I think it’s fair to say our first 2 months of traveling was a bit of a rush. We ran into this traveling South Africa thing head first and with no idea what we were doing. We had so much we wanted to do and see at certain times we just rushed to the next place without being able to fully take in what we are actually doing. I mean we’re traveling the whole of South Africa in a tiny caravan we named Bugs.
We soon realized planning every second was not going to fly, it puts too much pressure on us and we don’t get to fully enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we have. Planning too far ahead also doesn’t allow for any spontaneous adventures – and that does not work for us.
Getting to Namaqua to see the Namaqua flowers has always been on my bucket list. However, planning so far in advance to make it in time to see the flowers bloom and not thoroughly doing our research, didn’t leave us with much time to actually enjoy the sights before moving on to the next stop.
We were also quite pressed for time as we planned a month in Kruger National Park – more on this later – only 2 months after Namaqua and we still had so much to see and do in-between. It ended up being a lot of driving and quite costly. Thinking back now, we were just so exhausted and ended up just looking past the beauty around us and how stunning some of the places actually were that we visited. We really learned the hard way, slow travel is better. Take it easy, doing what we’re doing, there’s nothing chasing you – after taking on this mentality we have been able to enjoy ourselves so much more. We can extend our stay if we like a place. We don’t have to rush out and drive every day to explore, we can have lazy days, we can take some time to get to know other campers.
Every morning with our cup of coffee, we make sure to take some time, chat about it and just take in how lucky we are to be able to travel at such a young age – both under the age of 30.
So far most of our fellow campers we’ve met are quite a bit older and even more than that, wiser, and to date we have not met 1 person that hasn’t said they wish they could’ve started earlier.
If anyone asked us, we would both say “Nike”, just do it. We fully understand a lot if people aren’t able to work remotely, however, if you have the opportunity to live this kind of life – grab it with both hands and just do it. That being said, it’s not always easy, we’ve had some rough moments – bad roads, not-too-great campsites, big storms, but we wouldn’t change one thing – other than bringing our boy Boris with us.
