Tucked away in a hidden corner of Brittany, France, we discovered these little gems. Small, enchanting cottages, sculpted by hand from hemp and limestone. The conceiver of this spectacle is Evelyn Adam, who has a strong vision about how living simple, yet warm and comfy, can bring us back to our natural state of being in connection with nature.
On the last day before leaving Portugal we met Leen. She is building a cob house on a hill by experimenting with different techniques. She’s showing us the way she saw a good functioning building method in India. She learned it all using Facebook and Youtube. The elements are wool, sand, clay, water, stones. All available nearby. Why she wants to build like this has all to do with the fires. She realizes she wants to live in a natural building that will survive fires and exists for ages. This way her ecological footprint will be smaller. [...]
Bees, waterfalls, fruit trees, yurtlife on steep hills, a messy garden, rawness and feline cuteness! All in Magic Valley where Haico and Else worked hard to create a place to not only reduce their ecological footprint, but to give something positive back to the earth. It took us a long time to release this video, and in the meantime a lot has changed. The dream is still very much alive, but in a different format. Haico about this video: “You can see the build-up of our land in the summer of 2018. Our first year! What a lovely time. So [...]
Brice Mathey is the conceiver of the Love-Shack concept. They’re impossible to define, but think Hobbit houses, rock ‘n’ roll and ecological living. Put those in a blender, add a dollop of silliness and there you have it. Love-Shack cottages. We joined Brice to build the 4th iteration. Watch us dig positive energy into the earth, while putting Brice’s most important lesson into practise: Above all, sustainability should be FUN! Find the Love-Shacks on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LoveShack777/
Wendy Howard is the personification of resilience. In 2008 she decided to escape the rat race and start a sustainable permaculture project in Benfeita, Portugal. Fast forward ten years and there is a blooming site where many aspects of the permaculture philosophy came together. Then disaster struck in the form of forest fires. In 2017, about half of the project got destroyed. Wendy tells us about the inner guidance she experiences and how she still has a strong sense that she needs to be here, in Portugal. She is rebuilding everything, and after a grim winter, things are looking good [...]
Meet Brice in his beautiful habitat in French Britany. He's taking you on a journey in which you'll learn all about plastering with clay being the wonderful, strong, smooth natural material as main ingredient. Not only you'll get to know the Japanese style tools he's using, he's also showing step-by-step how to mix the plaster and how to bring it on the inside of the hobbit houses.
Who says bread making has to involve strenuous kneading? It doesn’t have to be like that! Michel teaches us how to make sourdough rye-bread. The great thing about his recipe is there is no kneading involved. The preparation of this bread is done in 10 minutes. Here is the list of ingredients: 590 grams / 1.3 pound of rye flour 540 ml / 18.3 fl oz of water 13 grams / 0.46 oz of salt 6 grams / 0.21 oz of sourdough bread starter TL;DW Mix all the ingredients. Put in breadform and leave in a warm place to rise [...]
We were tired and in need of rest when Mount of Oaks came on our path. This intentional community is all about slowing down, simplicity and sustainability. The right place in the right time for us! Their residents believe that living simpler will yield more happiness. Yes, it may be less comfortable, but that trade-off is worth it. We talk to Emma Cowan about the ideals behind this place and Barbara da Nova Leite Cowan shows us the natural buildings: made with straw bales, cob, wattle-and-daub and empty beer bottles…! Check out Mount of Oaks here! [...]
Welcome in our Greeny-in-Betweeny! Say what?! Yes, this is how we named our van after being on the road for a couple of months already. It was about time to give our dear home on wheels a name, like real #vanlifers. ;-). Why have we chosen this name? It’s explained in this new vlog! In this tour through the van we feature how we can shuffle our beds from nighttime setting to daytime use, how we make use of our tiny kitchen and how we create our office to work on our project while using the solar panels. Have fun [...]
This video is edited with solar power in our mobile office. We are happy to show you around in our solar setup! With many thanks to Peter from Independent solar solutions for all his input and installation-advice. Questions about solar panels on your camper van? https://independentsolarsolutions.nl Questions about vanlife? Ask us!
