Where will we go?

Youuuh, ok nomads, here is the place for "locations wishes", write here every places you're really willing to see and we'll pick up what's possible according to other people's wishes and to the weather/season!

I feel attracted by Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Romania, the whole Asia, Morocco, and South America.
What about you?

So after chating yesterday, we planned to start from south of France where we'll build our flex-yourte, then maybe shortly go to Switzerland so we can save some money to buy the material we need and to have something for rainy-days. Then following more or less the coast and the sun, we will go through the Balkans until Greece, and maybe until Turquia then.
That means that we'll be in France and Swiitzerland in september
Italy, Croatia, Bosnia in october (a short stay in Romania/Serbia would be interesting if we need to buy some musical instruments, but I think it's already quite cold there at this time!)
Greece for november, it's not cold there then!

Turqia in december maybe, but it doesn't seem warmer than Greece, a bit colder even, and well, I don't know if we will appreciate to be in a muslim country as we're mostly girls in our caravan! But here we're kind of stuck between war, the coldness and some hard-style-muslim countries. (I won't like it for a very long time I believe!) Should we take a ferry to Africa? Expansive with our buses. Should we go through Iran? There're many border problems there. Cyprus or Crete? Contourning Caspian sea by the north way? If we want to freeze to death that's the best idea ever. Staying in Greece? Well, I'm sure it's a very rich country despise their lack of money.

Conclusion, we can stay in Greece, or we can make it to one of the Mediterrannean island (Malta, Crete, Cyprus...), or we can go to Africa!

For an African tour we would need money, our people took everything from them so let's not ask them for more! >_< Once we will have started our adventure I will apply us to a found raiser: if it worked and if we feel like, let's go, if not, let's stay on our good old continent?
For sure an African tour would be a even greater adventure, just trying to picture it, my brain explode with potencialities!

So for the moment one thing is sure: it won't be so warm at the first place, take good warm cloths and a good sleeping bag! If you have some old blankets at home you don't need anymore, it would be very usefull for us! We will be a lot of people sleeping in the yourte so it shouldn't be that cold in but sleeping is too important for mental health for me to let you be freezing every nights! It just makes burns-out and anger more prone to come so please take it seriously: taking care of yourself is taking care of your tribe!
Don't worry, it won't be too cold neither, in the day the temperature will easily reach 20°.

So I wanted to write a long response on your email about the change of plans, but cant find the time right now.
While I agree with most parts (like making decisions and the car stuff) I am not sure about others, maybe just because of a lack of knowledge.
Dama and I have both a drivers licence but that alone wouldn't change much because you shouldn't rely only on us for moving, especially if we might go on a vacation or stuff like that.

The biggest issue I dont completly understand is that you would want to start on the canary islands.
This might just be due to a lack of knowledge so I have some questions:

Is there a cheap possibility to get there without an airplane? (I guess not?)
I saw a ferry but thats way more expensive.
Problem I see is that airplanes limit the stuff you could take along for a reasonable price. I would want to take my guitalele and others might want to bring an instrument too?

How well does wild camping work on these Islands and where exactly would you want to go?
I have never been there and only know that they are a big tourism destination. As it goes for most touristic places there are usually much more regulations when it comes to things like camping, and engaging with nature.

The biggest issue I see is, as it is with islands, that there is only so much traveling you can do there. Its maybe not the worst thing since the focus should be learning and teaching and to get to know each other less traveling stress might be helpfull.
Still I wonder how well the idea of traveling around and giving workshops in cities and stuff like that would work there? And if you ever get problems with local authorities for whatever reason, there is nowhere to escape, since I guess its all one municipality? Maybe some local adminstrators don't want a group of smelly gypsies wandering about their wonderful islands?

Another qestion is how long would you want to stay there anyways and where to head to afterwards? There is not really a good way to just follow the flow of traveling if you need to book a flight to somewhere.

A plus point is obviously the weather and as I heared there are some nice communities to be found around the islands?

That are just some thoughts on it.

I think it would be good if you would just give some more information about the islands, since you wrote you know them quite well already.
As for now I am not the biggest fan, but its "your" project and decisions need to be made and you can't expect to make everyone happy or even keep everyone on board.


All the Best
Fred

Hi!

