So why Sweden? Why not go to ‘vanlife-heaven’ Portugal, or go to Switzerland to take in views of the Matterhorn, or Croatia…?
Well, for a while after deciding to leave I still didn’t know where (in Europe) to go. I had some places in mind. I’d for sure would love to see southern Norway in order to basically continue where I left off after my road-trip last year around the Baltic sea (starting with Helsinki). But I was also looking into going to (south-)eastern Europe, probably even visit Chernobyl, but you can guess what happened to that plan…
Easter with a plot twist
Anyway, during the Easter weekend I was cruising around and ‘wildcamping’ in The Netherlands when I got a message from a friend who saw a post on Facebook where someone was looking for somebody to tag along when going to Sweden and he asked if I had already set my mind on a destination. She also needed some help with mainly electrical stuff on her van build. And since I’m a very professional van-builder now, I thought it’d be fun to help out somebody achieve their freedom on wheels.
We decided to meet up the next day (2nd Easter day) at a beautiful farmhouse near Emmen, NL where she was volunteering and building out her van as well. She showed me the van and told about her plans and the pretty short deadline for finishing it. There was quite a bit of work to be done in just 4 weeks, the van was almost empty…
Apparently the people she volunteered at were having a gathering with friends and even set up a bonfire. As people started to come in I introduced myself and got along pretty well with everyone and very naturally I was just tagging along and together with the people enjoying a wonderful Easter bonfire and since I had my van with me I just parked there and stayed the night.
So the next day me and Lisanne, who made that Facebook post discussed both our plans and agreed that we’d try drive the same day towards Sweden together. We’d travel for some time there before she’d go on to volunteer there at a Horseback riding farm owned by a Dutch couple, named Our Little Farm. So that’s how we got to the point where we are now…
Arriving at the farm
Up until reaching the farm we had pretty good weather, quite some sunshine, okay temperatures but still some chilly nights. The day we drove our last ~3hr stretch to the farm the air started to darken and as we got closer we saw quite a bit of liquid substance falling from the air. But the occasional sunshine would make for beautiful views and even some rainbows. When we parked our vans we walked up the foresty slope towards the farm, and then past it… because of course we missed the place we had to walk onto the farm… 😉
We were greeted by one of the volunteers (all Dutch people) already there and got a tour of the farm and told a bit about how the farm got started and how it got to where it is today with the help of many volunteers. The farm is essentially a place for tourists or experienced horse riders to explore the hills and forests by horse. The farm follows a principle that works with the horses instead of the pretty harsh way of handling horses that is most common. They also teach other people these principles.
The farm is very beautiful and fits in really nicely with the surrounding forests. The owners rent out a house and an AirBNB on the main part of the farm and also another house in the forest above it can be rented.
And then I moved on, or not…
After our tour at the farm I wasn’t yet ready to move on, but I’ll tel you about that in the next post 🙂
