What Are You Waiting For? Drive Your Adventure We-Van Competition

We've written more elsewhere about how grateful we are to have finally taken a career break, how much we are learning from the new experiences and the people we meet.  We'd thought about taking a break to travel for some time but it took a serious health scare to finally push us into the decision.  We'd allowed worries and fears of what might be in the future stop us from seizing the moment in front of us.  It wasn't until we were on the road that we saw experiences and possibilities open up that we never could have thought of or planned for and, as we have written more about recently, on reflection, we could have gone a lot sooner if we'd really wanted to.  That is why we feel really excited and wanted to share the 'Drive Your Adventure' competition for an expenses paid 6 month VW camper tour of Europe currently being offered by WeVan to begin in April this year.

Of course, the competition itself is exciting especially for the person that wins it so we'd encourage people to enter before it closes next week (23rd February). However, what we find really inspirational about competitions like these are that they provide a great opportunity for anyone daydreaming or even anyone already seriously considering an adventure to have a good look at what obstacles really do stand in their way and what obstacles are really excuses.  For us, what had held us back were unfounded fears about the future, mainly around would we have enough money and our future employment opportunities.  This is because our outlook was based on our past experiences.  We've written more about this elsewhere, but in short there is so much we just couldn't have planned for, and maybe most importantly we could never have imagined just how much we'd change as people.

That is why we think it is the process of thinking about and applying for a competition like this that is really the most valuable part.  Looking into the competition and planning an entry might give the final push from 'just thinking or daydreaming about' a tour like this to becoming something you just can't stop thinking about and if it does then you can sit down and work out what's really is holding you back.  If, for example, it turns out through working on the entry that it really is only the lack of a van that is the issue, then there are plenty of people out there touring in cheap, self-built vans to show that it can be done - check out vandogtraveller.com for instance.

Years ago we read a blog post about a group that had driven a London taxi from the UK to Australia and the described how long they had looked for sponsorship and support but eventually decided just to make it happen themselves, self-funding a large part of it because it's what they really wanted to do. It's a lesson that's stayed with and that we feel even more strongly now we finally took the plunge ourselves. As we've said, we now know that we could have gone much sooner but always found excuses that held us back for many years.  We've now met so many people travelling in so many different ways and on so many different budgets, any worries about getting it 'right' or having regrets if weren't doing it a certain way, we feel were completely unfounded.

We found out about the 'Drive Your Adventure' competition offered by We-Van through Twitter and having had a small search there seem to be quite a few other travel competitions.  We'd really recommend you check out the competition as reading the presentation about it, really got our inspirational juices following again.  If your inspirational juices are already in full flow and you've been thinking about a European camper tour then put in an entry! Yes, there's only going to be one winner of this competition, but not only do you have to be in it to have a chance of winning but you never know by putting together your entry you might end up getting much more.  I've listened to a talk recently in which the speaker said that when people say they'll think about or considering an idea when it comes to them, they very rarely find the time in their busy schedule to sit down, blocked out some time to just focus and really think the idea through.  So maybe by committing to submitting an entry you might discover what's holding you back and start to see what things you'd need to change for you to decide to act on your ideas and dreams.

As our own current adventure comes to an end, we've also found ourselves thinking about entering some of these competition.  Finding out about this 'Drive Your Adventure' competition in particular, has for us catalysed the realisation that although we've really enjoyed staying put a lot more this past year, we're now ready to start touring ourselves again.  We've benefited in so many ways this year from not touring as much - not just the people we've met, communities we've been welcomed into and the experiences we've had but particularly because we've had the space and time to work out many issues from our past which were still holding us back in many ways.  We wouldn't have changed a thing about our adventure so far and are grateful for not just the good but also the bad times, from which we've learnt many extremely valuable lessons about ourselves.

But we are now ready to go touring again, we've realised that we've seen and experienced only a tiny fraction of Europe and the many beautiful places and cultures it has to offer.  For some people their dreams might take them to continents further afield, but we've realised just how much beauty and variety Europe has to offer and that just because it's on the doorstep is often overlooked. Within such a relatively small area there is incredible variety and richness in natural beauty and wildlife as well as cultures and so much history.  And there are now so many travel options making these areas accessible for short, medium and longer-term stays.  But for us next year if we do go touring again, unlike our first adventure when it was all about what we could 'get' from of our travels, we want our tour to be about more than what we personally see and do.  We want to share how beautiful life is and also use what we have learnt this year to travel in a community minded way.  Asking ourselves, even if we only stay for a day or two, what we can offer to the local community we temporarily part of, how can we help other travellers we meet on the road or what can we share and contribute to the wider motorhome touring community.