Thanks for your answer! I'm happy to have reactions!
I hope some others will have a driver licence too, for the moment I still didn't get so many answers. Just a happy one from Rachel, we met there 2 winters ago! and another not focused on the destination but the equipement problem from Betty.
I have to say, if we are just a few people involved at the middle of june I think I'll have to cancel the whole thing, I don't want to make people go all this way for nothing! I can't "advertise" it while the project is in a big changing process like this neither, so it's a crossroad here for the project.
The decision doesn't rely on me only, it depends on each one of us, those who kept telling me they want to come. I proposed a way, it's up to everyone to tell me what they think about it and propose other options. The fact that this is a "decision by countdown" is only so we can go ahead, knowing where we go, who, how, etc...
To go back to the driver licence topic, we can always find solutions anyway, but if more people have one (on 15 people may be) we can breath easier about the equipement.

For the Canaria, let's give it shape of a guide!

How to go?

The cheapest way to go to the Canarias is boatchhikking! Many boats from all other Europe are going to the Canarias before heading down to Capo Verde, then to South America. September is a perfect time as they cross the Atlantic preferably on October and November because of the winds (but they can cross from september to febuary). You can do it flowing, or you can use websites like https://www.findacrew.net/ . You have more informations here: http://hitchwiki.org/en/Hitchhiking_a_boat .
The ferry is 150€, the planes prices are from 14€ with ryanair, depending on islands and dates. The price of a suitcase is generaly from 20€ to 30€ depending on which plane you choosed, and you can take a 40L backpack and a handbag, the guitarlele can be this handbag, you can stuck it on your bag, every hippy on the island did it so far without any trouble!

Camping?

As a friend said "there are more caves than people on these Islands!". Wild camping is easy, it's spain, and it's islands! The autorities are veeeery friendly! Really, it's hard not to like them! I never had troubles with them (All in all I spent 8 months there). The weather is good, and I know a few places where we can stay without being a problem.

Where?
When people hear "Canary Islands" they think of the big hotels etc. Actualy they are mostly on Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Fuerte Ventura and Tenerife, but in very limitated places: the big beachs with wind and/or sun. On every island there are a lot of big natural places and small villages of old local people. <3
There are 7 islands (and 1 more "completly natural"), everyone is quite different for its population and even the most touristical have very empty pieces of paradise.
-In Tenerife I stayed the whole month in some hippy-pirats beachs in a natural reserve not so far away from the tourists, we had a rainbow there.
-In Gran Canaria I also know a nice sand beach completly deserted on the weekdays and some locals coming in the week ends to party and camp.
-La Gomera also have a lot of tourists but almost only german wanderers, very ecofriendly, there are mostly no towns, it's reeeaaally beautiful, and there we can squatt everywhere: caves, towns, beachs, abandonned villages...
-La Palma, la isla boniiita! This is the hippiest island! Not so many tourists (but enougth to feed the artists!), a lot of travelers, "hippy stuffs" like permacultur, meditation, communities, musicians, etc... I know some very beautiful caves there and there are a few other spots where we can stay as long as we like.
-El Hierro which is preserved from tourists, with almost only locals. Easy to camp, and easy to walk the whole island. But we would need money to stay there.
-I've never been to Lanzarote and Fuerte Ventura but I heard about very nice places and huuuuge beachs.

The choice of the first Island will depend on your feelings, the prices, etc... it's another decision to make >< I precise if people want to already give their opinion: to go to La Palma directly for cheap by plane it's from Barcelona with Vueling, and it's not possible to go by plane (at least to a reasonnable price) to La Gomera and El Hierro. For the other islands, Ryanair is the cheapest. And I think it the same price to any island with the ferry.

Indeed we won't travel so much through space, but if we have all to hitchhikke anyway it can be better, especialy with the equipement. But in Islands the weather is special: it's wet in the north, hot in the south, and windy in the east, and the center is often a big volcano so coldish/cloudish/crazy so you have 5 very differents climats, so 5 different types of biosphere, and quite crazy landscapes, because it's volcanos, different kind of rocks and shapes, black sand beachs, white sand beachs, filled with sand from the Sahara that the wind bring until there, crazy sounding birds in febuary, crazy amount of shooting starts every nigths and rainbows in the days... Volcano islands also means that often when you go away from the beachs for 1km you already find yourself pretty high in altitude, a very healthy and sportive km to walk! You travel for sure in the Canarias!


