Thoughts and reflections from the past week or so from my own financial independence campaign.
Progress on my goals
Actually: I’m doing sweet nothing because I’m in Tenerife, in the middle of a two-week break.
Dudes, it’s awesome. We’re driving around in a 34-year-old VW T4 campervan and basically mixing hill walking, sightseeing and volcanic black sand beaches.
The point is to get some perspective and have a break from my last phase of the campaign, ready for a new year start.
Regular readers will spot that I’ve released the 2025 End of Campaign Year Review post already.
I’m probably going to be late with the 2026 Campaign Plan. This is because I’ve only just caught up on months of missed sleep and I want to plan this with a cool head. There’s a lot going on, but if I nail the planning then simply execute it I reckon there’s a strong chance I set myself up for living life on my terms.
For now though I want to focus on sun, exercise, and driving a completely inappropriate vehicle over precarious roads that descend volcanoes.
Distractions and detours
Tenerife street art
Can confirm that Tenerife is both sunny and – in the hill at least – freaking cold. Have used sandles, shorts, and winter clothing in the same week.
One of the cooler things though was continuing my street art tour around Puerto de la Cruz. There’s street art all over the island, but this town had some of the coolest stuff.
I am writing this from a campsite in Punto del Higaldo. Probably wouldn’t visit this particular town again, there are a lot of graffiti tags ushering Canary Islanders to cast out “colonial powers” and “kill a tourist”(seriously – although someone had sprayed over that with “Chill with a Tourist”) but the north of the island is fairly dramatic and the road trip has been worthwhile.
What I like is how the towns have used art to beautify crumbling concrete structures. Tenerife has a lot of derelict buildings and I can see why the locals look at the resorts and think “Dude – really?!”. The tap water isn’t drinkable here either, but there are water parks. Go figure. Anyway, turning something ugly into a work of art is a great use of space and keeps community morale up. I’m a huge fan of that.
Non-FIRE goals
My guitar rock god quest (AKA learning to play)
I’m not practicing until I get home, so I fully imagine I will suck in two weeks’ time!
Fitness
We’re averaging well over 12,000 steps a day, so even though I’m not actively training it’s pretty good.
Christmas was also a lot more laid back. Our Christmas dinner was, err, pan-fried sprouts and a burger after walking around Punta Negra volcano. Then we learned the hard way that there’s a reason we were the only people at the mountain camp site: so cold at altitude overnight!
We have a few punchier walks coming up, so it’s not bad training albeit we’re not watching our diet and we’re just coasting it. Not bad, though.
Final thoughts
Enjoying the down time, clearing my head for the next phase.
Probably one more week of this before I have any kind of plan formed really.
I’m not planning to rush it!
My financial independence campaign continues!
