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- You know, a whole bunch of years ago when I graduated from university with my very fancy degree, I definitely, definitely didn't expect that I would ever consider this to be "success." I definitely did not think that I would ever be living in a tent with no running water and no power, and consider that to be a good thing. Life looked very different in my head back then, and I definitely, definitely didn't expect that I would ever say that I have to go dig myself a toilet, which is exactly what I need to do today.
(gentle instrumental music) So the first thing that we need to do for this mini project is find a good spot, and I reckon a good spot for a toilet or an outhouse is gonna be somewhere in the trees, not too far from camp in case there's an emergency. Hey Vilk, you don't wanna help me? Come on, let's go, let's go. Good boy, yeah. (chuckles) Okay, okay, buddy, you are already warming up.
Hey buddy, save your energy. You've got a lot of work to do. Mhm. Okay, so I'm thinking somewhere here, somewhere here. Check out this spot. This looks pretty good. (bright upbeat music) Good boy. Dig. (bright upbeat music continues) Come here, this way. Yes, here, right here. Good boy. I feel like getting a dog and training it well is like the best life hack. 'Cause they'll dig your toilets for you, they'll fetch your firewood for you. So good.
Good boy, buddy. Yes, that's a good boy. (energetic country music) Okay. Okay, buddy, come. Nice, down. Come here. Okay, down. Uh-uh, down. Stop digging. (whimsical upbeat music) You need to take a break. (dog grunting) Let me take over. Vilk, I want to dig. Can I help you? Am I gonna, am I gonna be able to dig? Can you let me help you?
Can you let me dig? Yeah? (whimsical upbeat music) (shovel clanking) Uh-uh, okay, can you take a break? (dog grunting) Okay, can you down? Down. (whimsical upbeat music) Yes, stay, good boy. Working-line German Shepherd, an actual workaholic. (chuckling) There's no stopping him. I know you wanna keep working, but you need to take breaks sometimes. You know, you need to learn how to take a break. Easy.
(gentle acoustic music) (shovel clanking) Okay, I think this is all that we can do, the two of us by hand, and by paw. This is it. Can you wipe? Show us how deep it is. (paw scratching) Probably 10 inches deep, something like that. Maybe 15 inches deep. But there's rocks at the bottom, so I just can't keep digging by hand and I don't want Vilk to hurt his paws. Yes, in this episode we will keep building my outhouse, but this episode is about a lot more than that. I have a massive announcement coming up in just a few minutes.
Probably the biggest news of my life. So you'll wanna stick around. (gentle instrumental music) All that digging has made me realize that I actually haven't taken a shower or a bath in a good few days. (chuckling) So I'm gonna go and do that. Now, taking a bath out here is a little bit different to taking a bath in a house. 'Cause I don't have running water. I only have water from the spring, so I need to go fetch water first and foremost. But I think I have a hack. Let me show you what I mean. I don't know if it's gonna work, but we'll try. (gentle acoustic music) See if it fits. Sure hope it does.
Oh my god, it is perfect. So normally when I take a bath, I actually have to bring buckets of water to the tub. So I have to like walk from the water springing to the tent, usually like about 10 times to actually fill this tub up. But now I can just drive to the spring and get it done much faster. (tub rattling) Genius. (gentle instrumental music) (water trickling) Most of you probably don't know this, but once upon a time, I considered myself to be quite like fancy.
You know? I went to Oxford University, graduated with a very fancy degree in languages and literature, and I wore polo shirts, and all that jazz. I was married at a very young age. And I guess I just never considered myself outdoorsy. I had a completely different set of values back then. Success looked like having a wardrobe full of fancy clothes and going to fancy cocktail parties. Like that was success for me. And that all changed very radically.
I don't think I would've drank water like this a decade ago from the spring, I think I would've been like, "Oh God, it's full of germs and parasites." (water trickling) Woo! Number one. 10 liters. Back then if you told me that in my 34th year on earth, I would be fetching water from a water spring by hand so that I can take a bath in freezing cold water, I probably would've asked, "Did I go broke? "Did I go bankrupt? "Did I go mad?" (chuckling) Literally, that would've been my reaction. (water trickling) Honestly, the water is looking a little bit muddy, but it's probably fine.
(door slams) All right, let's go home and take a bath. (gentle instrumental music) Let's go. (dog barking) Oh, there's water spillage! Oh no. (dog barking) I will drive very, very gently. (dog barking) (gentle instrumental music) Oh, come on. (grunting) So heavy. Oh my god, oh my God. It is like 60 pounds, maybe 70 pounds. (grunting) Don't drop on my foot. Don't break a finger. (grunting) Yes.
