Tiny Adventures: Asheville
I believe that one of the ways that we can inspire each other to protect and regenerate the earth together is by deeper imbedding ourselves within the natural world year-round. This is one of the many reasons why I appreciate tiny living— it encourages us to get outside and dive into the environments that exist beyond our four walls.
“It’s an indisputable fact that we are deeply connected with nature. From the most past, we simply fail to realize this connection. From the perspective of ecology, our bodies are made of all-natural stuff... Greater than 95% of our tenure as humans has been spent living in intimate contact with the nonhuman world. Our bodies, minds, and emotions were fashioned by evolution in wild places where a deep sense of connection was essential for survival.”
- “How to Raise a Wild Child”
West doesn’t get to explore a traditional winter since we live in Southern California. It’s a season that he mainly experiences via stories and illustrations in the books we borrow from our local library.
So for the past two winters we’ve taken him to places where he can breathe the cold air, see and touch the snow, and see beautifully sparse trees and vines before the burst of spring. (Of course there were personal reasons for both of those trips as well, which I’m not prepared to share. Ideally we would skip the plane ride altogether, since air travel is so staggeringly damaging for the planet. What good does it do to fly to experience new views of the natural world if we’re harming it in the process?)
Last week we visited Asheville, North Carolina with my parents. We saved up for an extraordinary, minimalist, 2 bed/2bath Airbnb that was built to usher the outdoors in.
Click here for the Airbnb listing.
Click here for our 1-minute video journal from the trip.
We arrived at night, so we couldn’t see much of the land around the house— we could just hear the bubbling of a nearby creek. When I pulled back our bedroom curtains in the morning I actually gasped so loudly I woke Adam up. The view was staggering, and it was was visible from nearly every room of the home.
In addition to the generous windows, there were additional natural elements within the space that were unique, and made us feel like we were outside, even as we tucked ourselves into bed.
Bark-lined walls, sculptural boulders, and mollusk shells + agate stones inlaid throughout the concrete floors and custom furnishings reminded us that there’s nothing more beautiful than the diverse treasures scattered abundantly throughout the natural world.
As such, we spent 2 of our 3 days there almost entirely outdoors while exploring the community.
For our last day in town, we rested and enjoyed the home from sunrise to sunset.
I’m no expert on Asheville, so I’ll skip the “what to do” guide, as the community is tourist-savvy and has no shortage of expertly compiled tips available via a bit of research. Instead, I’ll simply say that the town is unique, gorgeous, eco-minded, and welcoming, and our family is thankful for the time we spent there.
