'.
ADVENTURE UPDATES
From Orillia, Ontario to Western Canada (June 2nd 2017)
After travelling across Costa Rica in a van for almost a month, living in quite small and confined spaces, yet enjoying the vastness of beauty simply outside of our sliding doors, from beaches, to national parks, to quite scary mountain roads, we realized that the van life could be the life for us. We started to question our possessions, the amount of space we lived in, thus, we are taking our sweet baby moon warrior to the Canadian Rockies.
(October 5th): We are back from travelling through the Rocky Mountains, and even taking our sweet Moon across the ferry to Vancouver Island! We needed a few new tires, and a new battery, but other than that it was all well on the mechanics end. We had an absolutely wonderful time, falling in love with so many different places, mountains, waterfalls, and trails. Now that we are back in Ontario, I am just working a little bit to save some money, slowly doing different projects on Moon (installing a wood stove and solar panels).
After travelling across Costa Rica in a van for almost a month, living in quite small and confined spaces, yet enjoying the vastness of beauty simply outside of our sliding doors, from beaches, to national parks, to quite scary mountain roads, we realized that the van life could be the life for us. We started to question our possessions, the amount of space we lived in, thus, we are taking our sweet baby moon warrior to the Canadian Rockies.
(October 5th): We are back from travelling through the Rocky Mountains, and even taking our sweet Moon across the ferry to Vancouver Island! We needed a few new tires, and a new battery, but other than that it was all well on the mechanics end. We had an absolutely wonderful time, falling in love with so many different places, mountains, waterfalls, and trails. Now that we are back in Ontario, I am just working a little bit to save some money, slowly doing different projects on Moon (installing a wood stove and solar panels).
"IT'S MORE ABOUT THE JOURNEY; LESS ABOUT THE DESTINATION"
"Fill your life with adventures, not things. Have stories to tell not stuff to show" |