– You become desperate and find a solution. Read how we solved the problem of having no money to travel and took a trip anyway.
Vacation! But Bad Weather
The weather in Denmark was, as is often the case, rather dreary during the summer vacation of 2014. We were desperate to go on vacation and experience something besides boring, rainy Denmark. The only problem was our lack of money. A certain form of desperation started to affect Lise and me: 3 weeks of vacation in rainy Denmark with a rambunctious five-year-old boy wasn’t exactly something we were looking forward to. The mere thought drove us almost into a depression.
“Fortunately”, Sebastian was going to be babysat by his grandparents for a few nights, which gave us a little space to brain some ideas of how we might go on vacation. After a couple of beers and a bottle of cheap red wine, our desperate ideas started to take form. We could blog for someone – and write about our trip!
How we brought about our blogger vacation
In addition to other projects I was working on back then, I also had the blog Spotnaked.com, which is in English and covers naturism and travel. The page has decent visitor stats, so the idea was to blog for someone, and get our accommodations paid in return. We had taken a blogger vacation before, so we had some idea what it took. We did have the problem, however, that pulling something together with so little notice was no easy feat. Nonetheless, we managed to write a good e-mail, we could use it as a template for the people we wanted to contact.
The next step was to figure out what would be a realistic destination. We had already decided that it couldn’t be further away than we could drive, simply for the purpose of minimizing the cost of the trip. We looked into various options and agreed that France would be a good bet. The distance to France is manageable (still far to drive), and there are many naturist campgrounds in France.
We came up with 6 different naturist campgrounds in France that we found interesting and sent them an e-mail. Now, the only thing left was to wait for a positive answer – and preferably a quick answer. We had already written about some dates we could be there, so we figured the answers would probably arrive within a few days – if they were interested. We never received a reply from five of them, but the sixth one (Le Colombier) replied – they were interested!
The Terms
Le Colombier offered us a free site with electric hook-up at their campground for a week. We were responsible for our transportation, food, and something to stay in.
In return, we would place their ads on Spotnaked.com for a certain period, as well as devoting two blog posts to our stay with them at Le Colombier. In addition, we had to post and share on social media and throw in a few “mentions” in other blog posts.
All things considered, I’m pretty sure the deal was better for them than for us, and we actually knew that right upfront. But as mentioned earlier, we were desperate, and we were willing to do a lot to get an adventure.
The Vacation
We were ecstatic to get an agreement with Le Colombier and were really looking forward to going on an adventure. Our son, Sebastian, was excited too when he heard, we were going on vacation.
The trip to Le Colombier first went to Lille, which is located in Northern France, close to the Belgian border. In Lille, we had to spend a single night after the long drive. The next day, we drove the rest of the way to Le Colombier, which is located in St. Hermaine, the Loire Valley – south-west of Paris, south of Normandy and Brittany, north of Bordeaux and 50 km from the Atlantic Ocean.
The actual area where Le Colombier was located was incredibly exciting – we knew nothing about the area at all, and for this reason, we had no preconceived notions about it. Thus, when we drove down the long road with the tall trees down to Le Colombier, we did so with adventure in our blood. Suddenly, you notice that the forest is full of open sites and that you can see nude people here and there – it must be the right place, after all, it was a naturist campground we’d be staying at for the next week or so.
Time flew at Le Colombier – and the trip wasn’t entirely without challenges, but that’s a story for another time and had nothing to do with the place. The trip home was long, as would be expected, and it probably always feels even longer, when you know you are returning to rain. Even so, we were incredibly happy and proud of having enabled ourselves to get out and seize the adventure when it appeared.
It is Possible
This entire adventure taught us that if you want something bad enough and fight for it hard enough, you will find a solution. Sometimes, the solution is not so simple, and sometimes you might have to compromise what you would normally do, but better to have an adventure with a few modifications than to have no adventure at all. It is possible to find a way to adventure.…
Did you ever do something desperate to find adventure? If so, leave a comment!
Loire Valley, France
