We have been on the road since September 28th and will leave Europe after three weeks and take the ferry to Morocco.

We are fine. And we realize every day what a privilege it is to travel like this. Having a rough plan and being able to decide every day which step we will take.
We are accompanied by the paradox of time – the days fly by and at the same time it seems as if we have been traveling for a very long time. We are actually now entering a time frame that we have never had together before.

The days in Germany and the first days in France were still characterized by great unrest. On the one hand, the tension of the past few months: We have actually been “working” on the many technical, logistical and practical questions since around March. On the other hand, the new car and all the technical devices – for example, for the first few days we flinched at every beep, although it was mostly just warnings about dangerous places (France) or about a speed camera (Spain). In reality, with the second update of the necessary long-distance travel software, our car drives really great – fingers crossed! However, it is also true that at 12 liters it eats a lot of diesel, which is not surprising given that it weighs 3.5 tons. But every now and then a bad conscience creeps in.

As far as normal everyday life is concerned, we already have a lot of routine and notice that we have gained a lot of experience from our two trips to Namibia. This means that almost everything “lives” in its right place right from the start. Finding a campsite, setting up, dismantling, cooking, etc. is relaxed. We don't really miss anything, we only had to repair and improve a few things and the only thing we actually forgot was a small screwdriver for the glasses – and we really have a lot of glasses with us. The power supply works, occasionally with support from shore power and then there is also the solar panel.

There are moments when we are already on vacation and there are moments that are stressful. And in stressful moments we notice that the recovery substance is still low.

Traveling through France was extremely pleasant. You notice that France, like Spain, is significantly less populated than Germany, there are more uninhabited and uncultivated areas – at least where we were traveling. In contrast to earlier days, we got along well with English, had really nice little campsites and the infrastructure on country roads and motorways is “nice & clean” – not unimportant for travelers.

Driving in Spain is basically extremely relaxed, but overall the infrastructure is not geared towards travelers, and when it comes to the garbage in the landscape, we are reminded of previous years in Italy. We receive a friendly welcome everywhere and in Spain we particularly like the places in the local recreation areas or nature parks. Of course, the detours to Cordoba and Granada were also great, where we got the only two tickets for a visit to the Alhambra that could be booked online at short notice at 3:49 a.m. with an indescribable sense of dizziness and totally by chance. Unfortunately, the coast gets uglier the further south we go, but swimming in the Mediterranean is still just fun!

Now we are excited about how the journey will continue.