Workshops

For the workshops in cities it's easy to find little villages, towns, the mayors are quite nice there, one took me hitchhikking once on La Palma and told me to call the cityhall if I needed something so I don't really worry about this. Let's first settle workshops and a page to communicate this part to the city rulers, with pictures, translations etc... The easy way can be also to go to markets, there are often small ones very open.


Problems?

The only problem I see is about the ferry, cause to go from one island to the other the ferry can be easily 30€ per person (with trasmediterranea, sailing once a week, the others are so much more expansive!). But if we don't need so much money for gas (and gas is cheaper because things are duty-free there) we can be able to affort this.


Future?

Where will we go after, how long do we want to stay, well I personaly don't mind, maybe first give a try to the wind there, and see. Let's say we'll stay at least 3 months there, so we have the time to get cheap flights to the next destination if we already feel like it. If we do go there!


Others
About the communities, there are a few, not as many as I hoped, but enougth to have some nice exchanges!


I never wanted this to be "my" project, I still hope to co-create it with all of you. I don't expect anything, I only dream, hope, fear and search solutions to problems that may occur. That's also why I say it may not happen, cause for the moment I see there are only 3 people really engaged, 7 others still motivated but who knows?? and a lot of "maybe". I need at least the half of us to be able to tell " hey this is happening, there will be this and that, and we'll do things like this", without them we just can't work, not in emptiness like this.



Here is quite a lot of reading already! Do you have other questions coming in mind?

Hello all!!
Sorry my silence but as i still can't be sure if i can go or not, i was delaying my answer, hoping to have a good and defined one, but as i don't, i will just post assuming i can join you all. Or you can just ignore me!

To Kalima, there isn't much you can do to motivate people but i think you are determined enough to make all of the people finally decide and, going, have a great time!! Please don't despair!

About the whole plan-changing:
- i am more than happy if you (Kalima) decide to be in charge of the whole process while nobody else seems to be there for it, so feel free to do what you have been doing

- Canary Island...i feel a little bit the same as Fred, it is an island and it is way easier to hitch a car, van, truck, horse-chariot, than a boat, both ways! If the idea is to stay 3 months, then i guess the destination is as good as any other, but in case of problems or give ups, or any other change of plans, (or even the simple fact of island changing!) i'd say we would be more limited when it comes to moving. I do not have a better idea, though. I always thought the plan was to stay in a place as long as we would feel like, meaning in my concept that could be 3 months or 3 days.  

If it is for the sun and good weather, there are plenty of those in the south of Portugal, mainland Spain, Italy, Greece, Morocco, etc. For me, as long as it doesn't snow, rain too much and we can see the sun every 2 days, it is great. My only issue is just the moving around. I have never been there, so it would be a nice place to explore.

- Transport - i do not have transport we could use, a bike only! But i do have a driving license (class B). But as Fred said, if i am the only one with it, let’s not use it at all, as this too is limiting. Anyways, if i join the club, i am more than happy to rent it under my name, in countries where i can understand the language. I think also that one main point is: how much equipment are you talking about and what materials are they made of? A yurt is not particularly easy to carry without wheels, for example.

- Yurts (not sure if the ideas was abandoned or not but..) are very nice and it shouldn't be too difficult to build, just not sure about building it and unbuilding it every couple of weeks. But again, staying 3 months in the place should justify the whole process. Other easy alternatives are simple tends. Winter is another topic! Should we move to Africa in winter and the school becomes a volunteer’s base for communities?  while of course we learn about the earth and ancient rituals and uses? ahahah, kinda a joking.

And i believe that is it. I can totally help with translations, if needed, to spanish, whether me going or not. Will try to keep this up closer.

Best wishes and happy days!
AR

Hey hi! Happy to read you again!

Going to Spain and Portugal, it would be nice too but when it comes to hitchhikking mmh... it's hard especialy in Spain and Italy, and if we are 15 people with big bags, we gonna lose a lot of time changing places, it could take us 3 days to go from a place to the other because we would have to wait for everyone to arrive to start the courses. We would also have troubles maybe to find places where we can stay (without vehicules to explore...), we would have to move more often, and we may find more troubles with the locals and the police.

