Charles Forman (00:00)
Alright, welcome to today's Explorers, a series dedicated to sharing the inspiring stories and varying perspectives of those who have chosen to seek out life-changing adventure. On the line I've got Lucy and Ben. Hey guys.

Lucy and Ben (00:12)
Hello. How you doing?

Charles Forman (00:13)
maybe you could set the scene for us. Where in the world are you?

Lucy and Ben (00:16)
We are in sunny Cornwall in the southwest of the UK.

Charles Forman (00:20)
Brilliant. What was life like before you started to seek exploration?

Lucy and Ben (00:25)
So I was born in Cornwall but then I moved to France aged eight. That kind of gave me a completely different perspective growing up from a lot of my peers when I eventually moved back to England at the age of 15 and I suppose that kind of

period of being in a different place and then like a period of unsettlement moving around is really what inspired me to travel. So came back to Cornwall, went through the education system, eventually met Ben and the rest is history.

Yeah, I'm originally from just outside of London. I moved here when I was a kid. I've moved around a lot of times. I think I've lost count of how many houses I've moved through through my childhood. And I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out where I kind of get this enjoyment for exploration and travel. And I think it really does stem from that excitement of being a child and always moving to a new house and a new place and getting to feel a sense of where you are and trying to find a sense of belonging. And I think that's sort of still carrying

way into my adulthood now, trying to find this sense of belonging and this sense of adventure somewhere.

Charles Forman (01:24)
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean we're all born the same as babies and instantly we're exploring things and trying things and that just kind of feeds into our adult life, which oftentimes we can get trapped into the nine to five, less exploration, but I think the whole point of explore more is to encourage people to to get out there and and venture. do you guys have any special skills that you have used on your adventures?

Lucy and Ben (01:48)
This is an interesting question. We've had a good thing about this and honestly, I would say for me probably not. I am not what you would call like a mechanic or I don't know. I don't really have that kind of skill set. You're definitely more of the mechanic and I'm more of the I'll cook dinner while Lucy's fixing the engine kind of person. But I think we just make it work, don't we? And I think because we don't have those kind of professional skill sets, it kind of makes it.

far more challenging but also far more enjoyable because we're learning everything on the road on the go.

That's it. Everything's a learning process. I'm currently learning my fourth language, which I hope will help us as we travel the world. I'm also learning what I refer to as Bush mechanics, not, you know, formal mechanics, but how can we bodge this together and get this engine going again with a bit of duct tape and a plastic bottle? And I think that is part of our lives, but also part of travel is just this constant quest for knowledge and understanding.

Charles Forman (02:45)
And how are you going about getting that knowledge? Is it YouTube videos or formal courses or?

Lucy and Ben (02:50)
My dad is a mechanic, has been since he was young, so basically every time something breaks on the van he either shows me how to fix it or he's on the end of the phone and I'm going, dad what's this strange noise? And he's like, I think it's this and sort of talking me through it so it's very much kind of hands-on experience when something goes wrong it's a learning opportunity. I think you know when things used to go wrong mechanically we used to get really really worried and think no this is the end of the journey we're gonna have to turn around and go home.

and it's all over but now we kind of just take it in our stride and I would almost say enjoy the hard times when things go wrong because we're like right this is a challenge let's pop the bonnet and see what we can figure out and we're getting a lot better at this ourselves so I think that's just like you know built into us now like this is the journey it's gonna be tough there's gonna be some hard times but let's just figure it out as we go and make the most of it right? It makes a great story. It always makes a good story people love to see it when things go wrong.

Charles Forman (03:46)
Absolutely. And it builds that confidence so that each time you keep keep going, you've learned from the last lesson and you can keep moving forward. brilliant. So where have you guys explored so far?

Lucy and Ben (03:53)
Absolutely.

We've travelled across 34 countries now, most of which is in Europe but also bordering on Western Asia. We started travelling in 2016 and continue to travel for the next 10 years or so in our van. We've basically started off on a big summer holiday, didn't we, around Western Europe and France, Spain and Portugal, and then just gradually pushed further and further east because that's where the kind of more adventurous side of travel lay for us.