Ta-da! Oh my God, that just saved me so much time, you guys. That's amazing. (gentle instrumental music) (mouth trembling) It is cold. Oh. Oh my God, it's a cold plunge. It is a cold plunge, isn't it? Oh. (dog panting) (Eva sighs) Thank you. So at some point in my mid-twenties, all of those things that I had built, right? The fancy degree, the high-flying job, the high-flying relationship, all those things, all those status symbols, really, became meaningless to me because I realized that I didn't actually want any of those things.
I realized, in fact, that I had never really asked myself what it was that I genuinely wanted out of life. I just followed what I call, the highway of life, never questioning it, and ended up living someone else's dream, not my dream. And once I realized that there was like no going back, there was no going back. There was no way I could continue living in that way, even if it meant hurting some people around me and confusing the hell out of others, and taking a massive risk. But I just needed to go out there and find my own path, you know? Find my own way in the freaking wilderness of life. 'Cause life is wild.
All right, let's do this. (water splashing) Ooh, so cold. (gentle instrumental music continues) Feels really good. I call it refreshing. (chuckling) It's so refreshing. I love it. (gentle instrumental music fades) Yeah, back then, I definitely expected more marble inside my bathroom, rather than freezing cold water inside a tin tub. (suspenseful instrumental music) Obviously there's no washing machine here, so I'm gonna use my bath water to do my laundry (chuckling) for the week.
There you go. (gentle instrumental music) Oh yes. (water splashing) (gentle instrumental music) A lot has changed but one thing has stayed constant, since I can remember I've always wanted to be an author. When I was first learning to read, I remember practicing reading on my own in the corner of the kindergarten, wishing I could learn faster just so I could read the really big books. From there, my love of writing blossomed. I always knew that one day I would write books. I guess I just didn't know what they would be about, until now. I'm just about to tell you all about it.
(gentle instrumental music fades) I wanna show you guys how Vilk reacts to the prospect of getting his dinner. (whimsical instrumental music) No, it's up. What are you gonna do, huh? (whimsical instrumental music continues) What? What you gonna do? (Eva giggling) What you gonna do, huh? Are you excited about dinner? What you gonna do? (whimsical instrumental music) (chuckles) You are gonna go in your doghouse?
Good boy. (whimsical instrumental music continues) Ah, uh-uh. Okay. (bright instrumental music) I recently saw a reel on Instagram where someone was explaining how to eat a pear politely, according to the rules of etiquette. Shockingly, in my old life, I probably would've saved that reel. Back then, I would've never put my elbows on the table or eaten with a spoon where a fork was the more proper choice. And now I let my dog eat from the same spoon as me. There's this cliche we've come to accept as the truth, which is that people don't change. I couldn't disagree more. I believe that we say this because ultimately we don't want people to change.
We want them to stay the same. We want them to be predictable. So when we say that people don't change, it's like we're trying to put a spell on reality. Create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because after all, a lie told a thousand times becomes a truth, right? Well, if anyone needs to hear this, yes, people do change. You are allowed to change.
(gentle instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music continues) Good morning. (chuckling) You know, there's no mirrors here at camp. So if I wanna check what I actually look like, I have to look into the little camera screen. And I am seeing, I'm seeing a bale of straw on my head right now.
(brush scrubbing) The truth is that I don't really know many people who live in a tent or who spend even a part of the year inside a tent. Of course, I know many hikers and through hikers, people who travel on foot and sleep in a tent. I know many van-lifers and Overlanders, but living in a tent on a piece of land is something that's quite new to me as well. Like I didn't really have any role models or inspirations, aside from one. And I remember a couple of years ago I met her, and the fact that she lived like this blew my mind and inspired me so much.
It really planted this little seed of obsession in my head with what life could be like if I did this. But this lifestyle almost didn't happen for me because the person that I was with at the time, my partner, didn't want any of this. He wanted something a little bit more normal, like a little bit more comfortable, and I just couldn't imagine doing this kind of life with him. It just wasn't possible. So yeah, life went on and we ended up breaking up, and I ended up living here. (chuckling) (Eva sighs) There are so many stories like this, and obviously bigger, deeper, crazier ones that I never shared on YouTube,
because the format just doesn't feel right for sharing every kind of story. But there is good news. I have just written a book. (chuckling) I know that a lot of people might already know this. 'Cause I have been working on the book all year, and I have been sharing some of the snippets of the behind the scenes with you, on here and on Instagram. But it is finally done. My book called "The Wilder Way," is ready for pre-order. It's an adventure memoir where I share some of the craziest, wildest stories from the last eight years on the road.
