Hi, we’re Stephen & Jane. Welcome to My Five Acres.
Until recently, we were full-time nomads. We lived that life for 8 years and have travelled to more than 50 countries together (we explored almost half of those by bicycle).
In that time, we have taken trips that completely flipped our perspectives on the world and ourselves — expanding our minds and helping us make radical changes in our lives.
We’ve also taken trips that… made no impact at all. Those disappointing travel experiences led us to explore what it is that makes a trip special, mind-blowing, and utterly transformational.
We want to help you find life-changing travel experiences that:
- Widen your perspective
- Challenge your beliefs
- Shake you awake into your own life
We know that travel can help you transform into the person you truly are.
Not all travel is transformational though. Change doesn’t usually just happen by accident! If you want travel to change your life, you’ve got to plan for it.
We want to help you get there.
After all, as Jack Kerouac wisely wrote in The Dharma Bums:
I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.
– JACK KEROUAC
We strongly believe that your life is yours and you can do anything you want. We also know that the world makes it very hard to achieve this kind of independence.
Travel can be a great catalyst for you to grow, change, and step into who you really are.
What Drives Us?
Our ultimate goal is to help you (and people like you) to become yourself more fully, more confidently, and more courageously. We want to:
- Help you break free from the expectations society places on you
- Inspire you to discover your own adventure and change your life
- Make your journeys more fulfilling and more meaningful
Why Does My Five Acres Mean?
There’s a finite amount of land on Earth. If you divide it equally between all people alive today, we’d each get about 5 acres to satisfy all our needs: food, water, shelter, iPhones… It sounds like a lot, until you discover that a typical Western lifestyle uses the equivalent of 15–25 acres!
The name My Five Acres is a reminder to tread lightly, wherever you go. It’s also a reminder to enjoy your tiny slice of this beautiful Earth to its fullest.
The Journey That Brought Us Here
In 2013, we sold our amazing house in LA, our two cars, and all of our stuff and set out on a journey that changed our lives completely.
For almost two years, we travelled the world by bicycle, cycling through 22 countries in Europe and Asia. As we travelled, Stephen taught yoga in dozens of studios from Rome to Jakarta and all stops in between.
We pedalled more than 16,000 km, met hundreds of incredible people, and learned so much about the world — and about ourselves — along the way.
What was the biggest lesson we learned?
It was a lesson about who we truly are and what we really want from life.
We learned that we could never go back to a “normal” life.
We no longer wanted to chase the things society had taught us to chase. We didn’t want a huge monthly mortgage payment, jobs that sapped our will to live, and a house full of stuff we didn’t need.
We wanted more.
Instead of shrinking into the box created for us by society, we uncovered the opportunity to expand—our minds, our hearts, and our lives—every single day.
– My five acres
So we embarked on a new, scary journey, to help as many people as we could to experience the true transformational power of our two favourites things: travel and yoga.
Leaving behind that unfulfillable desire for more money and more stuff led us to a much happier place. Though it’s not always easy, we finally feel happy, engaged, and excited about life!
We want to help you achieve the same sense of excitement about your own life, wherever your journey may take you.
What Should you do Next?
If you’ve followed our story this far, then let’s keep up the connection. Come say “hi” on our social media accounts.
Follow us on Instagram
Get inspired by our Pinterest boards
Or just keep reading if you want to know even more about us…
Our last 20 years in three minutes or less.
On our first weekend mini-break back in 1994, just a few months after we started dating, we went camping on the astonishingly beautiful Saltspring Island in British Columbia. That campsite, at Ruckle Point Provincial Park, is still the most beautiful we’ve ever seen!
In 1997, Stephen crashed Jane’s car. We took the insurance money and took off from Vancouver for a backpacking trip around Europe. During that trip, we saw way too many churches, slept in the world’s worst hostels, and argued all the time.
Our relationship couldn’t handle the stress of travel and — on a Greek Island over Christmas — we broke up.
Alone, out of money, and miserable, we were tempted to just go home.
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal.
– Paulo Coelho
Instead, we moved to London separately, got jobs, fought a lot, and finally figured our shit out…
Over New Year’s in 2000, right after we were sure the Millennium Bug wasn’t going to end the world, we got married.
We worked in London for almost 10 years. Stephen’s job was to babysit manage rock bands. Meanwhile, Jane was playing in her own 60s-inspired rock band, The Lollies, and working full-time as an internet jack-of-all-trades, designing, writing, and producing content.
When we could find the time, we travelled, eventually visiting every country in Western Europe.
After getting sick of London’s pubs and the terminally dull weather, we took an eye-opening 6-month trip through Morocco, Egypt, and the Middle East. Our travels in Syria are still some of the most amazing we’ve done.
Eventually, we moved to LA, just because it’s always sunny there. In LA, Jane accidentally got sucked into the Hellmouth of corporate America while Stephen discovered his calling as a yoga teacher.
Seven years later, the US had chewed us up and spit us out (in other words, our visa expired). That’s when we decided it would be a smart idea to cycle around the world. And it was.
Those 2 years in 22 countries and 16,000 km of pedalling were awesome, breath-taking, mind-altering, holy-smoking, staggering, shocking and utterly life-changing.
And that’s where you find us today. Our lives and our selves were utterly transformed by travel and we want to help you achieve the same!
7 things you might already know about us.
- We are both Canadian.
- We’re both British.
- We’re vegan (98% of the time).
- Stephen loves coffee. And beer.
- Jane loves chocolate — the darker the better.
- We rode our bicycles around the world (almost).
- We’re passionate about minimizing our impact on the planet.
And 17 things you probably don’t.
- Stephen is a politics junkie. He probably knows more about the politicians in your country than you do.
- We’ve met most of our idols — and have usually been disappointed.
- Jane cries during almost every movie and TV show. Commercials sometimes too.
- We climbed over the fence at Glastonbury in 1998. Mud city. But Blur was worth it.
- Stephen was arrested once in London. Jane had to pick him up from the police station at 4am.
- Jane hates almost all music from the 70s. Hates it.
- Stephen loves Miley Cyrus. Jane does not.
- With our friend Kris (under pseudonyms) we started an awesome zine called Slampiece back before blogs were a thing.
- Jane can’t go inside a pet store. It’s too sad.
- The first record Stephen owned was the Muppet Movie Soundtrack. He won it at church.
- Once we didn’t pay for our train ticket and had to run through Liverpool Street station to escape the guards.
- Jane’s favourite book is A Room with a View.
- Jane has seen Clueless at least 20 times.
- The first concert Jane went to was Platinum Blonde, a Canadian 80s hair band.
- Stephen’s was Crowded House with Richard Thompson.
- Jane once played bass on stage with Neil Finn from Crowded House.
- We watch Elf every Christmas. Smiling’s our favourite!
OK, that’s the whole shebang. If you made it this far, you’re probably looking for something awesome from your life. Yay you! We’re here to back you up every step of the way.
