This week, we have mostly been spending time with the sort of wonderful people who send letters like this. We love them, we’ve missed them and we are trying to cram in as much time as possible with each and every one of them. London has greeted us with more warmth than we could reasonably expect. Hence, I’m afraid there is no blog post this week. I promise an especially mega one on Tuesday.
From London, with love x
Eleven years ago, I left a little town in Sri Lanka with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I’d been there two months and fallen in love with the place and its people. Multiply that feeling by a hundred and you have how I feel today, leaving San Pancho behind. Read more
I’ll be straight up with you. Writing this post was a pickle.
Clarity has been like a soap in the bathtub – I can see it but it slips away with every grasp. Trying to write it down has filled this page six times over and led to picking apart.
Only one thing is sure: when the mind falters from yes to no and every shade in-between within the space of 24 hours, it’s definitely not decision time. Read more
‘Life-changing’ is mega high acclaim in my books. Of course, the pedant in me could argue that everything is life-changing, but when I use it, I’m referring to those memorable moments of awakening that shift your consciousness and alter your path perceptibly.
The day I watched The Constant Gardner was one of those moments. I was shortly due to graduate from university and was lounging around in my student house in Camberwell, pondering the question ‘what next?’ A masters degree in dialects of English, a course in children’s literature, a teaching programme, a journalism course – my options were wide and diverse, but nothing had truly stuck. Read more
There’s something I can’t get off my mind.
I return to my ‘blog post ideas’ list but nothing takes my fancy. How to couchsurf safely, why animo is such an awesome word, and an ever-growing list of why we love San Pancho. They’ll come one day, but it’s hard to focus on anything else when the mind is consumed.
Those of you who read our newsletter may be able to guess what it is – the mega idea that’s got me doing sums, scouring Pinterest and abseiling down jungle slopes.
I didn’t want to mention it until a decision had been made, but it turns out that could take a while, so in place of a looming silence or forced words, I’ll share our story with you. Read more
It’s 365 days since we stepped out of our empty London home onto the early morning streets of Peckham and made our way to Rio. Twelve months and twelve countries later, we’re in Mexico with no intention of stopping our travels. It’s been an epic year and, short of reading the blog in its entirety, I think the best way to tell it is in photos… Read more
I’m writing this from the roof terrace of my new home, surrounded by palms, fuchsia pink flora and the sounds of tropical birds. Later, I’ll walk three minutes to the beach to watch the sunset as surfers catch waves in the evening light, and volunteers release baby turtles into the ocean. On my way I’ll pass new friends – bartenders, artists, musicians. When you walk through San Pancho, Mexico, it’s as though the whole village smiles. Read more
Salma eats fish for breakfast, Denny drinks whisky and Lorna sits in prayer. I eat cereal, and cake on Mondays. We all like biscuits. They say C2s buy bourbons and live in flats, and C1s earn £30,000+ and eat out twice a week. Averages frustrate me; we’re all exceptions. Read more
This time last year, our journey was still a dream. I had another couple of months at work, we needed to find tenants for our house and the number 2012 was still synonymous with the Olympics. Now, twelve months later, that number has come to symbolize the year the dream came true.
Choosing to travel was a massive ingredient that helped make 2012 one of the best years of our lives. In our next post, we’ll look at what else helped create that, but today we wanted to celebrate our travel highlights from the past 12 months.
During that time, we’ve been to six countries in South America, as well as separate trips to India, Europe and the US, and now Mexico (which you’ll be hearing a lot more about soon as we’ve fallen for it head over heels). In the meantime, we’re limiting this list to our highlights from South America. Here’s the top 15 in no particular order. Read more
Lying back into Steve’s arms, listening to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes around a beach fire as new and dear friends danced around in the sand under the starry sky, I smiled and started to think that perhaps Christmas could be okay again.
Then, out of the shadows, appeared a girl crying to one of our friends: “You have to come, quickly, your dog just killed another dog.” The animal I had been stroking just moments before had attacked a holidaymaker’s pet. It died on its owner’s leash. Chaos ensued, tears were shed, and the owners decided to use the beach fire as a pyre for their deceased pet.
Together we built up the flames, and the party became a funeral. For me, this wasn’t the first time that death had come at Christmas. Read more
We are Victoria and Steve, a writer/yoga teacher and filmmaker from London, who decided to start living the life we want to rather than the life we thought we should.
We’ve been working and travelling around the world since March 2012. Follow us for travel tips and inspiration as we journey, write, film, volunteer, couchsurf, retreat and ponder our way round this planet.
