FAQ

If you’ve been wandering around our blog looking for answers, but haven’t found them, this page may be your last lifeline! 😉

Here we have collected all the most frequently asked questions you made us in the past years, with all our answers 🙂

When did the two of you meet?

We met in the summer at a hotel called“Beverly Playa” on the west coast of Mallorca.

It was summer 2015, we were both 22 years old and working together as tourist entertainers 🙂

If you are interested in knowing our personal history, you can find it here 😉

When did you start traveling?

Without knowing it, we both started when we were 17, both in Ireland at the same time (coincidence?!), on an exchange program abroad: but we never crossed paths!

This experience was for both of us the seed that sprouted within us the seething curiosity, which we still have today, to travel and discover the great world out there 🙂

How do we travel now?

For almost all of our 20’s, we traveled as low-cost backpackers, spending nights sleeping in airports and the cheapest hostels around the world.

For the past two years, however, our main means of movement (as well as current home!) has become an orange camper van called “Arancino” that we self-built (here is a van tour video!)

From time to time, we still take a flight or two (especially to travel to the islands), but the passion for RVing since we started traveling on wheels has literally eaten us up!;D

Our travel style is slow, and we like to alternate between remote stops in the most isolated nature and visits to small towns and especially cities.

We really enjoy visiting cities: learning about their history, observing with curious eyes local customs, markets, the rhythms of local life and people and how the layers of history built on one another throughout history… that is, we are the opposite of hermits, we really like to be around people and hustle and bustle!

Do you prefer Sea or Mountain?

Isa is a “little sea fish” who grew up near the sea (Bisceglie, Apulia) and cannot go more than two months without seeing the sea without falling into depression.

In short, Isa would live perpetually at the beach.

On the other hand, for me (Dani here!) who grew up in the mountains (Cles, Trentino), being at the beach for more than 30 minutes in the summer sun is a nightmare (I melt like a beached jellyfish in the sun!) and I get sunburned even in the shade with 50+ cream!

The coolness of the mountains, on the other hand, I like very much.

Eventually, however, as we travel together and live together in a small van, we came together and found our compromises!

I did half of the Mediterranean beaches in the summer (how we sweated I can’t even start to tell!!!), and Isa even went with me to climb Mount Olympus in Greece… if that’s not love! ahah 🙂

How many countries have you traveled to?

Although keeping a count has never been high on our list of priorities, we have often been asked this question in the past, and since we were curious about it too, we counted them .

In total we visited 62 countries, on 5 continents, Asia, Africa, Europe, Oceania and South America.

United States and Artactica, sooner or later we will come!!

Are they few? Are they many? Don’t know, and actually don’t care neither! 🙂

What we do know is that having the opportunity to travel is a privilege we too often take for granted, and that we are eternally grateful whenever we can!

With the articles we publish on this blog, we hope to help as many more people as possible to push their own limits and find the right resources to do the same🙂

What do we do to support our journeys?

This is a question you have asked us so many times.

It’s a great question, which has a simple answer: we work!

It would be nice to have someone to fund our travels, but the truth is that if you want something in today’s world, you almost always need to earn it.

In the years that we were still studying, we always tried to combine study abroad experiences: every scholarship, every call for intercultural program etc… we were there!

Then, we changed a lot of jobs, as is often the case when you finish a course of study but still don’t know what you want to do “when you grow up”: we worked as gardeners, receptionists, in marketing, apple picking, waiters, artists, entertainers…

Then for 5-6 years we alternated fixed periods working in the hotel (8-9 months), with periods of travel (3-4 months).

Since 2023, we have left this routine to devote ourselves entirely to Lost On The Route and make it our “almost full-time” job.

We like to say “almost” full-time, because we still pick up a few odd/part-time jobs here and there (the beauty of living in an van is that we can stop whenever and wherever we want!), and we still support ourselves in part with the works of our artist (Isa).

Having said that, however, we decided to make a choice, and invest our energies in this blog that is increasingly turning into a real job!🙂

Do you make money with this blog?

Short answer: yes!

We started this blog in February 2020, knowing absolutely nothing about how blogs work, and in that year we grossed the incredible amount of 0 Euro! (against something like 2000Euro expenses to start with!).

Then we studied a lot, learned how to write and code and a thousand other things we didn’t know.

In 2021, we jumped to an impressive 295.67 euros (hahahah!) by starting to monetize the blog with advertising from November 2021.