Yeah, I think there's been a couple of really pivotal moments, hasn't there? Like the first journey we took away was definitely just a summer holiday and we ended up getting broken into and quite a of our stuff was stolen and we had a smashed window and we were like, damn, do we just, do we just give up and go home or do we try and sort of persevere through this? And it was like, it was so close to just giving up and going back and going back to the sort of humdrum of daily life. But we were like, no, no, no, let's try and get this fixed.

and

we managed to get it fixed really roughly, the window, and we carried on. We went to Italy, we had a great time through the winter, and that was like a real turning point for us because I think we realised then we could have missed out on a really good story and a really good journey had we given up at that moment. So since then, we've never even considered giving up, have we? Everything is fixed on the road, every kind of problem is solved. know, once we're out there, we are there. There is no concept of returning home and giving up.

for us.

Charles Forman (05:22)
Brilliant. what what would be your top three next destinations you definitely want to explore?

Lucy and Ben (05:27)
This is tricky. So our next journey is actually that we're going to be driving to India from Kuala Lumpur.

It's like this journey that we've always had in the back of our minds for many years now. It just feels like something that naturally we would do one day and now the journey is finally upon us. But it's not just about the A to B point, it's about everything that's in between and many of those countries are places we've dreamed of visiting for so long. For example, Kazakhstan, I know is not probably top of many people's lists, but it's this kind of like sweeping emptiness that we expect to find there that's really drawing us there.

fascinated by nomadic lifestyle and people living out in the most far flung places. this is where we want to visit. Kazakhstan is a huge appeal. It's such a vast country with such open nothingness. It really, really appeals to us. of adventurous and slightly...

There are say introverted side, I think, doesn't it? And then for you, you also really wanted to travel to Pakistan. That was top of your list. And then not on the India journey, but I feel like my ultimate goal would be to explore both Mongolia and Siberia. are locations that are really just calling me for some reason that I can't really express just yet.

Charles Forman (06:38)
Yeah. That makes sense. and follow up question like d in regards to pace of exploring these places, like what do you what's your pace for staying in a country? 'Cause there's always that feeling of like, I'll get to the next place, get to the next place, but how do you find that rhythm?

Lucy and Ben (06:54)
Yeah, we

never really have that actually. think we've always been about slow travel. I think initially it started just purely because we didn't have a lot of money and we were trying to budget. So using a very small amount of fuel every day meant that we kept within our daily budget that we had allocated ourselves. So initially that was what kind of pushed that slow travel movement for us. But then we realized, you know, it's very easy just to...

drive past everything and miss a whole heap of really cool stuff. we've found that slowing down, you just get to feel the pace of the country. You get to see the the science of the country that you wouldn't see just driving along the motorway from point A to point B. You know, we try and not to have too much of a plan and just kind of go where we feel is right at the time.

Charles Forman (07:35)
and where would you recommend people visit from the places you've gone to?

Lucy and Ben (07:39)
This is a really

difficult one as well because I think what we've realised over the years is that actually recommending places can be quite damaging. It can be quite damaging to the country or to the specific location and it can also be quite damaging to the person's individual adventure because I think you really have to find these places for yourself to figure out what it is that you actually enjoy. I think it's so easy now in a world where everything is online just to be kind of almost have your trip curated for you by like this is

the top places you must visit blah blah blah blah blah. We always find that the places in between those touristy hotspots if you like are actually the most exciting and enjoyable for us. So in terms of recommending I wouldn't necessarily recommend the place I would just recommend a feeling and to slow down and just to take in everything and then you will just discover what it is that you enjoy.

Charles Forman (08:28)
Yeah, that's interesting. I always compare with like my parents' trip in the seventies. They obviously didn't have GPS and things like that. And my mum always encouraged, like, today don't rely so much on technology to lead you the way. Let let yourself go down a different path because you might be missing out on something.

