He Left… Travelling to Greece Alone in My Van

Like many people, I used to be scared of being alone. I used to fill all my spare time with socializing, despite being an introvert by nature, doing just about anything to avoid being alone with my thoughts. But there will always come a time where we have to sit with what we've been running away from, and when that happened to me a few years ago and I was forced to be alone at home for a few weeks, it honestly changed my life for the better. I had to learn to accept myself as I was with all my flaws and even started enjoying my own company, doing things independently and at my own pace. And while solitude can still feel a bit daunting sometimes, especially here in the wild, I have learned to see it as a gift to be grateful for. If you're new here, I'm Jessica and I travel full-time around Europe in my campervan Frodo with my puppy Heidi. Nearly three years ago, I had enough of spending my young years working just to make ends meet, so I sold everything in my tiny apartment for a simple life on the road and in rhythm with the seasons. Join me for this next chapter in my adventures where I reconnect with nature and grow roots in the wild. This episode was made possible by esim.sm. Hello friends, I hope you've been doing well. It is a gloomy, rainy day here in the mountains on this island and we got a bit damp this morning because there was this hike to a waterfall that I really wanted to do, really wanted to dip in the waterfall and it was drizzling the whole morning but there's a storm rolling in and we're actually leaving soon so this was a last opportunity to go on this hike. It was 10 kilometers out and back so quite challenging. So Rissi left a couple of days ago and I'm getting ready to travel to Greece on my own and honestly I thought that once he left everything would kind of just go back to normal because I'm quite used to traveling on my own now. I've been doing it for a few months but as he was leaving and the two days leading up to it I felt really anxious about being alone and doing things on my own again because I got so used to having him around and suddenly it was like I was back on my first solo trip where everything was scary. I was scared to sleep in the van alone, to leave the van behind when I was doing groceries or taking Heidi out. I was scared to drive alone. Even coming to this place I nearly turned around twice because the last five kilometers were a very bumpy forest track which is probably only meant for 4x4s and it was a little bit dodgy in a few places and also there's no phone signal in like a 30 minute radius which makes me a bit nervous to be honest. And obviously I'm here and I'm doing all of these things anyway because I don't want to feel like I'm missing out on the things that bring me immense joy because I'm scared. And obviously if a situation feels genuinely unsafe or something feels off I always listen to my gut feeling and I leave the situation but I think for me there's a big difference between being led by intuition and being led by fear and I refuse to be led by fear which is why I'm doing these things scared. It is early afternoon now and I'm getting an overnight ferry to mainland Italy from the nearest port which is an hour and half away and then another overnight ferry to Greece tomorrow. I need to get out of these mountains before it gets even more gloomy because the road is very treacherous so I'm going to wait for the rain to stop, pack up and get going. Okay I really believe that doing things scared is how we grow as people. If I hadn't done the things I was scared of throughout my life I probably would have missed out on a lot of my most cherished memories. I wouldn't have met my partner or moved into a van in the first place. I think that pretty much everything in life that's worthwhile is the result of temporary discomfort and for me accepting that discomfort is really the key to happiness. I had a spanner thrown in my plans so I'm parked near the ferry port in Cagliari and was just tidying up the van and packing my bags before going on the ferry and I got a message saying that my ferry was cancelled because of the storms which is a bit stressful because I was going to take the overnight ferry tonight and then drive down to southern Italy from Naples which would have been a three-hour drive and then get the ferry there in the evening which would have given me plenty of time. Instead I'm now having to drive from southern Sardinia all the way to Olbia in northern Sardinia to get a ferry at 10 o'clock in the evening and then I'm gonna have to drive from Rome to southern Italy which is a seven-hour drive so it's a lot more driving than I was hoping to do three hours today and seven hours tomorrow and obviously well I'm still gonna have plenty of time to get the ferry tomorrow but I just don't want to do all the driving so I'm gonna pack up again and drive north I guess. I'm a bit anxious because the wind speeds in the north and south are exactly the same obviously that doesn't necessarily translate to what's happening on the water but I really hope that I'm not gonna arrive all the way up north only for that ferry to be cancelled as well because that would just be terrible for my plans so wish me luck. One thing that living on the road has taught me is that you have to be adaptable and flexible. There's often something unexpected that will happen and not everything always goes according to plan so when this kind of stuff happens I allow myself a moment to be frustrated and then take a deep breath and just move on so although in that moment I felt like just cancelling my trip to Greece altogether and curling up in bed I knew that pushing through this again discomfort will make me happy once I reach my destination. Speaking of flexibility, although I can cross borders easily across the continent because I have a European passport, traveling between countries used to be really stressful for me because I have a UK phone provider but half a year ago I switched to eSIM.sm who are a long-term supporter of the channel and kindly sponsoring this video and they've made crossing borders a lot less stressful for me. eSIM.sm offer coverage in over 190 countries and everything is completely digital. There's no SIM cards to swap, no shops to hunt down and no extra admin. You just scan a QR code and you're connected. I'm using their global plan which works in 155 countries so whether I'm parked up somewhere remote, working from a cafe or checking in with my partner from the ferry I know that my connection will be reliable. It's also really affordable which is important to me because I try and keep my monthly costs as low as possible and especially when I'm traveling alone having reliable data gives me a lot of peace of mind for navigation, emergencies and staying in touch with the people I love. If you want to check them out you can find their data plans via the link in the video description and you can also get 15% off your eSIM with my code ROOTS15. Thank you so much to eSIM.sm for sponsoring today's video and helping me stay connected wherever the journey takes me next. Finally after more than 12 hours of driving and two overnight ferries back to back we arrived on the shores of northern Greece with its densely forested mountains, snow-capped peaks and waterfalls and driving through this landscape for the first time genuinely moved me to tears because it was just so incredibly beautiful. I'm really exhausted after this long journey. I actually feel quite depleted so I've done something which I've never done before and booked three nights at a campsite on the edge of a small mountain town here in northern Greece and usually I avoid campsites because they're not compatible with my small budget but I'm paying 40 euros for three nights with a lovely view, everything included, hot water, showers, toilets, water and electricity for like 10 pounds a night. In the UK that would be at least three times as much without the nice view so yeah I thought it was worth it. So I'm going to stay here for a couple of days and just recalibrate, recover, fight my bearings. I need to go to town and grab a couple of outdoorsy things and I also feel like I just need a day of being a potato and lying bed and play animal crossing so I'm gonna do that as well. Next week I'm gonna record the Q&A video that I've been promising you guys because I want a bit of a break from traveling and then I'll embark on my adventures here in Greece. I'm very excited, so far what I've seen has been absolutely beautiful and I'm just really excited to be here for the next two months. Thank you so much for watching guys and for coming with me on this very long journey and if you're new here make sure to subscribe so you don't miss my next adventures. Until next time I hope that life will be kind to you. Bye!