I talk about things like what it's like to have or not have a love life while you're traveling. I talk about the search for myself along the way. I talk about some of the dangerous things that happened, some of the beautiful things that happened, and give you a slightly better idea of what it's like to drop your perfectly nice life, because an irrational voice in your heart is telling you to, and create a life that feels truly and deeply yours. I think it came out really well. (chuckling) The book is actually getting published next spring with Penguin Random House in the UK and with Gallery Books,
which is part of Simon & Schuster in the United States. But you can pre-order it now. So I'm gonna leave all the links to all the bookstores where you can pre-order the book in the description box of this video, so you can go check it out. I am so excited about this book because it really, it really feels like I've poured my entire heart and soul into it. I've always known I wanted to be a writer since I was little, since I studied at Oxford. And to be able to actually say now that I have a book published is unreal. It's unreal. I wrote part of the book inside the stand as well. So this stand will forever hold a very special place in my mind.
(gentle upbeat music) I suppose when you picture an author, you picture someone rather serious sitting at an imposing desk writing up grand thoughts, not someone who still needs to finish building their own forest toilet. But here we are. (gentle upbeat music) (water trickles) Yes, I wrote the book in the Arctic Circle earlier this winter, but I also kept writing on this very land, on planes, in cars, while camping, and in between filming my Nat Geo show. This memoir is the most vulnerable thing I've ever shared with the world, and it feels absolutely terrifying to put it out there. But I know the power of a book, because books and other people's stories have changed my life.
Reading about other people's courage gave me courage. Reading about their journeys empowered me to set off on my own search for meaning. So here we are, my very own book. A wild book called, "The Wilder Way." Yay! (gentle instrumental music) (twigs snapping) (gentle instrumental music continues) (ax banging) (onion layers crunching) (gentle instrumental music continues) (pan clanking) (gentle instrumental music continues) This here is called Oscypek cheese.
It is traditional Polish smoked sheep's cheese, and it is absolutely incredibly delicious, especially if you roast it over the fire. It is all nice and gooey. So that's what we're gonna do now. (oil sizzling) (gentle instrumental music) Oh my god, it's hot! And so soft and gooey. (Eva grunting) Oh my God. It must be like one of the best things in the entire world. Honestly. I know Vilk. I know, I know you love it, but it's hot.
You can't have it. It's too hot for you. (fire crackling) (egg frying) (gentle instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music continues) I am not gonna leave you guys hanging. We're gonna go and finish the toilet before I end this episode. But before we do that, I wanna show you something a little disturbing. So this is what happens, not every afternoon really, but most afternoons.
These are all, look at them, they're flying ants, and they've chosen my beautiful white tent as their mating spot. This is where they come. This is just a massive flying ant orgy. It's so bad. Ugh. God! How do I get rid of them? Anyway, we're gonna go build the toilet first. (dramatic country music)
So when I first got approached to write the book, I almost said no because I was like, "I don't know what I would write about. "My journey isn't complete." But as I started to write it, it became very clear that there was a lot, there was a lot to unpack. A whole lot to unpack. Hmm, this hole might be too big, in fact. How's that possible? Hmm. Let's see. Can we squat comfortably like this?
Yes, we can. All right then. (dramatic upbeat music) (power tool whirring) (dramatic upbeat music continues) (power tool whirring) I think it was only about halfway through writing the book that I realized what it's actually about. And I realized that the book is about looking for yourself in a very big, confusing world. It's about finding your own authentic sense of freedom, the things that stir your soul, the things that make you feel alive. It's about that search. And it explains how I started searching, how ugly it was, how painful it was, (power tool whirring) but ultimately, how incredibly beautiful my life ended up being. (chuckling) I guess that's what the book is about.
It's about freedom. (crickets chirping) It's a book about freedom. Yee-haw! (power tool whirring) And about choosing to shit in the forest, rather than inside a porcelain toilet. Yeah. (Eva giggling) Yes, I have a toilet. (chuckling) It is a little shaky. It is not the prettiest thing in the world, but it is mine. And I made it. (Eva giggling) Oh my God. 20-year-old Eva would've been shocked. Shocked! I'm so proud of myself. All right, let's go get ourselves a nice cold beer.
(gentle instrumental music) (power tool whirring) Well, if you'd like to read my book, you can now officially pre-order it online, wherever you buy your books. I've also added some bookstore links to the description box of this video. Come here, buddy. Honestly, sharing my memoir with the world feels like the most vulnerable thing I've done in my life. But I know that there are so many people out there who will relate to my story, and this book is for them. It's for you. It's for all of us. Woo-hoo! (Eva chuckling) (gentle instrumental music)
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