The subject is money. Time and again, we read stories about people editing their lives, not just because they want to create a smaller carbon footprint and have less to clean and manage. Canadian Ben Hayward is an awesome example of such a downsizer. Before his current journey, Ben was already an accomplished athlete. Yet he wanted to go even further and compete in the Olympics in Rio. In order to be better prepared, he realized he had to go live in Europe where the best training opportunities existed.
Most people in his position accept that they will go into debt to pursue their dreams—something Ben told me he was willing to accept as well if it came down to it. But Ben had another solution. In thinking about how he could live cheaply in Europe, he conceived an idea to build his own traveling home that could also exploit his architectural chops.
With the help of friend Adam, he conceived the Hobbit Mobile, a tiny house on wheels, which would allow him to live simply and frugally while he traveled and trained all across Europe. Ben uses the bathrooms that are present at all of the training facilities where he camps. All of this not only allows him to keep expenses minimal, but it simplifies his life. Ben told me there are numerous other benefits of living in the van. Because his overhead is so low, Ben can make ends meet with his stipend and a few sponsorships.
He has strung together some impressive results recently, entering the finals at the World Cup in Spain last week and earning a bronze medal at the Pan-Am Games a month ago. Though not everyone would choose to live as he does, he believes the downsized, minimal way of life is hardly limited to single, male, Olympic caliber kayakers. By paring down to the necessities, keeping expenses low, spending lots of time outdoors, the life that you would dream of living might not be as far out of reach as we think.
Keep up with Ben on his website and Instagram. Tiny houses are, to borrow a hopefully soon-to-be-retired expression, trending. I believe this trendingness is attributable to their role as the architectural embodiment of our collective exhaustion with too much physical, financial and psychic overhead. They provide just what a single person or couple need and nary a thing more. But there are few legal places to park them outside Portland, leaving many folks who would live in a tiny house unable to do so.