By the end of 2022, we had risen to 4771.27 euros in one year, certainly an income to cover some maintenance costs, but not even enough to cover minimum contributions and the costs of our VAT duties in Italy.

The truth is that writing a blog, keeping it current, making it usable and even earning something from it so that you can do it full time, is not an easy “chore,” but requires hours, hours and hours of hard work in front of the PC.

It is one thing to do it as a hobby in your spare time; it is one thing to do it consistently every day.

In 2023, Lost On The Route generated a gross revenue of 17,427.60 euros, considering all income streams (advertising revenue, affiliate marketing, collaborations, guest posts, and consulting etc.).

Of course, after taxes, maintenance expenses and investment in necessary equipment are taken out, “it’s not that much” you will say.

And you are right!

That said, combined with our minimal and frugal travel style and a few chores done around, it allowed us to travel 20 nations in 2023 alone and do it at our own pace: it allowed us to enjoy our time, and to us this is worth more than large sums of money kept in the bank!

We definitely had ups and downs, joys and moments of discouragement, however, we enjoyed this journey every day!

Honestly, we never thought this hobby would ever turn into a livelihood, and that it would lead us to meet so many wonderful people, form friendships, and learn so much about travel, campervans, and ourselves!

If you want to know more about Lost on the Route and why we decided to call our blog that, find out here!

What Equipment do you use to produce Content?

You often ask us what specific equipment we use to maintain this blog and create youtube content, so we decided to jot down a list!

Preamble:the way we see it, investing in technology is investing in time (you get to work faster) and health (less freaking out because things don’t work out). So we always try to invest in quality technology that will last for years.

PC

On pc’s from as far back as 2015 we both use Dell’s, and in our opinion it is the best brand for windows PC’s (both of us are apple technology dorks!).

• Dani: I use a Dell XPS 17′ ‘, a powerful computer both to run the blog with good speeds and to edit 4K video

• Isa: use a Dell XPS 13”, a powerful, but very light pc (it weighs a kilo and a bit!). Ideal for backpacking, speed surfing and using Adobe programs and editing HD video.

PHOTOCAMERAS

• Dani: I don’t have a camera (other than the one on my phone) because I’m pretty bad at taking pictures, however I like to film! To record videos for our little youtube channel, I use a DJI Pocket 2, which I consider a small, yet monstrous camera, given the quality of 4K video, the built-in microphone (great) and the tiny (but functional!) gimbal. For vlogging is awesome! I’m thinking of upgrading to an Osmo 3 in the future, but I can definitely say that DJI stands for quality at a fair price!

• Isa: use a camera Nikon D3500, an excellent camera for taking high-quality travel photos without spending thousands. Obviously it is not a full-professional or top-of-the-line camera, however, definitely a great apparatus for those who want to start.

DRONE

• Dani: For aerial footage of our trips we use a DJI Mavic Air 2. Despite being 3 years old, it still does its job admirably with excellent 4K footage (here is a video made by us using it!).

ACCESSORIES

• Shure MV7 microphone:After using the DJI Pocket’s built-in microphone for years, I decided to invest in a desktop microphone to improve the audio quality of our videos. After careful research, I decided to purchase a Shure MV7 microphone, and I must say it is truly spacey! Night and day compared to before: here is a video to hear how it sounds! 🙂

• Tripod: a generic tripod compatible with all cameras

BACKUP POWER

• Bluetti AC180:We normally use our camper’s electrical system to support our electrical needs. That being said, since we work with computers anyway, we decided to keep a Bluetti AC180 as an emergency solution in the RV, and we got rid of the thought of running out of power!

BLOG HOSTING, PLUGINS ETC.

Currently, our blog is hosted by the web hosting service of Cloudways, which we are really happy with: it is scalable to our needs, and relatively easy to use even without being Einstein!

If you might also be interested in information about the useful services we use to run the blog (info on hosting, plugins, etc.), let us know and we might write a separate article about it 😉

Do you do other work besides this?

Isa works as an artist and does everything from canvas paintings, portraits, and commissioned macramé (some she even sells here on our blog!). She also has a recently opened instagram page if you want to check it out! 🙂

I build and manage websites and do drone filming and video editing.

Also, if we find interesting little jobs along the way that are worth stopping for a few weeks or a few months, we stop when we feel like it 🙂

What are your roles in the “Lost on the Route” blog?

Being only 2 of us, we really do everything: editing articles, editing videos, filming, solving code problems, editing photos, translations…and often our roles overlap.