Lucy and Ben (08:44)
Yeah,

absolutely. remember the my first major

trip was in India when I was 18 and I had a mobile phone with me and I had a tablet. Within a few days my phone fell out of a window because the windows don't have glass on the trains so it just fell straight out of my pocket and that was gone and then I ended up sitting on and crushing my tablet so I had nothing. But you know it was so liberating to have no technology. I had a lonely planet book that was about this fat and that was my Bible for that journey you know like everything was sort of relying on

Charles Forman (09:05)
Ha ha

Lucy and Ben (09:16)
that for navigation and hotels and it was just a really exciting very freeing kind of feeling I think although I'm not sure I feel comfortable doing it now weirdly

Charles Forman (09:28)
Yeah, definitely.

it's good to know the basics though, like learning to read a map and things like that, so that in those instances you can rely on that. let's talk about your vehicle then. What do you drive, what year it is, and any modifications you've made?

Lucy and Ben (09:36)
Definitely.

At this particular moment we're actually between vans. So for the last 10 years we've traveled in our LDV convoy. That's a 2002 British van. They're defunct, they don't make them anymore. It's given us both incredible headaches and incredible joy over the last 10 years and taught us so much. And I love that van. It's a love-hate relationship, but we really wanted to pay homage to it. It didn't feel right that when it retired, that would be kind of it. So we went out and bought its granddad, a much

Olde

van, which is a Freight Rover Sherpa from 1988. We were inspired by

our old vans, adventures and just what it was actually capable of. If you just put enough kind of time into it to fix it and keep it going, it was genuinely inspiring and we were inspired by this author as well called Phil Llewellyn who actually took a Sherpa van to the Himalayas in 1978 and it kind of sparked this idea when we read that story of I wonder what it would be like to do that journey in that van now 40 years on or 50 years on from the original journey. It was this like bit of a crazy

idea because I know most people would A. upsize and B. go for something a bit more modern and comfortable and we've gone the complete opposite way because we just want something that's really simple that's analog, mechanical, we're not gonna have these funny electrics and stuff you know throwing up all sorts of problems it's something that can be fixed anywhere in the world and it's just big enough to be our house but just small enough to get as many places as possible

Charles Forman (11:07)
Hm. And and what's the layout like inside?

Lucy and Ben (11:09)
Still undecided. It's a right now. We stripped out a perfectly fine camper van conversion inside because we weren't happy with the layout and we thought, this looks a little bit too retro and the space wasn't utilized. know, this is going to be a long one, two year journey. So we need to make sure every inch of that van is utilized to its absolute best. So at the moment it's empty and we are still deciding on the layout.

Charles Forman (11:10)
Yeah.

And I imagine that's two wheel drive, right? How are you thinking about yeah.

Lucy and Ben (11:41)
Yes.

Interestingly, we're not keeping the van as original.

Charles Forman (11:46)
Okay.

Lucy and Ben (11:46)
They made a very limited run of 4x4 versions of this van in the 80s and those are so rare now. But we've seen the images of them and we really took inspiration from that in deciding to make our own 4x4 van. It seemed like a natural progression of wanting to explore more and really get out there and being limited by our old van. So we have removed basically everything from the van, the engine, the suspension, the axles, and it's going to be all replaced with Land Rover parts. And the reason for that is that

Charles Forman (11:58)
Wow.

Lucy and Ben (12:16)
Land Rover is globally available, it's got a reputation for being maybe not so reliable but definitely repairable and simple and it just fits with our ethos of travel so this van is going to push us to go even more places than before.

Charles Forman (12:29)
That's brilliant. Wow, that's very exciting. if you think about the equipment that you're bringing with you, like what's your top five pieces of equipment you always have to have when you travel?

Lucy and Ben (12:32)
you

we had to think about this and I'm not sure it would be strictly anything overly technical. think cameras for us is number one because we're photographers, we're videographers, we capture and tell stories and for us there would be no purpose to travel without that.

Charles Forman (12:55)
Mm.