The Canary are not very expansive to fly to and from, there are nice things to see on the island, a lot of travelers all around, see and mountains... we can easily set a camp and stay there for a month or two, going around in the week-ends and spending the rest of the days learning and practicing in a beautiful place.
If changing mind, is it so bad to be stuck in a paradise for a while because the cheap flights were 2 weeks later?

About Morocco we would need money to go there, we would have to fly or take a boat also, and as we are mostly girls it may be a bit annoying for us to spend so much time in a country where people are trying to catch us all the fucking time! :/

As said in the mail there's no way for us to have a yurt in these conditions. Tents are then the next solution but if it rains for a few days (and in the winter it may even for weeks!) how do we do the courses without the yurt? That's why we wanted to build one, because we were thinking about traveling through south of Europe a whole year! Tarps could be used but for a complete week of rain it may be tricky...
The material is music instruments, paintings, jongling stuff, etc... already 2 people with a driving licence, not so bad, if more shows up, I think we can get something to share. I could buy a cheap car or rent something when needed (if we do go to the Canarias, I guess we'll rent it, it's cheaper!).

So there's no real problem about going to the Canarias, but it's not as exciting as the BALKANS or so! So fuck that, let's go for the Balkans!

I've been influenced by people telling me the project will bring lot of troubles and we need a lot of organization etc...But the lack of engagement makes impossible things to be organized, travelers don't like to get engaged but they also can accept to be in trouble and to find solutions to solve situations. That also means that if the project can't count on you, you can't on the project neither. Each one has to be financialy independant and be able to care for its courses as much as possible. I'm willing to help if needed but not to do all the job for you. We'll go rougth and roots, as real adventurers, if you fear hunger and pain please reconsider coming with us! :p

So we'll consider that we don't have any vehicule at all and all the time. Please take a something that rolls to carry your school supplies, preferencialy something with big wheels that can take rougth ways but not too heavy to carry once empty. Maybe we'll get cart bikes, maybe we'll get a car or a van, maybe not, who knows? We'll have to help each others to carry the equipment, sometimes do a few travels to carry all of it maybe, but we'll make it anyway.

The rdv will be set in south of France to start with, and then we'll go east. So you need absolutely a good sleeping bag and tent and a bunch of good warm cloths. We'll also need tarps and strings, please bring one per person at least. If it gets too cold at some point we'll get a plane to the Canarias so please save some extra money. (We won't take tickets for more than 50€.)

I give away the idea of saving places for people. Now if your want your place to be saved you'll have to be an active member of the tribe. That means you regulary post something here (at least twice a month) and answer to the important questions I can ask by mail. If there are 50 people at the meeting point in september it won't be my problem even if I wrote "yes of course you can join". Maybe we'll decide to go all together, maybe we stay stuck to our plan of 15 people, I can't tell all by my own.

As a starting point I propose St-Thomas-les-bains which is a little town in the mountains at the borders of Spain with free natural hot springs and some rainbow-style hippies squatting around. We would be there from the 5th of september and we would stay a week there at least.

St Thomas's wild hot springs:


Where:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ll=42.504471%2C2.182578&spn=0.005165%2C0.013078&t=h&hl=fr&msa=0&z=17&ie=UTF8&mid=1uOdxKENJytek7xQaro4naBKfAk8

Hello there! I'm happy to be more involved - thank you for doing so much so far
Your suggestion of where to start sounds AMAZING and PERFECT! I love it! South of France sounds like a great place to start.
What can I do to help? Shall I just spam this site with lots of questions and suggestions?
If so, I will start with a question: can I bring a small tent, if I'm willing to carry it? How cold will it get?
Also can I ask a friend if they would be interested in joining the tribe?

P.s happy to live off roots and berries!

Yes bring a small tent, it's lighter! It can get pretty cold in the winter depending on where we are and how fucked is the weather. In the south of Europe it can sometimes get under 10° in the daytime so easily drop down to 2° in the night. This won't be all the time, but sometimes wearing a good pullover or two in a 5° degree sleeping bag will be needed! So if you have worst sleeping bags take more pullovers and don't forget the leggings and big socks!

Yes you can ask your friends! You can also spread the word around randomly to find people that would feel connected to the idea! We're still just a few for the moment!

Hey!
I am still following and i still can't give a straight answer about me going or not. My own personal projects are not getting as defined as they should have and that makes me postponing everything.

