I want to wish you all a happy new year. I hope that this year brings us all wonderful and exciting adventures. This year I am hoping to travel to Europe to see my family and friends. It has been a very long time since I have seen them all. I also plan to do more travelling around Australia with House and Pet Sitting and I am saving hard to buy a new minivan.
The year started off with looking after Alma. She is a beautiful Ragdoll cat. This will be the second time I have looked after her. I am currently back with Jasper, the oriental cat till the end of January and then in February I have two new clients (cats).
I have been following Tamsun for a few months now. Tamsun is an Earth Based Practitioner who has a background in Holistic Counselling and Complimentary Therapies, Neurolinguistic Programming and Hypnotherapy, Reiki, and Crystal Healing.
Tamsun uses a holistic and eclectic approach in guiding you to sacred grounds through the services she provides. She travels around Australia with her adorable cat “Kali” in their motorhome,” Kalypso”.
I started following Tamsun because I was so interested in the Van life and the fact that she’s in Australia made it even more interesting for me. I like how she shares her Van life journey as well as gives great and useful advice. She also talks about Self-care, Earth Based Mindfulness (EBM) & Destination Sacred Grounds retreats where Self-Care & Personal Growth meets EBM out in the wonderful elements of nature.
If you are thinking of living the Van Life or are already there, I totally recommend you follow Tamsun. She has an awesome You Tube Vlog channel which she started over a year ago and she has just recently published an e-book, The Weary Travelers Guide to Self-Care’.
For travellers who spend great lengths of time on the road. After working 20 years community services, 2020 was the year I hit the road to live a full-time nomadic lifestyle. Why? Because I was burnt out and recognised there was more to life than what I was living. I knew I was destined for a life of less stress but that didn’t mean I could let go of the self-care practices I had developed over the years. If anything, I had to fine tune them to fit the nomadic, on the road life.
After speaking with many others living on the road, I recognised they too could benefit from a guide to self-care hence why I’ve put together this e-book.
This e-book is for you if:
You’re currently living on the road, preparing to live on the road or spend a great deal of time driving and;
You feel like you’ve:Gone off the beaten track
The road ahead is way too steep, Your lost and not sure how to find the way back
This is not a book to glaze over, skim through or be used as kindling for your fire. This e-book covers a series of check-ups (self-enquiries), tune-ups (meditation practises) and a restock of your toolkit (self-care plan). It has been designed to bring your attention to the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of self. What it will require is a dedicated presence to know your vehicle, become familiar with your own unique navigation system and manoeuvre those sometimes tricky and hazardous roads. By doing so I hope to empower you to be an expert driver on the roads you travel.
These last couple of years (during two Covid lockdowns) I have been thinking about so many things like where is it that I want to be? who do I want to be? why am I here? and what is my life’s purpose. One of the things that I have been dwelling on was my living situation and I have concluded that I will never be able to own my own home, well not in Sydney anyway. I have always told myself that I would never get myself into a mortgage, that I wanted to be a free spirit and not have to owe money to the banks for the rest of my life.
Well moving forward to now, owning your own home is not such a bad idea, but the average homeowner is a married couple or very smart people who know how the property market works, and that was not me.
Ever since I moved out of home at a very young age of sixteen, I never stay in the one place for very long. I remember one time I counted the amount times I had moved house and back then I did not know it, but now I can see the pattern. I have lived with so many people in share accommodation, with partners and best friends, then finally I was able to afford to have my very own place, but still renting, of course.
I have always tried to avoid paying high rent. What a waste of money, but if you are in the same position as I am, and I know there are many of us, owning a home is far out of our reach.
In 2018 when we had the first Covid lockdown, not much changed for me. I work from home already, so I did not need to go out to work and going to the local shopping centre to buy grocery, I would always clean the handle of the trolley or the basket so that was not new to me. I was just happy that everybody else was doing the same.
To be honest, I really enjoyed the lockdown, I know that sounds crazy, but it gave me time to catch up on so many things. One of those things was watching loads of movies and many hours spent on You Tube.
It was during this time that I found myself watching a lot of Van life clips. A good friend of mine lives this lifestyle. I saw how they completely transformed their empty van to a fully functionally home on wheels. I must admit, I was very impressed. This is when I started thinking on whether I could live this lifestyle. I mean, I already know that I will never be able to afford to buy a house, though the bank will never give me a loan anyway, but do I still want my own house? Or could I see myself living in a nice big van and just traveling to places and not have to stay in the one place for two long. Now, that sounds appealing, I must admit.
So, the more I watch and learned about the Vanlife, the more fascinated I was. The one thing that I keep asking myself is, What about my work? How do I take that with me? So, I have decided that I will not jump into it too quickly and I think the best option for me is to first hire a van and take it from there. I will let you know how I go but I really want to mention two people who live this lifestyle. One is my friend that I just mentioned. They have started their You Tube channel. Do check it out HERE
The other channel I have enjoyed watching is by Tamsun from Destination Sacred Grounds. Her van is Kalypso, and her traveling companion is Kali the cat. Please check out her channel HERE
