First a trip to Spain through France with three vans and six friends. A Lot of relaxing moments and sightseeing while dreaming of a life full of freedom. This journey down south made us search even more a year later, this time a much more intensive search with a lot of potential properties that were for sale. In this article we will look deeper in our trips. Read more to find out how we found our dream property in France.
We have already covered how the idea of GoF was planted in our minds in a previous article so we won’t go into that here. Let’s begin with the first trip to Spain: By this time we were well aware of the existence of permaculture farms and communities and were dreaming of living like that as well, but where? We had been looking on the internet for properties that were for sale abroad. We were searching in all kinds of countries, the prices were so much more affordable than in our own country. Then we found THE perfect place on the internet: Guadalest, at least that was what we thought at that time. Later we found out that it wasn’t, you’ll find out later in this article.
Start slow, enjoy & envision
We would set the Guadalest valley in Spain as our final destination and from there we would head back home to the Netherlands, we had three campervans and one free month from work. Our friend Yalou knew someone that was looking after her family home in the Dordogne district so we would go there first and stay with her for a while. Simone had been waiting for us that day but not without doing something, she must have been preparing dinner for multiple hours because that night we had at least six different dishes with delicious vegetarian food. I believe we ate until 12 that night and Simone prepared all kinds of questions and games so we would get to know each other better. At first we were a little bit shy but we really did get to know each other a lot that night. Simone and her place was an important key in our process because of the fact that we stayed four or so days we really got and took the time to dream and envision ourselves on a place like hers, she was living in a beautiful old french house that used to be a barn but her grandparents converted it themselves. Beautiful fireplace, original wooden beams, one hectare of field and of course the swimming pool.
After some deep relaxing and also some gardening work that we were happy to help with we headed down south towards spain. Did some more “park 4 night” at le Lot river. Park 4 night is an app I would highly recommend using if you are traveling with a campervan or if you want to do some wild camping. We spent some time at the Spanish border where we parked our vans at the east coast beach, did some beautiful hikes there, Khymo picked some wild cacti fruits and got his hands and lips full of needles, we had a lot of laughs and enjoyed our vacation. Vacation vibes continued when we followed the east coast down to the Costa Blanca. First thing we noticed when we entered Spain was the dryness, yellow fields with dried out grass or just bare soil. We had some really pleasant time drinking cerveza on the platja close to Barcelona.
Meet like-minded people
A few months before we would go on this journey Sander got in touch with Eva and Boudewijn on instagram, they had bought a 4 hectare property near the medieval town called Valderrobres and they suggested we would come over and have a chat. Of course we were very happy to do so and after our time on the beach we headed over there. We were mesmerized by the wildness of nature on the way there, we dropped a few pins on Google Maps for later investigation and met Boudewijn and Eva. They were super kind and so supportive of our dreams and the dreams we shared. They wanted to start their own retreat and off grid coaching business and were also interested in permaculture and growing their own food. They showed us their wild property on the mountain and what they wanted to do with it in the future, the spark in their eyes was truly inspirational. We spent a day in the beautiful town and parked next to the river and decided we would continue down to Guadalest, it only being about a five hours drive (six in Sanders oldtimer) so we would do it in one day.
The Guadalest Valley
Arriving in the Guadalest valley was magical, stopping at the first high viewpoint over the turquoise lake felt like inner and outer arriving. We had been looking forward to getting here for a while now and the place completely outdone our expectations. We found a spot close to the lake on Park4night that had good reviews and where you could even have a swim. We followed our google maps through a city with the narrowest streets we had ever seen. It was a wonder and a challenge our vans made it through. After that town we had to go down one of the steepest roads to get to the spot. After some discussion if we should take the risk we decided we would give it a go, we got so far and we had to continue. It was great down there. We did some hikes to get to know the area. We had a swim in the lake and had a nice dinner at our campsite. We were very interested in the valley because of the fact that the unique location close to the mediterranean sea and it being in a special type of shape gave the place its own special micro climate, more rain than in the rest of spain and sheltered from the winds from all sides makes it the perfect place to grow fruit trees. Guadalest is also known for its beautiful castle in the town: El Castell de Guadalest and in this town Sander and I would have an appointment with a Spanish real estate agent.