Understood that things changed a bit and the school will be more a group of teachers rather than an organised thing. Maybe it is even better this way, as the group usually tends to organise itself with time and experiences.

The Balkans are awesome! I will possibly not be able to be counted on until the end of it. And it is not a problem if in the end there is no place for me. Anyways, i would like to meet and join you for some days, wherever you'll be.

And if you are going to camp in the winter, remember that it does snow in many places around the balkans. Do bring along a sleeping mat, or even more efficient: cardboard.

I follow the news and can only wish you the best of luck. And if i can join and it is not too late, it will be my pleasure to meet you and share life with you!

I am in sunny Portugal, 27 degress and send to all the needed ones sunshine.
Happy days and travels!
AR

Hi!

Nice to hear from you! Tell us when you're sure to come if you are at some point. It's ok if you don't stay till the end, I think we'll find many people along the way who wants to join! The beggining is the most critical point!

We will try to avoid the snow as much as possible but indeed something to put under to sleep isolate from the coldness of the ground, is more confortable and always light!
Airbeds are most of the time quickly broken, so unless if you're veery carefull with stuff, avoid such mats! And indeed cardboards are very efficient, free and can be found very easily!

I had a chat with a friend of mine, she just got her master in anthropology and she wants to join us as well! I'm still waiting for 2 other friends to post here as well, suspense...

Ah and dear people, please start thinking about your courses if you havn't already! Summer's here and september's gonna come veeeeery fast! Bring together your thoughts and see what you need for these. If there is some materials to get, if you need books, what parts of the things of studied your want to share, how will you carry these, etc etc...

Hey you nomads,

I am happy to hear of that change in plans. Balkans sounds good. Had a great time hitching there for a few month back in 2013, also down until greece. In Tessaloniki I actually met a fellow German who traveled all the way there with a kind of bicycle circus of nomads, a similar approach as it seems.

Dama and me already made our peace with this project not happening for us, since we didn't feel like islands and it seemed like nobody was really on board anyways, so we are in a weird spot now. All we know for now is that we want to be at the Hitchgathering in the beginning of August and then we see. As it seems it will either take place in Norway or Croatia and it might be an interesting experience for any of you guys if you feel like it. Everybody is welcome and most likely there gonna be quite a few people that are interested in the idea of the nomadlab.
Last year the HHG was in the south of france near Valence and I think there actually might have been a post- or pre-gathering at the exact same hot springs you want to meet
When it comes to worries about changing pace in groups via Hitchhiking, I dont really think its the biggest problem (depending on the spot obviously), as I never encountered any problems during hitchgatherings where 150-200HH have to get to one place and out again, with groups leaving and coming regulary, while the campers go on HH-missions to go dumpster diving and stuff like that.

http://hitchwiki.org/en/Hitchgathering/2016
http://hitchgathering.org/

Dama just left for the US and we need to talk about it, but after all I feel like we will still come there to meet you guys and see where it goes from there.
I like the route, I like the more flexible approach and the Hitchhiking as well.

Fred

Ah and if it comes to looking for places for us trustroots.org and maybe couchsurfing.com as well as wwoofinternational.org/ might be a way to find some nice people and places. Depending on how many we are the possibilities are more or less limited I guess. But most people in these networks should be amazed by the idea and willing to help with information about localities and other issues. Always good to have some local intelligence
I guess facebook works like that too? I never used it so I don't have a clue but hey, I am sure some of you guys will?

Hi Fred!

Happy you like the change of plans! Your messages made me think a lot about it and at the end everyone was more or like prefering the Balkanic idea althrough it's not as easy. For me the biggest problem isn't hitchhikking but carrying the materials! I seriously reconsider bringing an anatomic atlas althought it's a very nice thing to have to teach anatomy... but well, it's an occasion to be creative!
I already have my whole summer set so I count on you to speak about the project to the hitchgathering! I'll speak about it to the Serbian and european rainbows already.

I'm really not into couchsurfing etc...I have troubles to write to people I don't know (this year was exhausting! taking one hour to answer to any messages, receiving so many and getting so less from it! Urg, thanks to Betty I didn't give up although my confidence was going doooown!) also I won't have much internet during the summer (already spent a year on the computer, enougth of that!) but if you feel like doing it you're very veeery welcome!