Lucy and Ben (12:56)
Something basic like a Leatherman or a Swiss Army knife, mostly for the tin opener. And then we always say that there's not many places that some duct tape, some WD-40 and a can of Easy Start can't get you when you're traveling in a van. I think we have become very minimal in our travel and how much we pack. When we first started out, we overpacked the van completely. We had everything in there from inflatable kayaks to, you know.

Charles Forman (13:18)
Hm.

Lucy and Ben (13:18)
all this stuff that we would never use. And then gradually we pared it back and pared it back until one day we were still outside our van going, is this it? Is this all we're taking? And I think it can be so easy to overpack and over prepare thinking, I'm not going to be able to get this wherever I go. And then we've realized that, you know, every country has access to basically the same kind of things. If you need, you can find it within that country. You can adapt as you go. And just starting out with minimal preparations, I think kind of makes the journey a little bit more interesting for

I think I would say the only thing you can't really get abroad is decent baked beans. else is available. We do take a little bit. Yeah.

Charles Forman (13:51)
Ha ha.

Good supply there. yeah, that's interesting 'cause I mean in today's technology everything can be shipped anywhere. You can you know, if if it's not available locally. and it's interesting how we do tend to fill our houses full of all this stuff that we don't really need and when you do go through a good sort out it feels very refreshing to be like a lighter weight. So and especially when you're traveling

weight is a consideration. interesting. Okay.

Lucy and Ben (14:20)
Create a need, don't we, for a lot of things. We'll always find a way to justify buying something online or I need this. And then when you travel, that need is completely gone. It's just you've got what you've got and that's it kind of thing. Yeah, make do.

Charles Forman (14:25)
Yeah.

For sure. Brilliant. now we're gonna move into the what I call the reflecting questions. What inspires you guys to explore?

Lucy and Ben (14:39)
You want to go? No, you go first. Hmm. It's quite a difficult question really. mean...

On the one hand, think both having childhoods where we moved around a lot naturally gravitated us towards kind of being unsettled and being on the road. And I think it's this idea of sitting still and being static is very under stimulating for us. know, we're constantly craving novelty and experiences and just a full life of, you know, stories and adventures and things. And I think really it can be built into

to all of us to want to travel. It's just whether you're kind of suppressing that need in favour of comfort or modern conveniences and stuff like that. Do you want to add to that? No, think you nailed it. really? I thought you liked it.

Charles Forman (15:27)
how do you guys engage with other people?

Lucy and Ben (15:30)
on the road. I think this has changed a lot since we first began travelling. When we started out 10 years ago, I think we were quite shy. We didn't really speak to a lot of people, mainly because of a language barrier.

And I think coming from an island where we seem to be more and more cutting ourselves off from everyone, it almost feels built into you to be really suspicious of everyone around you. It wasn't really until we discovered hot springs that we became a little bit more sociable because you're in the pool with a bunch of strangers, basically naked.

or just wearing very little, you're all very, very equal in that situation. And I think that kind of really just like pushes you to be out of your comfort zone and start talking to people a bit more. And then we realized that actually this is like really valuable for everyone involved because you can share a bit of your culture, share a bit of your knowledge. And it's really fascinating to find out from the local people why they enjoy using these places. And then they might invite you back to their house or invite you to go and visit some really cool places that only the locals

know about and I think from there we just something just clicked and we're like no this is this is the way to do it we have to meet as many local people as possible this is like how you get the most out of out of the journey I suppose isn't it it's so important to you know we just say say yes to everything accept every invitation and we've had so many offers of like help especially in moments of dire need when you think you're on your own someone will come along and they'll offer you help fixing your van or they'll offer you a cup of

or something like that and it's those moments that really just solidify your kind of connection to humanity I think.

Charles Forman (17:05)
Yeah. as an introvert myself it's an encouragement to myself to engage other people. but I think, you know, it's not as scary as it feels like initially, and a smile can break that down or a wave or something and once you start like communicating, it's i i yeah, it just opens up a world. yeah, the fear of it puts it off sort of thing.