Don’t be tempted by the low prices
The prices of land at the Guadalest valley were very low. 40 000 euros for a 3 hectare piece of land sounded very good at that time and the 2 million tourists that came to the place each year would also be useful if we wanted to rent out some AirBnB. Our vision was not as clear back then as it is today. Back to the appointment : the man that spoke to us was really slick and I could imagine he was very good at selling houses. I must admit we were a bit nervous because we did not yet have our plans in order and we would not be able to buy anything that quick because we were still only dreaming, of course the agent could not know this because we were afraid he would not want to waste his time, so we acted our way in. The things he told us that day would completely change our views and vision on us living in the Guadalest valley.
More rules is less freedom
He said that the valley was completely protected by the government and no new building permits would be given out anywhere. This notion alone made almost all the properties we had saved on our phones unusable. He also told us that you could not just start a business in the valley, it would all need special permits and would not be easy. Despite the “bad news” we went out of that room with our heads and spirits lifted, it felt like we made a new step in the right direction, we had also already read about protected lands being difficult for building. Excited, we informed the others about what we had learned and spent a day in that beautiful town on the hill. The next day we experienced some more things that confirmed the fact that the valley was not our place to be. Hikers would walk past our campsite and some greeted us kindly, but others did not look so happy and a few minutes later we got informed by a forester that the police was on its way to fine us. So we packed all our things, left no trash , and left the place before the police had the chance to do so.
After bad luck comes good fortune
We would leave the valley that day and move back up north to start our way back towards France. Guadalest did fire up our dreams and I think our plans got a little more serious after our time there. We wanted to visit that same beach we went to on the way to the valley again because Yalou and Khymo did not see that yet, but on our way there Sander’s bus broke down and it needed to be brought to a garage on the back of a trailer (which seemed to have also some problems on his car, see picture below). So we spent a night in an industrial district somewhere in the the middle of nowhere. It was actually one of my favorite nights of the whole trip. We searched the town for some food but they had nothing vegetarian anywhere so we would just go to a small bar. We told the girl behind the bar that we did not eat anything yet that night and she offered to make something for us. She did not even look surprised when we told her we did not eat meat. After some wine and fun she filled our table with delicious salads, olives, bread, delicious tomatoes from her own garden and a plate of Spanish sheep cheese. We were so happy, we ordered one more bottle of wine and had a nice chat with our generous cook. After that we decided to ask for the bill.. 18 euros, we could not stop laughing, we gave a big tip and headed back to our vans. It was a great night. The bad luck earlier that day could not bring our spirits down because of the dreams that were growing in our hearts. Sander’s van got fixed the next day.
We went through the Pyrenees and Andorra back to France, and camped again next to the Le Lot river. We only had a few days to get back to the Netherlands but we still used our time to visit some nice “brocantes” on our way back. Driving every day up north made us realize that Spain is a really long drive and this would later be another reason to not continue searching for our land in Spain.
A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first steps
When we got back home we did not stop thinking about our dream of starting a permaculture. There was one problem: Khymo, Amber and I were still living with our parents. It felt like we had to make that step first before we could make the move to another country. Sander just got out of a break up with his ex-girlfriend and was also looking for a new place to stay. This made us look for a house where the four of us could live for a while and pursuit our dream. Living together in a small 3 bedroom apartment was a really nice confirmation that we are well capable of living together. We never had arguments and always ate together when possible. Being together every day made us envision our dreams even more and helped us to plan our next journey in search of our dream permaculture paradise.
In the summer of 2021 we would go to France once again for two weeks and see more than 12 different properties that all taught us something in their own way. We will go into this in our next article and give some more detailed tips. I hope you enjoyed this one! And stay tuned for part 2…
