Traveling together as a couple, whether it’s in a bus, a van, on foot or by bike, is without a doubt the greatest relationship test out there. Before we started The Nomads Bus, we had been traveling around the world for two years on a budget of 9 euros a day per person. So, when we started this bus project we thought we knew each other pretty well. But just like with traveling, every situation or different environment you step into brings out new positive and negative sides. With the bus this was the same story and in the beginning we definitely had to find our way with each other, but also with running the hostel and the bus in general. Right now I can happily say that after living in the bus for 3 years, of which 2 years with guests, we definitely found our flow on the bus. We each have our own tasks and help each other when needed… and adding a kid to this equation is challenging at times, but most of time she is a little happy bundle of energy hopping around the bus.

Love grows best in little houses, with fewer walls to separate.
Where you eat and sleep so close together, you can’t help but communicate.
And if we had more room between us, think of all we’d miss.
Love grows best in little houses like this.

Kid on the road

So many people ask us when our daughter Fenna (now three years old) has to go to school. Somehow it is always a worry to them, like it would necessarily mean the end to our adventures. However, for us Fenna going to school is the least of our worries. Besides the fact that she is only mandatory to go to school from the age of 6 and we wouldn’t mind home schooling if needed, we’re sure things will work themselves out. Almost every day she has a new backyard, like all kids she is very curious about the world and always wants to learn more. For example, thanks to our international group of different guests every week, she now speaks English just as well as her native language (Dutch), something we never thought that would happen. Ski-school has been her version of pre-school this winter and on our road trips in Norway we have different girls who come on the bus as a ‘nanny’ to play with Fenna, for a week or longer, so we have an extra helping hand and Fenna gets the attention that she deserves.
Our situation is definitely not your ‘average’ lifestyle, but we truly believe that kids will always find happiness on the road as long as they can enjoy the outdoors and have someone who listens to them and joins them on their little adventures and big discoveries in life.

Life you don’t need a holiday from

Living in the 21st century opens up a lot of opportunities, the most important one being that we are in an age where you can create your own job if you can’t find a regular occupation that brings you happiness. Work shouldn’t feel like work. Or at least you should be able to wake up with excitement to start the day. That’s exactly why we started this project, because it was the perfect recipe to combine all our passions into a business that would truly bring us joy. So our simple advice is: don’t wait until the perfect job comes along, but figure out what you love to do and persist in finding a way to turn it into sustainable income. That might mean you have to travel for a while with an open mind trying out whatever brings you closer to your goal or it could mean taking the risk to follow your dreams and dare to commit to what makes you happy, even if that means you won’t make a lot of money at the end of the day. or it doesn’t bring you to the top of the social ladder.

Reality check: a few downsides and how to cope

In our case, following our dreams has definitely not been super easy, but we also think that struggles have been a big part of the beauty of pursuing our goals. The challenges on the road can give you such a feeling of connection: the strong vibe of teamwork, the support of the online community or total strangers showing their unexpected kindness. It’s during those hard times that we were reminded of our perseverance and to never take the beautiful things for granted. We might live in home of less than 25m2 with 8 adults, a kid and a dog, and things might break down from time to time (annoyingly at the most unexpected moments) but it never weighs out on all the unforgettable moments. We experience so many days we will never forget, we get to meet different people from all over the world, like minded people, while traveling with our own home. We’re sharing our own comfort zone with everyone who dares to hop on board and be a part of our nomads family for a week or longer. It’s something you can only truly understand by being a part of our adventure. But in short: whatever we will do in life, whatever the struggles are along the way, thanks to sharing these with others, finding solutions together and most of all creating memories together there will never be anything in the world that could stop us from making crazy dreams come true.

Everything happens for a reason. Maybe it’s not the fanciest quote in the world but these are words our little family lives by. It’s by realising that things are what they are and the situation is what it is, that you enjoy every moment to the fullest and if it’s not how you like it to be, you can do something about it. Your life is in your hands.

FOOD BONUS :)

The ultimate recipe for a spicy adventure

Favorite dish on the bus

For 8 people (you never know whom might join for dinner, or you have some nice lunch the next day… )

ingredients

• 6 red peppers (the pointy sweet ones)
• 2 red onions
• 1 big can of corn
• paprika powder
• 3 red chillis
• dried chilli powder
• cumin powder
• 4 (400g) cans of chopped tomatoes
• 3 stock cubes
• 4 (400g) cans of red beans
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Worcester sauce
• basmati rice (or a rice of your choice)
• grated cheese
• creme fraiche
• tabasco

NOTES: A good amount = don’t be afraid to add too much, just add whatever makes you happy.
Val loves to make this after breakfast when everyone gets ready for their outdoor adventures, so it can soak up all the beautiful flavours all day and you can eat it straight when you come back inside at the end of the day. Basically the only thing you will have left to do is to cook some rice and reheat the pan.

1. Fry the chopped onions in some oil in a cast iron (or normal) sauce pan and when they turned golden add the chopped red peppers with a good amount of Worcester sauce.
2. While these are frying chop the red chilli. To keep your hands from getting chilli and rubbing it in your eyes, just chop off the green stems and chop the rest up without touching the cilli, you don’t have to take out the seeds). Add these to the pan together with a bit of chilli powder a good amount of paprika powder and cumin powder.
3. When this starts to look good add the chopped garlic, the cans of tomatoes, the beans with their juices, the corn with its juices and the 3 cubes of garlic, some pepper and salt.
4. Bring it to a boil and then turn down the heat and put a lid on the pan, the longer it cooks on low heat the better. Don’t forget to stir once in a while and feel free to add some water when you prefer the chilli to be more liquid.
5. Whenever you are 30 minutes before serving dinner add 4 small cups of rice to a pan with 8 small cups of water. Put this on the stove with a lid on it and turn off the fire as soon as you hear the water boil. Especially basmati rice will continue to cook without the need for more heat. And as a bonus you will keep more minerals in the rice this way, and save gas in your van ;). Whenever the rice is done add a good scoop of rice with 2 scoops of chilli to a bowl for each guest and enjoy :).
6. You can put some cheese, tabasco and creme fraiche on the tabel so everyone can top it up themselves for the ultimate spicy food adventure.

Ps: This post is to show that we are here to stay on Steemit. We invested a lot of money in Steem (for us) these last days to make sure we would be able to reach the trending page. And yes ofcourse we used bidbots. You have no chance to reach this page otherwise. I am on here for almost 9 months and this is just the way it needs to be done these days to get noticed. I definitely hope this will change in the future and this will be my only post that I promote so hard (unless something exceptional comes up in the future and I have more money to invest). We put a lot of work in our vlogs, blogs, photos and videos and are basically super proud of what we have achieved.

Ps: And yes, I am also a huge fan of @steemmonsters, I makes me feel like a kid again. Oh, the anticipation, so good!!