As I write this from the roadside in England it's -1c. Even with the sun out it's bloody cold. I'm getting virtually no solar for the batteries, it's far too cold to go out climbing and Tuna is refusing to set paw outside. It's time to head back to Spain!

With the ferry booked Google expects the drive from Calais to Costa Blanca to be around 16 hours, which in 28 year old motorhome language is about 20.

*Update - make that 26 hours of driving over 5 days including deviations to avoid french ‘crit air’ zones, getting stuck behind snow ploughs for hours, multiple road closures due to snow and detours down country lanes at night with Googlemaps inventing yet more road closures that didn't actually exist, oh and then road closures in Spain as well with police seemingly directing people off roundabouts at random to God knows where. That's ‘living the dream’ for you* 

That's a lot of fuel and a lot of tolls, plus the ferry itself of course. But one of the great things about Spain is that everything is cheaper, so the net cost of this trip is probably pretty neutral. 

Storm Goretti made an appearance in France

Another obvious advantage of Spain is the sun, and crucially for vanlife it will be at a higher angle so better for solar charging. My panels can't be angled so in a UK winter there is just no way of getting them pointed towards the sun short of parking on a 45 degree south facing slope! I've been struggling all winter, regularly taking battery packs into the gym to charge, or spending the day working in the library. (Hurrah for public libraries by the way! One of the few places you're actually allowed to just exist in without being expected to spend money)

UK winter vanlife is also a struggle when it comes to LPG. With the heater in use every day I'm literally burning through gas and refilling in England is not always easy. Very few garages want to allow people to refill the perfectly legal refillable bottles now so it's not uncommon to run out of gas half way through cooking dinner and have to drive an hour to find somewhere to refill. That just isn't a problem in Spain.

Then of course there's the climbing. I've had a couple of trips to Spain previously so have already checked out several crags. Chullila, Sella, Alcalali and Lliber are a few favourites which I'm sure I'll head back to. There's one or two definite “holiday grade” 7a’s I've got my eye on and it's just overall an awesome area to climb, chill and enjoy life.

While the financial cost may be neutral the carbon cost on the other hand is certainly not. This is an issue that does concern me considering one of my reasons for starting vanlife was wanting to reduce my environmental impact. I can probably justify this to myself in various ways but ultimately it's about balance. I had several reasons for pursuing vanlife, not all of which are entirely compatible. 

• First was a desire to see more of the world than just a house and an office, the main point of vanlife to me is the travel. Without that I'm just a bloke sitting in a rainy car park which is not appealing in any way. 
• Secondly it was a way to get more involved in nature work, either a change of career or just volunteering more. 
• Thirdly as mentioned the desire to reduce my impact on nature but this comes into direct conflict with the first reason. Related to that is:
• Number four - disillusionment with the way our society works, the endless demands to be productive, to consume more, earn more. It's utterly unfulfilling and unsustainable. That disillusionment has led me down various rabbit holes - degrowth economics, MMT, alternative ways of organizing society that don't require endless expansion.

Clearly there's no way to absolutely achieve all of those goals. I can't travel the world while minimising my carbon emissions, I can't spend my time climbing while also pursuing a new career in conservation, I can't completely remove myself from consumerism without going fully off grid. So balance. Right now I'm prioritising travel and climbing but trying my best not to lose sight of the other reasons for doing this.

Speaking of climbing, thanks to the magical passing of time and the reality of writing on the road I am now finishing this post from a lovely parkup at Alcalali with a nice sunny day of climbing ahead. At least in terms of the travel & climbing that four day drive looks to have paid off! 

Ultimately vanlife is no different from normal life in a lot of ways, it can be messy, contradictory, with multiple reasons for and against everything you do. Holding multiple incompatible thoughts and opinions on a single subject is pretty much a requirement of the human condition anyway, there is no escaping that no matter how far you drive. Vanlife does not solve every problem, there often are no nice neat solutions that tie everything up. No one definitive direction to travel in. Life is not a film with a satisfying conclusion, nor is this blog post.