Tiny house holidays: when bigger is better
The trend towards compact holiday getaways has its place, up to a point.
The growth of the “tiny house” movement for holiday getaways is continuing apace. These cabin-style habitats rarely sleep more than two and have a light hold on the land. There’s no extraneous space and the interiors are often exercises in advanced origami with facilities folded and tucked and secreted.
The TV show Amazing Spaces, presented by George Clarke, regularly investigates the small and the quirky. Ironically, he’s a tall, broad-shouldered chap who usually has to bend his head to enter a freshly fitted-out river barge or a bunged-up trailer converted to a groovy pop-top caravan. The people he interviews love pared-down, uncluttered living. And look at the success of tidy-up advocate Marie Kondo and her advice re shedding possessions that fail to spark magic. Minimalism is seen by her devotees as an art-form, something virtuous, weightless and aspirational.
The appeal of going small is to shed stuff, even if just for a holiday, and rely on the basics to get by. I have lived in a one-room apartment in Tokyo and stayed in new-wave tiny houses and enjoyed the snugness, the feeling of being unencumbered.
But equally, and here’s the thing, I love my maxi home, which isn’t exactly huge but its low ranch lines and generous L-shaped floor plan allow me to spread out an awful lot of possessions. I am a keeper. I hate throwing away anything imbued with memory, even if it’s broken or has no known application (and maybe never did). Because of this near-obsession with needing to touch and feel the past, I’ve been travelling around my house for the past 18 months of being grounded.
Each morning I leave my bedroom (a shrine to France and Spain), pass through India, Peru and Vietnam along the hallway (which is more of a library, so hello there, ancient Rome) on the way to my office (cue Tanzania and Mexico) and to the kitchen via a detour past a glass-fronted china cabinet that is a repository of curiosities. On its shelves, in languid repose, lie Japan, Sicily, France, Morocco, Malta and Sardinia. Good morning, all. Ohayo gozaimasu, bon matin, buongiorno … So many scraps and mementos of my life on the move, now stationary but freighted with meaning.
After dark, my chap and I are viewing, from afar, the likes of Scandinavia, the Nordic lands, Poland, the Italian alps, Colombia, Ireland or Israel, depending which TV detective is on what case and whereabouts. Hey, there’s Belfast. Hang on, now we’re in Thule. Nearing midnight, I could well have acquired several new words of Gaelic and can say thank you in Greenlandic. Tiny consolations for the real thing but at least I am prepped for new adventures and fresh acquisitions.