We’re sowing and growing! Dracula makes space for a permaculture garden here at this crazy castle. Meet Sina and Michel, who’ve just landed at this place where they’re setting up their garden project. Being here you can’t escape a bit of craziness flowing through your veins, but working with mother nature will ground us again. Have fun watching another episode in this Finding A Better Way To Live journey! Visit Project Which?Garden with Sina & Michel: http://whichgarden.org/ https://fb.com/WhichGarden/
Stomping around in a heap of horse dung. It’s not something I do every day. But when making natural bricks (so called adobes) this is a necessary part of the process. We have gathered in Happy Valley in Benfeita, Portugal, where Prem and Roshni are building a bathroom with natural materials. Part of the walls will be made from a natural type of brick called ‘adobe’. These bricks are made from a mix of clay, sand, straw and some lovely horse dung. According to Bruno, who is teaching us how to make the bricks, the horse dung helps to provide [...]
Deep in rural Belgium we found a hidden valley: Shangri-Lah. Peter and Mieke turned it into … yes, into what? Words fail to describe. An attempt: Furby meets spirituality meets the Efteling. Or perhaps: a mystical, harmonious valley. But then again, the spiritual vibe here also invited us to meet some of the darker, unharmonious vibes in ourselves. This place strangely touched us. We felt at ease, yet also emotional. We can neither share this experience fully with words, nor with video. If your curiosity is tickled: Go here to stay some nights in a trippy cabin and experience the [...]
This sustainable eco house at the Hobbitstee uses mostly locally sourced materials. This is great because it cuts down on transport emissions. We help out for a weekend and learn about cob-plastering. Hobbitstee: https://www.facebook.com/Hobbitstee/ http://www.dehobbitstee.org/ Daan Ooms Ecobouw: https://daanooms.nl/
Van de zon was geen straal te ontdekken op de dag dat wij onze zonnepanelen gingen installeren. Gelukkig zit er in ons netwerk een vriend met een overdekte werkplaats. Terwijl de regen op het dak kletterde stalden wij ons aangeschafte waar uit om aan de slag te gaan. Een week hiervoor spraken we met Peter de Vries van het bedrijf Independent Solar Solutions. Wij leerden zijn bedrijfje kennen via de zus van Peter, een vriendin van ons. Independent Solar Solutions is gespecialiseerd in zonnepaneel installaties op campers en boten. Het leuke aan deze start-up is dat ze uitgebreide support bieden, [...]
From the French Morvan with Love, our very first #vanlife vlog! ;-) Hi dear folks! Remember that we’ve announced our crazy plan with a campervan not too long ago? Well, since then we’ve spend many conversations about how we can at one hand convert our van in a sustainable way and at the same time use our short time before departure well by choosing for what’s fast, easy and basic. We’ve learned a lot from this process and feel open to share about our dilemmas and questions along the route of converting our van before we’ve hit the road. So [...]
See how we help our friend fixing the cute little wooden trailer. And meet Chris to get to know her more back to basic lifestyle living in her Yurt. Together this cozy community brings life back to it's essence.
After investing a little bit of your time, you will live greener and more ethical for the rest of your life. What is this magical tip? Watch the video to find out. We followed this tip for ourselves recently and will tell you more about that in a future update.
We visit Hans Roverts, who turned a ruin into a magical house using natural and salvaged materials. 'Shortage stimulates creativity' is his motto. He also does initiations to help boys become men. He calls his project 'De Natuurlijke Tijd' or 'Natural Time'. Find Hans on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/denatuurlijketijd
We visited Nynke and Benjamin, who live in a Yurt in the Netherlands. Learn all about why they do this, and why they persist despite the challenges they face.
Ecolonie houses a vibrant, ecological community. While cycling through France we came across this fascinating place where co-founder Henk-Jan de Blaauw shared his vision on living in an integrative way. Click here for the website of ECOlonie.
Our amazing introduction video. No need for more words. Just watch it.
We visit Strowijk Nijmegen IEWAN. These are actually council flats, but not your usual crappy appartments. No no, these are state-of-the art straw-bale structures, with a focus on sustainability, chock-full of features to reduce the impact on the planet. Visit IEWAN: http://www.iewan.nl/
Noortje and Jan-Willem are building a Tiny House in Rotterdam. In this video they show us all the cool features that make this house unique.
We are visiting Marjolein Jonker, who is one of the first in Holland to legally live in a Tiny House. She did a lot in working with local governments to get Tiny Houses on the map! In this video she shows her Tiny House and all its cool features. Visit Marjolein: http://marjoleininhetklein.com
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