Lucy and Ben (17:25)
Yeah.

Charles Forman (17:26)
why is it important that we embrace global cultures?

Lucy and Ben (17:29)
I if I could just use our journey as an example of this, think every country we visit, the people of that country are always suspicious of their neighbouring countries. And we find it, especially as we head further east, they seem to become more more suspicious of their neighbouring countries. And they will try everything in their

possible power to convince us otherwise of visiting the next country we're planning to go to. They will say can't go there, they're untrustworthy, they're terrorists, they're this and they're that.

But you know, we don't listen ever. We go there with an open mind, a broad mind, just ready to embrace whatever we find. And we always find the same kindness that we've just found in the previous country. So I think this really says a lot about the world as a whole, you know. I think it's natural to sort of have suspicions of outsiders. It's kind of built into us as humans, I think. But really, it's so easy to see beyond that, the more that you travel and...

I think having been a foreigner in another country and having felt uncomfortable but then also felt the kindness of people in that country, that really inspires us to put more of that out into the world.

Charles Forman (18:31)
Yeah. It's challenging that narrative that all countries seem to, you know, broadcast to their citizens and things like that. and that's the whole point. Yeah. Explore more so that you can go and learn for yourself what it's actually like and realize that again we're all humans trying to figure this out on this planet in the middle of space. that's my

Lucy and Ben (18:50)
The one thing we can

do is everyone's just trying to get on with their everyday lives.

Charles Forman (18:53)
Yeah, for sure. we talked about what inspires you to explore, but kind of w what are your goals when you're exploring?

Lucy and Ben (19:01)
Hmm.

I I've just looked her into a nose.

For us it's always finding the kind of lesser trodden paths or the places in between. It's not just going to the most popular places or the ones that have been published online. It's seeking out these real experiences by just throwing yourself into kind of wherever you end up. I think our constant quest for hot springs has become very much a way marker on our routes and that takes us to all kinds of crazy places that I don't think any normal tourist

would ever go because they could be out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, you know, we've driven four hours or even multiple days in search of one hot spring that may or may not be there and then that immerses you into a community that you would have never otherwise had a reason to visit, I guess. So it's all just about collecting stories, just opening ourselves up to experiences, 99 % of which are positive. And I think that's really important to remember because it can be so easy to be afraid of the unknown, but

Charles Forman (19:47)
Mm.

Lucy and Ben (19:59)
If you embrace it, it's amazing what you can really experience. think off the back of that as well, we've also really enjoyed just telling stories from really remote areas where traditional ways of life are actually disappearing very rapidly. And we felt like, you know, we have the tools to actually share their story before it's too late and to show way of life that is not going to be around in a few decades' time or even less.

Charles Forman (20:19)
Mm.

Lucy and Ben (20:24)
than that so this is also now a huge part of our journey is when we visit these places we have this kind of need to fulfill to share the stories of people there before it's too late.

Charles Forman (20:33)
Yeah. That's great documenting. what challenges have you guys experienced in your travels?

Lucy and Ben (20:38)
many and they're mostly van related. I would say yeah people are cool but the van has given us untold challenges over the years and it kind of goes back to what we were saying at the beginning you know we could very easily give up and just turn around and come home and go back to some boring job but

The challenge is perseverance. It's seeing it through. It's overcoming the breakdown. It's overcoming bad weather or whatever it is that's been thrown at us at the time. It's just not giving up, I think, isn't it? That's the most important. Even on our most recent journey, we were in Germany. We were just about to drive to Denmark to catch the ferry to Iceland in 48 hours time. And then our van's failed. And we suddenly had 48 hours to get this clutch fixed and get up there.

It was a weekend bank holiday. Nobody was interested in helping us and working on the van at all apart from one friend we had. So we just went out and bought a clutch kit. He let us use his workshop and we stayed up for 26 hours straight in the end trying to change our own clutch. None of us knew how to do it. We had never done it before and we gave it a bloody good go. And unfortunately we did miss the ferry, but it was this effort that we'd all put into kind of keeping that van going was what made this story. And there's been other moments.

