Projekt Arbus is a group of people who love hardcore traveling. We don’t sleep in comfy hotel beds, we don’t shower in warm, clean bathrooms.
Everything is our bed and everywhere is our toilet...
It's about being together, waking up in the most stunning places Europe has to offer, cooking meals together and doing everything in between.
In summer 2016 our first journey started, it was 14 of us, most knew each other but we had a few lovely people we found on the world wide web.
Most of us went to Woodstock Festival (now Pol’and’Rock) first, spent a whole week there just chillin and after the festival finished, we started driving towards the west coast of France. It was a very long journey in two Volkswagen T3s. The moment we heard the Ocean, cars stopped, we opened the doors and started running towards the water just to see... a low tide! No swimming/shower this time. In the evening we set up our camp on a small cliff and stayed up late drinking and talking.
The next morning we got up early and drove to a town called La Colonelle, found a car park next to the coast and decided to stay there for a night. It was nice, no proper beach, just massive rocks but that didn’t bother us, we just wanted to swim.
Our next stop was a small place called Sainte with a lovely amphitheater and then the beautiful city of Bordeaux.
We googled a place to stay and it took us to some green spot, looked a little bit like a forest and a bit like a big park, mostly like a place we weren’t allowed to camp at but we thought YOLO, let’s stay here. The night was very peaceful but very early in the morning policemen came and said it’s a national park or whatever and we need to pay a fine. We came up with a lie that we just got here and didn’t know what this place was so they let us go, but we had to hurry up. We got out of this situation with NO lesson learned hahaha.
23rd of July we drove almost the whole day but we finally made it to Spain. The views were breathtaking, I just love this country, surprises me every time!
Our camping for the next two nights was a lovely, small beach near Cuchia and Torrelavega.
It was so so pretty and safe that we wanted to stay more than one night and finally enjoy the scenery and our time together, properly without rushing anywhere.
The whole day was spent on drinking beer from a nearby restaurant, swimming, tanning and playing volleyball on the beach. It was just perfect.
This whole situation was annoying and stressful and I promised myself I will never do this again.
I booked quite a cheap flight from Barcelona to Krakow for the 26th of July, but we were 700km away from the airport and it wasn’t in our itinerary to go that direction and that’s okay, it was a challenge I accepted going on this journey.
It’s Monday 25th, we’re driving to the nearest, biggest city, Oviedo, to find me a bus or train I could take to Barcelona. When we got to the station, a lady at the information desk said there’s one train at like 4am and I could be in the capital around 11am, one hour after my flight departure, so no thank you. Then she showed me where the bus station was, thankfully I could take a bus with connection and I would be in Barcelona right on time.
Said goodbye to my friends, wished them an awesome journey and left.
It was stressful, but I arrived at the airport on time and even had half an hour to spare to buy souvenirs.
I made it home right before my cousin’s wedding with a lot of stories to tell.
Whole Projekt Arbus crew, after I left, traveled through the north of Spain to Portugal, then down the coast to Gibraltar (which was our aim for this trip) and Eastern part of Spain, up north to France, next they drove through the south of the country and got back to Poland after almost 30 days being on the road. I wished I stayed longer with them but I’m grateful for all the days I got to be with them.
This trip was very significant to me, gave me the courage to travel on my own and also that little kick to start making my long life dream come true and travel the world.
It was kind of a test as well, I never thought I would be able to not use a proper shower for few weeks or sleep under the stars, I had a tent with me but it wasn’t as fun as sleeping without a ‘roof’ above my head, so whenever I could I chose to sleep on top of the car.
Very important thing to remember is that even though we made a lot of mess where we camped when we were leaving, everything got cleaned up and looked like we never stopped there. We respect our planet and don’t leave trash behind!
I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who came up with this brilliant idea, for all of us to gather together and see Europe (at least for now). Love you guys and miss those days in the wild!
@projekt_arbus
