The GREAT Summer Trip 2024
Welcome to my GREAT summer trip 2024 journal…
As I worked on this website and eventually put together summaries of many of my previous trips, I recognized how nice it is to both have taken these trips, and to look back over them through the words I wrote at the time and the pictures I took along the way.
I began to feel inspired to both travel again and to keep recording my thoughts, so that I’d have something to look back on.
I also remembered that writing my “public” blog back in New Zealand was a bit different than writing my “private” journal. I found I have a different voice when I imagine someone, other than myself, might actually read what I write. Actually, I realized this when my friend Anna mentioned that she liked reading about a trip in progress (both from me and others in general) and encouraged me to do something that she could check in on while I’m traveling this time.
In some ways, to be honest, I cringe over the persona I found myself adopting back in New Zealand. At times, though, I do find the person I become interesting in his own right, so I am consciously giving him a chance to report on this coming trip. For those of you reading this that are not my future self, thank you for your attention, feel free to stay as long or as little as you like.
If you don’t already know it, you’re going to find that I can obsess a bit over details that you may find uninteresting, and I don’t mind that you skip those parts. You may also find that I skip details that you consider relevant. Sorry about that. I just don’t seem to have a typical view on these things.
I have the advantage of memory that allows me to fill in the missing details when I look back, and I’m quite curious to see, years in the future, what I thought was interesting way back then.
Some Background
I had the idea for this trip back as I was outfitting Mai to be my little mini-RV and initially pictured visiting Scandinavia with her. I wasn’t so interested in driving south, seeing most of Europe as overly crowded. Suddenly it occurred to me that there might be car ferries to the Faroe Islands and/or Iceland, and a quick search showed that there is indeed one such ferry available direct from the west coast of Denmark. I put it on my “maybe one day” list, then focused on Norway.
After my 2023, three week trip in Scandinavia, I still wasn’t 100% convinced that I could make this sort of trip work for me. It had been nice, I was glad I took the trip, I just wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it again.
I let the idea simmer for many months, but, as I wrote above, adding 20+ trip pages to this site helped convince me that it was worth a try. I began my research for this trip way back in December / January.
I had lots of fears, mostly about whether I could find enough charging stations for Mai. As is typical for me, I spent long hours on the internet answering my own questions and finding new fears to consider. I quickly found out that both Faroe Islands and Iceland requires people to stay in camp sites, so I couldn’t just park Mai more or less wherever to sleep, as I did in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
Would camp sites allow me to sleep in my car?
Would Mai hold a charge long enough to let me travel the distances required?
Some camp sites offer electricity… can I use that to charge Mai at night?
Can I bring my camp stove fuel on the ferry, or, if it’s not allowed, where can I buy it during the trip?
Are there enough things for me to do to make the trip interesting?
Is it OK to travel alone?
How long should I spend in each location?
Do I have to book camp sites in advance?
Will I begin to find landscape photography interesting again?
What if I want to stay longer or leave earlier?
How much food should I bring?
Will I have space to bring my ukulele?
Will I start to draw again, and if so, would I enjoy doing it while traveling?
This is just a short sample. Over the weeks of researching, I found satisfying and comforting answers to almost everything. By then I had made a map of all the campsites available in both the Faroe Islands and Iceland. I had measured the distances between campsites and charging stations to make sure that I would not find myself stranded with a dead battery. I added a few “sites of interest” as well, hoping that I would not find myself paralyzed with boredom.
I put together a budget estimate and a calendar to give myself a sense of how long a week “really” is. I started with a plan for 1 week on the Faroe Islands and 2 weeks on Iceland. I initiated an order for the ferry trip multiple times, getting familiar with their schedule, various cabins, and other options. In the end, I decided on 17 nights on the Faroe Islands (I arrive at midnight the first day, so it’s more appropriate to talk about nights than days), and 4 weeks on Iceland.
By February, I noticed that the price for the ticket was going up, and noticed that certain weeks cost 100s of Euro more than other weeks, due, I assume, to their high season and slightly off season weeks. I booked within a few days of making that discovery.
So, since February, I’ve been “committed”, although this has not ended my ability to have various fears and anxieties.
Some of my research materials
Some of the food I’ve gathered for the trip
Freeze Dried Food Analysis
As the date of the trip approaches, I’ve continued thinking about my packing lists and additional questions I want answered before I leave, but also what questions I look forward to answering on the trip itself, such as:
Will I get tired of my dried food before I’ve eaten it all?
Will I get sick of living out of my car?
Will I miss daily piano and guitar practice?
Will I actually continue daily ukulele practice?
Will I actually continue daily drawing?
Will I actually go on any hikes?
Will I start taking pictures again?
Will I continue to avoid interacting with fellow travelers?
Will climate change influence the trip in any way? (rough seas on the ferry, unusually wet or dry…)
Will the Icelandic volcano activity influence the trip in any way?
Will I be painfully bored?
Will I fall off a cliff or experience other forms for unintentional death (not that I imagine multiple forms likely or possible)?
I’m hoping for yes answers to some of the questions and no to others, although I suppose it probably goes without saying for most of which is which. Others I’m just curious about.
My intentions for the trip include the following:
To continue daily activities including: ukulele practice, drawing, walking, writing, reading, exploring, and quality sleeping.
To enjoy driving through beautiful scenery.
To decide with certainty whether this is a form of activity for my future.
To get better at truly listening to my moods and needs to avoid overwhelming myself.
That’s an update of the my preparations for the trip so far. I leave in about 2 weeks, so I may give another update before the trip begins.