Charles Forman (21:52)
Mm.

Lucy and Ben (21:53)
like that when we were in the east of Turkey for example in the dead of winter and

and we were ill-equipped. Our van ended up on some quite icy, steep mountain roads and there were moments where we genuinely thought our van was going to slide off the side of the mountain with or without us in it. And that was terrifying and again that could have just sent us straight home, know, give up, this is too dangerous. And recovering from that and then persevering and continuing on for several more months through the winter and into spring just gave us this feeling of incredible achievement.

the same as when we'd done the clutch, know, this resilience and this challenge overcome. And it's not that we go into it to make things difficult for ourselves, but we see these moments of difficulty as like, right, this is it now, this is, you we're going to rise to the potential.

Charles Forman (22:40)
Yeah, interesting. on the f the flip side then, what's been a meaningful moment for you?

Lucy and Ben (22:46)
many, many meaningful moments. They nearly always involve other local people now, I would say, you know. To start with, might have just been a pretty sunset in Portugal that was a meaningful moment, but I think now it goes a lot deeper than that, would you say? Absolutely. I mean, I just have this really specific memory of standing on this hill in Bulgaria and it was like this bright red sunset, but it was also raining and we just completed eight months of travel around Turkey and the Caucasus.

in the winter, overcoming all these challenges and stuff. And we were just stood there on our way home and we had this moment of like, we've actually done it. Like we've survived this brutal winter and everything that's thrown at us and we've had the most profound and incredible experiences along that way with the people that we've met and the things that we discovered and I just remember that real feeling of like accomplishment there. It brought us closer than ever and that was like the pinnacle of me, a pinnacle for me I think.

Charles Forman (23:44)
Do you feel in those moments that you're like living what life should be like? C when you think to

Lucy and Ben (23:48)
It's

how I think we feel life should be for us. It's not necessarily going to fit everyone's of lifestyle needs or wants, but yeah, for us, I think that is when we feel most fulfilled for sure. Absolutely.

Charles Forman (24:01)
'Cause yeah, I mean the necessity of work, nine to five, things like that, that obviously enables you to do trips like this. but those days can just go by so quickly with the monotony. I often find when I go on on exploration or something, the days just feel so long and you know, a week feels like I've been away for a month, but you know,

Lucy and Ben (24:10)
Thanks.

Charles Forman (24:19)
Yeah, the the the comparison of w what is actually living your life to the fullest sort of thing.

Lucy and Ben (24:24)
Yeah, no, we definitely don't feel like we're living our true lives when we're stuck here just working, but we're always working towards something. I think that's what sort of keeps us going when we are back in the UK. We know that there's an end in sight and we are going to be back on the road eventually.

Charles Forman (24:38)
Mm.

Brilliant. when you are back in the UK, how do you guys continue to kind of explore locally? obviously you don't that's the thing is you to explore you don't have to go super far. You can also experience what's around you.

Lucy and Ben (24:52)
It's funny, I said to a friend the other day, was like, have you been to such and such a place or beach or whatever? And she was like, no, to be honest, I don't really, you know, explore much of Cornwall. And I was thinking, but you've probably lived here for several decades now. And us, as soon as we met in uni, I think, I had a car and bended and every weekend we would be out going to some other part of the county. We would be camping, we would be taking my car down these stupid little flooded muddy tracks.

stuff. Just getting out there and I think there's not really anywhere in our local area that we've not seen now but when you do get that moment where you end up driving a road that you've never been on before or like a little village you've never seen we still get a little flurry of excitement and we might message each other and say hey you've been on this road yet you know it's like a micro discovery but it's just a constant feeling of like novelty I suppose. What we also like to do is host people from Couchsurfing so it's always

Charles Forman (25:48)
Mm.

