I'm Back

Hello Eco Family,

I am slowly coming back after a long period of confusion, introspection and time off from everything.

As I have mentioned briefly in previous posts and videos, after a month on the road I had a big existential crisis (read about it here), and only now I really understand why that was happening. These last 3 months have given me so much insight into my behaviour, my goals, my projects and my believes, and I probably needed to go through all the internal struggle to arrive at this point and time, where I might start to see things clearly.

In a nutshell I didn't have a clue about what I was getting myself into when I left London, I had a project, I had a serious plan, I thought I knew was I was doing, and yet the further from it was true. The incredible amount of things to process was simply too much for me to wrap my head around, and the very high standard of expectation I had forced upon myself was driving me crazy.

At first the novelty of the travelling, the meeting new people every few days, documenting the whole process and seeing so many supporting our lifestyle was a breath of fresh air, I was walking on cloud nine. I couldn't believe I was able to live the life of my dreams. But like all dreams, sooner or later you have to wake up!

And so after 40 days of really intense travelling, changing country every few days, feeling the responsibility of videoing every second, and post every few hours on different socials, and listening to critics and concerns from people, started bubbling something inside me.

When we arrived in Serbia we finally had the chance to slow down, which was great, but it brought a whole different bag of problems. I was feeling extremely guilty about so many things: the fact that I wasn't enjoying the creative process as much anymore and I started seeing it as a very demanding job, the fact that I didn't feel I was delivering very good value to people, the fact that the numbers on the socials were not improving much and most of all the fact that I couldn't face disappointing people if I decided to step down. So I kept going, I attributed my tiredness to the travelling, and to the new lifestyle, but I didn't know that it was just the tip of the iceberg.

We were enjoying our new friends so much that we decided to cancel our payed trip to Russia and abandoned the idea of visiting Mongolia and China during the summer. This was incredibly difficult for me to get over, because I had a whole itinerary planned, I made arrangements with people online, and I publicly announced multiple times that that was our intention.

But I had to admit to myself that the bureaucratic process as well as the means of transportation were stressing me out a lot. I would spend hours figuring out how to get from one place to another, when and how we had to do the visas, and I constantly hit walls because not all countries are well connected, not all visa processes are straight forward and the world is not really accommodating for foot travel.

So I felt bad and sad and guilty about it for weeks, I was afraid of what people would have thought of us changing our minds after only 2 months on the road, I was terrified people weren't going to take us seriously anymore. I was scared everyone would think we had failed at this endeavour and just threw the towel when things started not going our way. I was getting really restless and tired and the more I was physically tired, the more I felt confused and demoralised within me.

I reached a point I was so incredibly unhappy, all in the space of few weeks. I didn't know what I was doing anymore, I didn't know who I was doing it for, I just knew I wanted all of it to go away.

That's when I announced I was taking a break, not really knowing how long the break was going to be for, and I cancelled all my social media apps and I still haven't been on Facebook or Instagram since then.

All of a sudden a weight was lifted, I wouldn't wake up in the morning concerned our followers wouldn't be there, I wouldn't have to spend hours planning content, answering comments, interacting on groups and forums: I was free!

We ended up staying in Serbia for 3 months, moving half way through our stay to some other friends and helping them with their land and their project. I had the best time ever, enjoying the countryside, learning to play the guitar, making their website and painting walls and building things. I didn't pick up the camera once, I didn't open our website not even for a second and I tried to forget all about it.

When it was time to leave Serbia we decided to go to Tuscany to my summer house, which has brought another great deal of issues for me to work through. I was so excited to see familiar faces, and spending time at the last place on Earth I consider home, but that actually confused me even more than being at strangers' homes.

Here I couldn't hide, I couldn't pretend I wasn't lost and confused, because everyone around me wanted to know what I was doing, and what the plan was, and why we decided to do what we did, and how we are going to make it.

Since Adam doesn't speak Italian, it was always down to me to try and give others a breakdown of our decision process, but nothing ever seems to please them, and the common reaction was them thinking we weren't doing anything, that we are lucky and living a great life almost out of no effort whatsoever. I don't blame them because talking superficially about full time travel seems like a naive dream of young kids who know nothing about the real world, and that decided to go on holiday for a while and call it a lifestyle, without "having responsibilities" and not thinking it through.

What people don't understand, and what I didn't even understand is that this lifestyle that seems dreamlike comes at a great great price: freedom isn't free! You have to re-arrange your life and be extremely adaptable and flexible, to the point of almost accepting whatever comes your way in order to maintain this status quo. I don't have a stable place to sleep, I don't have my friends and family around me, I don't have a routine, I don't always have all the comforts and luxuries that come from living in a European capital.

We have to work extremely hard to make all of this possible, we have had to change our plans on a day to day basis and deal with the emotional stress that it brought, and dealing with so many people who don't understand what we are doing at all and move away from those who instead were brothers and sisters to us.

I realised that when you live an alternative lifestyle you are always going to generate curiosity, and while most people are polite enough to keep the questions and the debate to a respectful level, others are just set to be right and they keep digging until they see you bleed and stuck in a corner where you have to admit you don't have everything figured out.

But that doesn't work with me because I am the first one to admit I don't have the answer to everything, I am not always consistent, I change my mind hundreds of times, I am not perfect in my attempts, and I am not even trying to be. I am a very flawed, emotional, selfish person, and sometimes I cheat, I lie, I get lazy, I am human just like anybody else.

And that is when I had my epiphany: I didn't embark on this journey to demonstrate something to others, I don't want praise, fame or recognition, I am doing it because it makes me happy! Emotionally I had to touch the bottom of the barrel to begin resurfacing, I was really defeated, incredibly lost, I barely recognised the initial project in our recent events, I haven't been healthy, nor too concerned about the planet, and it sucked. I struggled so much because I wanted to inspire others and it created so much pressure to be successful, be always happy, and it didn't give me the space I needed to make mistakes and adjust to this new lifestyle.

But what the last 4 months have taught me is that the world is a wonderful, interesting place, full of kind and incredible people, and that money is not everything and when you really need it, you are going to find it. I have faith in our project, I believe we are going to succeed, and I am excited to see how.

It is not easy, it it not perfect, it's not what they sell to you on social media, and I learnt it very quickly.

Even with all it flaws, I love our life! I am so grateful for everything that I get to experience everyday, for all the supporters and faithful followers, for the people who house us and interview us and ask us questions and want to see more content from us, from the Patreons who donated money to our cause, for everyone who takes time to read our blogs and watch our videos.

I hope that everyone can find it in their hearts to see that we are two people who decided all of a sudden to revolutionise their lives and chase a dream. We are going through this process the best we can, trying to make it work with the circumstances we are given. We have good days and bad days, we lose faith and get confused and tired and disheartened as much as any other person tying to build a business from scratch, but we are not giving up!