Living the nomad life

Three months Norway have passed in a blink and last week we said goodbye to this amazing country. We felt strange when crossing the border because Norway left an incredible impression. The same thing happened after we left Portugal. The nature in Norway is truly overwhelming. 

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Every day we still realise how lucky we are! We have seen many countries in our life.  Because of this we are able to compare a little. The question which we asked ourselves was, which country impressed us the most, based on nature? Ten years ago, we traveled through New Zealand. Still our number one destination. The diversity in New Zealand is enormous. Our number two is Norway. Many incredible hikes are available, it never ends. It doesn’t matter where you are, you can open any app for hikes and you will find many trails available. Even if there are many famous hikes in Norway, the spontaneous ones are always the best. Great views, surroundings and sky-high mountains without mass tourism. 

Slowly we drove down to the southern part of Norway. By doing that we passed through Trondheim. The coolest city in the country in our opinion. A student city with an incredible vibe. Relaxed and with a lot of possibilities. The industrial architecture in combination with water everywhere gave this place a perfect mix.

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We visited so many nature parks and areas as we driving towards Oslo, it would take to much time to write everything down. We didn’t want to stop exploring. We always do volunteer work for a couple of weeks when we are in a country for a longer period. But even that we skipped. It’s strange because we love to help out, meet new people and learn more about the culture of a country. We were just too eager to see it all. We also met a Dutch couple, Brian and Shanna and traveled around a lot together. Always nice to meet others travelers with the same mindset. We had great talks and hikes. Brian and Shanna, Thank you for the great time

Close to Bergen, we picked up our friend Jeffrey. He joined us for a week. We kayaking on a glacier lake and climbed (with a guide) the glacier. One of does things we will never forget. Jostedalsbreen glacier is the biggest one in Europe, almost 500km2. Together with Jeff, Stephen also walked the Bessengen trail. It was a long and hard hike so we decided that it would not be suitable for Morgan.

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In April 2019 we had sold our house and started our nomad life. Our lives have changed so much in the past 2,5 years and we feel we don’t want to go back to the old routines. How do we feel after 2,5 years traveling? What will the future bring? When you have more spare time you are able to think more about the important stuff in life. Exploring cultures and many different parts of this world made us reflect our thoughts. Taking care of the planet starts by doing it yourself. How do we consume (focus on second hand), eating (no meat and fish) and how can we anticipate a better world. In our future company, which we will start next year, one of the focus points will be sustainability. Stephen is in the final phase of a study about this topic. We care about our beautiful planet earth so wo need to be kind to it.

Money will always be an important part of life. The good thing for us is that we don’t need much.  Our standard of living is different from 2,5 years ago. We want to combine work with the freedom of new experiences. We are super happy like this. The last 6 months have been a good test. We worked, studied and enjoyed the world around us. We have the luxury of time and are able to explore this beauty called earth together. We are not planning to buy a big house, small is good enough. We are going to look for something like a tiny house, boat or whatever comes around. A project for next year.

We realise the importance of family and friends, which is why we want to spend more time in the Netherlands. But………..first our adventure in the French Alps! We hope we are able to combine work and traveling in the future. The biggest doubts we have are regarding Morgan and schooling. For now, we manage well. We teach Morgan the “ordinary” things and she is surrounded by a worldwide school. Making friends is more difficult while traveling and that will be a focused for us. For now, she is doing very well and is a happy kid. Just like us

In November we will be back in the Netherlands for a couple of weeks. The first of December we will start working in the French Alps and we are really looking forward to it. We were able to arrange a school for Morgan to attend 4 days a week. She will intergrade at a French school (new language skills are on the way) in the village. Some kids to play again! We hope she will start realising that we are not such a tough teachers in the end. We are sure it will be a great time in the snow. Maybe even new thoughts, new ideas. Our life is never boring, let’s see what the future brings….

Hope everybody is doing well. Big hug!