It's been a while (five years, actually)

A lot has changed.

If you’re reading this and thinking “wait, who is this?”, fair enough. It’s been exactly five years since I last sent an email from this Substack. Five years to the day, actually, which wasn’t planned but feels like a sign I should stop procrastinating.

I’m Andrea. You probably signed up because of Rearview Mirror, the road trip travel blog. If you’re still here after five years of silence, thanks for that (hopefully I haven’t just reminded you to unsubscribe).

A lot has changed. Twenty years of living in Europe, driving around the Balkans, eating my way through Central Europe, that chapter ended.

Travelling in Albania with my little Fiat 500

You might recall that I moved back to Australia for a while. Well, that turned out to be permanent. I had a bit of an existential crisis (mid-life crisis? 🥴), and decided to put an end to the travel blog. Not literally, it still exists if you want some road trip ideas, but I can no longer call myself a travel blogger or digital nomad.

The most exciting news (for me) is that I got two cats. Paris and Buda, both British Shorthairs, named after the cities where I spent most of my time. They have no interest in road trips, only pats, but that’s ok.

Paris & Buda

And then the biggest change is that I went back to uni. I did a Master of Environment at Melbourne Uni. It was quite the change of pace, and I ended up loving it (though not the massive HECS debt). I specialised in food sustainability, meaning how to grow our food without killing the planet. I wrote my thesis on greenwashing (yes, we’re surrounded by greenwashing), got deep into food politics (surprise, governments and corporations ruin everything), and came out the other side both more informed and a hell of a lot more annoyed about the state of things.

Now I’m trying to figure out what to do with all of that. I’m working on side projects, eco-focused things I’m not ready to talk about yet.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: climate change has quietly slipped out of the conversation. Governments aren’t doing enough (anything?). The news cycle has moved on (there’s a lot to move on to). But the problem hasn’t gone anywhere, and I think there are a lot of people who still care and want to do something; they just don’t know where to start, or they feel like their individual actions don’t matter.

I want to talk about that. Not in a preachy, guilt-trippy way. More in a “here’s what I’m learning, here’s what I’m trying, here’s what’s actually worth doing” way.

So this newsletter is changing. It’s not a travel blog anymore. It’s more of a diary, what I’m working on, what I’m reading, what I noticed that week. Sustainable living is the thread that runs through most of it, but I also write about politics, gardening, tennis (obsessed), whatever’s on my mind. Some weeks it’ll be long, some weeks it’ll be short.

If that sounds like your thing, stick around. If you signed up for European road trip content and this isn’t for you anymore, no hard feelings.