The baptism of fire

(First published in Issue 6, September 2022) But let’s start from the beginning… Leave everyday life behind and drive away. Farther, always farther. Into the distance, wherever the road takes you. Who hasn’t dreamed of this? We’ve also played with this thought. What distinguishes us from most others? For us, it went beyond dreaming.

We are Lui (26) and Beppo (28), and in 2020, when traveling was nearly impossible due to the pandemic, we made the decision to go on a long-term trip. How, where, and especially when?—that was still written in the stars at the time. But what became clear pretty quickly was that we wanted to document our adventures in detail. And that meant a lot of work. Not only did we want to record our future travel destinations, but we also wanted to reconstruct and document the journeys we had already experienced.

We relived our road trips through Italy, Croatia, and France, as well as our backpacking tours through Thailand, Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Panama. Editing photos, writing texts, and building a website meant long evenings at the computer—because we did all of that in parallel with our full-time jobs. Our travel blog roasn.com was born!

If not now, when? we asked ourselves. After 1.5 years of waiting, we finally got down to business. We couldn’t wait to travel. Our original thought was to take a two-year trip around the world. But when travel was still limited at the end of 2021 due to the global pandemic, we threw those plans out the window. Plans are meant to be changed.

It was going to be a road trip through Europe! Without a concrete destination. Just us, the road, and our camper.

But wait a minute—our camper?! That little detail was still missing from our new plan. On our past road trips, we had to use my parents’ old VW T4. But it had neither a kitchenette nor a bathroom inside. We had to get something of our own.

We debated for a long time about which vehicle to choose—a motorhome, a Sprinter, or a bus? Self-built or a complete package?

After long deliberation, we finally made a decision that we haven’t regretted for a minute. Although we had even created a concept for a self-built van, including technical drawings, Lui’s training played into our hands, and we ultimately decided on an old acquaintance—a VW Transporter. This one had previously been used as a camper and was professionally converted by a company, complete with a pop-up roof.

This was it! We wanted to travel, and a DIY van would have cost us too much time and energy at that moment.

Then it was finally time. We both quit our jobs, packed our belongings into our new home on four wheels, and rolled south in February 2022. With that, our big dream was about to come true.

If it weren’t for the first sentence of our story:

After an emotional goodbye to our families, we came to a halt near Budapest after an exhausting drive. We wanted to get south to Greece as fast as possible. For our first night in the camper, we parked at a rest stop near the highway. We were both exhausted and quickly fell asleep.

Then suddenly, in the middle of the night, a loud crunching sound near our heads yanked us out of deep sleep.

Our bus was shaking, but at first, we couldn’t comprehend what was happening. I initially thought a tree had fallen on our bus. But Lui quickly realized that someone had driven into our camper.

In shock, I jumped out of the van—dressed only in my underpants. At that moment, I still wasn’t sure if this was just a bad dream or if it was really happening. When I finally wandered around half-naked outside the bus, I quickly realized that a truck had crashed its trailer into our van while trying to turn.

A long night with the police followed. Insurance information was exchanged, and we had to decide what to do next. We were both devastated, and the idea of heading back home was suddenly on the table. However, after a short phone call with my father and further discussions, we decided to drive back to Vienna and have the damaged van repaired there.

The temperature was around 0°C (32°F), and we had no rear window. We hastily stuffed a bloodstained blanket into the new opening of the camper and rolled back north at 2:00 AM.

After some much-needed rest at a hotel and a brand-new tailgate, we headed south again—just five days later. This was definitely not the start we had envisioned, but perhaps it was the baptism of fire needed at the beginning of such a journey.

Oh, and by the way—since then, we no longer sleep with our heads at the back of the van!

In the meantime, we’ve been on the road for over six months and have traveled the entire west coast of Greece. We’ve explored breathtaking islands, immersed ourselves in European history, and ventured into other Balkan countries like Albania and Montenegro—all while documenting every destination on our travel blog, roasn.com.

We are looking forward to the adventures that still await us! By now, we can also smile about that first-night incident, and thankfully, we’ve had no more breakdowns since then. (I’m knocking on wood three times while writing these lines!)