Lucy and Ben (25:49)
been a thing that we've done for well as long as we've known each other and I did it long before that too. I think it's just really nice to whether we're traveling or not to be involved in that kind of world you know so like if we're not out somewhere we want to host people who were doing a similar thing to us and we get to show them around our local area and

share some knowledge and you know learn some stuff from them whether it's cooking or language or some idioms or whatever it is like we just really love to be around other travelers as much as we can and when we're not traveling it's like the world comes to us

Charles Forman (26:20)
Mm-hmm.

That's brilliant. Yeah. we've broken it down, but Explore More has a mantra which is explore more of the world, engage with others and embrace global cultures. When you hear that mantra, what does that make you think of?

Lucy and Ben (26:34)
I suppose it immediately makes me think of some conversations that we've had with our friends back at home. They are people that don't really travel so often, they're probably more inclined to take holidays and things and I think it's really easy if you follow social media, if you follow the news, you know it's everywhere now. It seems like everyone is just trying to divide us in this country. There's so much negativity, there's so many alternative points of view, let's say some of which are

harmful and I think we see people that we know becoming more insular and more closed off and more...

narrow minded and that feels completely at odds with us who are constantly trying to expand our horizons. So when I saw the mantra it made me think of how even a small dose of travel can be extremely beneficial for other people. You don't even have to travel to another country, you just need to go to a different area and get talking to people from different nationalities, different cultures, different religions. Even just your neighbours. Yeah even that's it. It's so easy to be closed off and feel like you're connected to the world because you're online.

but really it's a facsimile of true connection in the real world.

Charles Forman (27:42)
Yeah. again it's that fear, the fear of the unknown. But then once you do it, you do a little bit at a time, that confidence builds and you yeah, your the whole point, yeah, your perspective widens. and then you're educating yourself and learning more and more, that helps that confidence to feel less fearful.

Lucy and Ben (28:01)
Definitely. Absolutely.

Charles Forman (28:03)
What advice would you give to others, maybe thinking of your friends, who might want to start looking at seeking life changing adventure?

Lucy and Ben (28:12)
Yeah you go. You go. No I said I was already. Which one is this? on I'm just gonna check my note one second. it's there I found it.

Charles Forman (28:14)
Mm-hmm.

Lucy and Ben (28:20)
Okay, what do I... Okay, yeah.

I think the most important thing definitely is just to say yes more and to every or as many opportunities as you possibly can because I think it does get harder to push yourself out of your comfort zone the older you become. And I can feel already some resistance sometimes within myself but I think it's really really important to push that away and just keep saying yes because we've had the most incredible opportunities come from just that

Charles Forman (28:38)
Mm-hmm.

Lucy and Ben (28:50)
one word. So I think, yeah, if I was to sell my friends anything, it would be to just keep an open mind and say yes to every opportunity you get. You do not know where it's going to lead to next. And that in itself is a very exciting concept. I mean, even when our friends occasionally have come to visit us and spend a few days living our lifestyle and traveling in the van with us, they've said unequivocally that they've come home 100 % happier than when they left just because of having that space to explore a bit more and just

connect from what you think is important, your priorities at home end up being completely different to your priorities on your travel and you wonder why you were so caught up in everything in the first place.

Charles Forman (29:29)
Yeah,

for sure. brilliant. Well, I've got the last question which is basically to give you the floor and and ask you how can other people continue to follow your adventures and and be inspired.

Lucy and Ben (29:39)
you

So yeah, we're currently working on building our new old van, the 1988 Freight Rover Sherpa. So we're gonna be documenting the entire build process of that on our YouTube channel and social media. And then the eventual adventure to India as well, starting right here in Cornwall from Lands End, and then ending at the Lands End in Southern India, which is gonna be about 15,000 miles. So we're documenting that across our socials, and we're also eventually hoping to make like a feature-length

documentary about it. Yeah and you can follow us on from rust to road trip on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, whatever it is we're gonna be there.

Charles Forman (30:17)
Brilliant. I'll make sure to add that in the description of the video. but yeah, this has been really great to to understand you guys' story and perspective and thank you so much for coming on to the podcast and YouTube.

Lucy and Ben (30:29)
Thank you very much. having us.