Athena and Bruno owned a bar in Barcelona and everything was going well for them. But one day they decided to sell everything to change their lives and become nomads. They tell their adventures in a blog called "Les Amants voyageurs" and confided in us about their new life through a captivating interview.
How did you get the idea to change your life and launch your travel blog?
"We had been living in Barcelona for 5 years already, where we ran a wine bar and it worked very well. But the problem when you live abroad is that you tend to go to see the family when you are on holiday and therefore return to France.... But in 2018, we finally made a trip to New York in January and a road trip to the West Coast in August. And that's when we realized that we really loved to travel. Our last big trip was 10 years ago and it was to take a van tour of Europe in a year! It was old and we wanted to go back to travelling.
We had to break with the routine that had taken over in Barcelona, even though it is a city that moves and that we love very much. At that moment we decided to sell our bar and then our apartment and become nomads because that's what really suits us.
One thing is certain: we no longer want a sedentary life. We've been together for 15 years and we've always moved a lot. So it came naturally this desire to become a nomad. And since we have decided not to have children, we need to have other challenges on a daily basis and reinvent ourselves every day. Finally, it is also a question of state of mind because we are rather against the over-consumption of our societies. Without being hippies for all that, we think it's good not to consume everything without thinking. »
What will be your first trips?
"We're going on a trip on August 18 and we're going to start with 8 days in Istanbul because it's a city we love. Then on August 25 we take off from Istanbul to Kathmandu with the project to go to Sri Lanka. But this is only the first step.... Then we plan to go to India and Pakistan. We think that all this will take us from one and a half to two years. The idea is to make Asia by taking our time."
Beyond Asia, which countries do you want to visit first?
"In reality, we didn't really want to visit Asia before everything else. But since we decided to change our lives, we needed to go to destinations that would really change us from our daily lives. And then, the fact that we have time in front of us allows us to travel to destinations like India that we can't do in a hurry. »
And you completely rule out moving back to a country and maybe opening a new bar?
"The idea of staying in a country we like for 6 months, we are considering it, yes! But not opening a bar in another country.
We like to have different experiences without projecting too much. It's not like we're going around the world, with a beginning and an end. We are much more flexible. We let ourselves be carried away, we try and we'll see. »
The journey is at the centre of your life after all.... But what does it do for you?
"It's really the discovery part that seduces us, it feeds us. We are generally amazed when we travel and we really want to go towards that. Every trip has its share of unforgettable encounters and we like it very much. "»
How did your loved ones react when you told them about your decision to become nomads?
"No one was surprised (laughs). They were all pretty surprised that we had stabilized for 5 years (laughs). More seriously, I think they are all proud of us because we make our dreams come true, but they are still worried about our future. At the same time, we have also accustomed them a lot to being far from them because we have always travelled a lot, so it is not as if we had cut the cord overnight. »
However, you still chose to settle in Barcelona for a long time, why this city?
"We wanted to have a better quality of life in Europe, not too far from where we come from Paris and we thought why not at the time! Then we had the idea of opening our wine bar. We chose to do so in the northern part of Barcelona, in the Sant'Andreu district, which is 100% Catalan, not tourist and not even frequented by the French community of Barcelona. Very quickly we really settled in this neighborhood. In fact, our customers have become friends and they really want to hear from us during our various trips. In particular, they asked us to do Stories Instagram in Spanish to follow our adventures as closely as possible (laughs)
How do you plan to manage your blog during your travels?
"We're still new to the world of blogging, but we started last August and there are already about 50 articles. We started by telling about our trip to the United States. It is on the tone of the news and as we added practical information upon request from readers. But we don't want to fall into the writing race. Our priority is to travel and when we have time to write we will. We're really going to stay very natural. We also created a section on our change of life and the reflections around this transition from sedentary to nomadic life. »
Find the full interview by listening to the podcast here