But to make a long story short:

• Dani is the content creator

He writes, posts and creates video content, fixes and rearranges the blog and responds, does consultations, handles guest posts and answers all technical questions.

• Isa is the wild jolly

She manages social medias, contacts with companies, discovers problems in the blog, translates articles from Italian to English and vice versa, is a camegirl and a thousand other essential little things including feeding Dani who would otherwise starve to death!

What is it like to live in an RV full-time?

At least for us, living in an RV is living a little dream.

Of course, it is a dream made up of compromises but compromises that at this stage of our lives, we are quite happy to accept.

Among the downsides of living in an RV, at least for us, are:

• The not being able to join a gym to do fitness: we replaced the gym with free-body exercises-and we do them even in the 2 square meters we have in the van if the weather outside doesn’t allow it.

• The not being able to cook “like at home.” we have no oven, no microwave, so no we almost never cook frozen food. Because space is small and water limited, we rarely dabble in recipes that soil more than the minimum necessary (long live one-pot recipes!). With time, we created a pretty good recipe book for ourselves to make as little dirt as possible 🙂

• itinerary may vary according to the needs of our campervan: some times, you find parking lots you would never leave: on a idyllic beach, in the forest, on a lake etc.! Unfortunately, the motorhome has a limited parking range, and after a while there is always something about the van for which we have to move: it may be out of water, or there is a need to drain the greywaters, or the rubbish has become too much, or we are run out of paper towels and toilet paper (8-10 rolls at most are what we can carry!), or we have to drive to recharge the batteries a bit… an RV is neither a car nor a house, and it has maintenance needs that require it to move around all the time

• working on a PC is not as ergonomic as a desk: I work remotely, and I get by working from the van. In the end I just need PC and electricity. That said, I realized over time that our van lacks ergonomics: the backrests are too low for working so many hours, the mattress where we sit a little too soft, the the table slightly to low too. Over the past year I have made several modifications to improve ergonomics (PC stand, use a mouse instead of trackpad, additional backrest etc…), but still as soon as I can I prefer to work outside on a normal desk, it’s a whole different thing and I feel much more productive!

• For painting, the RV is a logistical chaos: Isa paints canvases on commission, often large canvases over a meter high. Where do we put them you may ask? While we are traveling in the back, when we are stopped in the front cabin. Not great keep moving them at all, but we don’t have many options.. Whenever Isa has to paint then, she has to pull materials out from under the bench, open an easel in 1 square meter, and I obviously cannot move anymore as long as she is working. It’s really really complicated (and stressful for her too!). We have thought of a thousand and more solutions, but still have not found the circle of the picture (but we are racking our brains to this day!). Besides making the paintings, the other problem then is shipping them and having a realistic shipping estimate to communicate to customers (we never know where we will be!)…in a word: chaotic!🙂

Given the negatives of living in an RV, it is also true that there are plenty of pros, That in our opinion definitely dominate over the negatives. These include:

• Geographical freedom. Being free to be where we want to be is priceless (except for the gasoline to get there!). Do we want to visit friends on the other side of Europe? We leave whenever we want! Do we want to visit 10 cities in a month? No planes, reservations or hotels are needed. Do we want to stay 10 months in one city? Same thing!

• Traveling costs less. Of course, the RV cost us and not a little: here you can find out how much it cost us and the our story of how we came to build an RV (if you’re interested). That being said, once you have an RV, the cost of traveling is greatly reduced: sure, there is gasoline which is quite expensive (in Western countries at least!), but then you can save a lot on food (cooking in the RV) and accommodations (no more hotels!). In addition to this, having “everything” in the RV, there is no need to make so many rental fees (bikes, barbeque, deck chairs, umbrella, etc.). On average, calculating an average of 2000-3000km per month, we spend around 1700-2000Euros in 2, considering everything everything everything (taxes, gasoline, food, souvenirs, occasional restaurant, museums etc.), still about the same as we would spend living in a single place and renting out an apartment.

• We live with less. Living full-time in an RV confronts you with choices: what to bring and what to leave behind. In a way, it really lets you know what you want to keep with you, and what you basically don’t need (we humans are serial accumulators, and you only have to see an elderly person’s home to see what I mean!).

• We always feel at home. We have fewer things in the van than we would have in a house, however, we have them wherever we go 🙂 The truth is that once you close the van door, inside is always the same and you forget what is outside until the next day. There were months when we changed parking lots every single day, and in the morning it is often absurd (in a good way) to open your eyes and struggle to remember where you are! 🙂

What is your favorite place you have visited?

Cool question, but complicated.

Responding requires a separate post: find out here!;)

I also dream of working while traveling, where can I start?

Contrary to rumors, there are many, so many jobs that can allow you to travel while working!

If you’re looking for inspiration, or just a place to start, we recommend reading our mega-article on the 70 Best Jobs to Earn While Traveling! 😀

What was your biggest travel mistake and what did you learn?

One of the biggest mistakes one can make while traveling is putting it off, putting it off, and the not leaving and not going for it.

Really: leaving is the most important and sometimes most difficult step.

Having some anxiety before a departure is normal, especially on first trips.

Our human brain is a machine gun when you have to think about what could go wrong:

“…What if I’m not really ready?”

“…What if I get lost?”

“…What if I am lonely?”

“…What if I don’t understand the language?”

“…What if my ATM doesn’t work?”

“…and if I run out of money.”

“…What if I take an extra week?”

“…What if the plane crashes?”

Calm down!

It’s normal and human: our brain’s primal instinct is to keep us alive; it evolved that way!

At the same time, however, the conscious part of our brain is what allows us to feel alive and be able to choose!

If you want to travel to a place, you can’t travel there with the “…what if…”, because then you will never leave: find the courage within yourself, take a breath, and do the most beautiful thing in the world: leave!

Opportunities in life are there, and they must be taken!

To give you a practical example, I (Dani here!) have always dreamed of riding the Trans-Siberian Railway by train.

In 2017 I had the chance, but I postponed it because I would have to organize too quickly and didn’t have the time (an excuse invented by my brain).

In 2018 I had the opportunity, but I thought going in the winter was not the best and postponed it until the summer.

Then in 2019 I met Isa and for a thousand other reasons I never went there again.

Then in 2020 covid, 2021 covid, 2022 Russian-Ukrainian war broke out, and it is already 5 years that my dream is forced into the drawer!

The same can happen anywhere: with Israel in 2024, with Iran in 2014, with Morocco in 2011, or with the whole world in 2020!!!

Over time, we have come to understand that if you want to travel, you have to jump in: “carpe diem” (seize the day!) and “memento mori” (remember that sooner or later you will die!) said the Romans.

If you have the opportunity to visit one place or the option to do a little de-tour on your path to see another, just do it…don’t put it off!

One never knows when and if the possibility will ever arise again!

What travel insurance do you use?

For our foreign travels, we rely on the Nomad Insurance from Safety Wing, a comprehensive insurance designed for travelers and digital nomads with a cost starting at only 40/Euro per month (or 10/Euro per week!).

In our opinion at present this is the best policy to have peace of mind at an affordable price.

What RV insurance do you use?

We insured our Arancino with Allianz Camper.

We pay approximately 700Euro/year for full coverage: theft, theft of technology, fire, third-party damage, fire damage, glass, roadside assistance… everything in short!

The basic insurance policy starts at 250Euro/year, but since we live in our RV full-time, we wanted to cover ourselves from any fatality that might happen on the road.

At the moment we never needed it, but as with all our anti-theft devices, we are quite happy to pay for it hoping we never need it! 😉

Don’t you ever get homesick?

But what question is that? Of course we do!

We are both blessed with two families we love very much, and when we are away for long months of course we miss them!

In the end, however…travelling is about choice.

Traveling can provide unique experiences and accumulate incredible memories: an elephant bath in Kenya, a windy cuddle on a beach in Cambodia, the magic of the aurora in Finland, the speed of a shinkansen in Japan…

When traveling you see things, you observe people, and you grow, you change, you become a citizen of the world, and that’s truly so beautiful!

At the same time, however, as mentioned before, if you “choose” travel, you also have to give up spending your limited time with your loved ones, and when you think about it, nostalgia is normal!

At the end of the day, while we are on the road, all the people we love are continuing their lives: our parents hair are slowly turning white, friends maybe getting married, some having children, some moving far away…

It is not only by traveling that one changes, but also those who stand still in a place… with time we all change!

Traveling is a choice. Not traveling is a choice too.

There is no right or wrong; each person has the right to choose what he or she believes maximizes his or her happiness and the happiness of those around him or her.

That said, if you’re interested in why we decided to spend so much of our precious time traveling, we wrote a long article on the why we think traveling is important (and 25 good reasons to do it!)..

What was the strangest food you ate?

Dani: scorpions without a shadow of a doubt…very bitter, however good!

Isa: hawaii pizza, with ketchup on top! Yeeeeek!

Don’t you ever fight whilte traveling full-time in an small van always together?

A question that often makes us smile: but of course!

Who said that in small spaces you must always lovely-lovely get along?

Of course, getting along is better and makes everything easier… but as in all couples we bicker, so do we.

Living in an RV or not, it makes little difference! ahah

An occasional rant about a dirty cup, a bad parking spot, deciding on an itinerary…even in the RV there can be a thousand topics of discussion…right Isa? 😉

What are the most important things you have learned from traveling?

In no specific order:

1) Traveling has taught us to cultivate gratitude: for health, friends, family, education received, for a hot shower, a roof over our heads, food, a smile, a sunrise… traveling has taught us to value what we have, made us realize how lucky we are and how often we don’t realize it!

2) Traveling has taught us that traveling itself is a privilege, and you should never forget that: a strong passport, the place where you are born, a family that lets you leave, the culture around you–there are so many factors can push you to travel like tarring your wings. Being able to make traveling easier for everyone, even if only with the information we disseminate, is also one of the goals of our blog!

3) We cannot control what is outside of us, but we can control our reaction to what happens around us: the world always goes on, no matter what happens. As insurmountable as our problems sometimes seem to us, putting them into perspective they become tiny little ones. Traveling has taught us to give proper weight to those situations that we often tend to call “problems,” but which in reality are often just first-world “nonsense.”

4) The most precious gift we can give to a person is our time and attention: we see this when we travel, but also especially those few days we return home, in the eyes of our little sisters or parents. As we travel, we are often overburdened with plans and things to do, and keeping in touch with distant friends and family is not always easy (in fact, it’s downright difficult!). On the road it is easy to meet lots of people, but keeping in touch is always difficult! Even just on this blog, we try to respond to everyone, but sometimes we miss comments and physically don’t have time to respond to everyone (but we try really hard!). After all, you can only be in one place at any given time, and only with a few people at that same time. Therefore, when you give your time and attention to someone, in our opinion you are giving the most beautiful and precious gift you can give 🙂

5) Behind every behavior and every person, there is a whole life that must be respected: traveling taught us not to judge everything at first glance, but to investigate what is behind it. Each of us, is the sum of our own, countless experiences, and we alas, when we travel, see only one page of the big book that all the other people are writing in their lives. It can be a beautiful, sad, exciting or monotonous page, but it is just a page! Therefore, to get to know people more deeply, it is important to go beyond first impressions and be willing and ready to change opinions 🙂

6) A smile, an act of kindness and sharing food are a universal language that opens more doors, and leads to more friendships than any foreign language! Simply as that. 🙂

Can I contribute a guest post on Lost On The Route?

Yes!

Personally, we like to think of Lost On The Route as a space for sharing, where we can grow together, exchange ideas and make friends.

That is why we love connecting with other bloggers and are happy to share thoughts and articles written by our readers.

The requirements for submitting a post are:

• travel-related topic – RVs, travel trivia, local guides, tips… we are a travel blog after all!

• absolutely no AI – we like to publish posts written by humans for humans, not generated by a computer

• at least 1500 words – we do not publish short-form content, we see value in completeness

• Written well without errors – grammar is important, and an article must be enjoyable for the reader to read

By publishing on Lost on the Route you can get:

• Advertisement – the site is visited by 30,000 monthly readers who could potentially read your article!

• A Do-Follow Link – in the article you can link to a web page of your own, as long as the link is naturally fitting and useful to our readers

• A Bio Link – We offer to external contributors a space to insert a personal photo and a short bio to introduce themselves

• Partnership – If our partnership works, we might consider following it up in the future!

In order not to waste time unnecessarily, we suggest that you propose your idea before writing the article.

We will get back to you within a week at most, and by hearing from you, we can better arrange the collaboration! 🙂

How can we cooperate with you as a company?

If you are a company which aligns with our values, and you think your product or service would benefit our readers, we are all ears!

In the contact pageyou can find a form “Work with Us” for you to fill out, where you can contact us and provide more information about the type of collaboration you have in mind 🙂

Any other questions?

If you have more questions, feel free to leave a comment below any post related to your question, or write to us directly: you can find all our social and whatsapp pages in the contact section! 🙂