A lovely stay in Upstate NY

During my visit to New York last week I had a chance to do a quick road trip to Germantown in Upstate New York. We left it until the very last minute to plan things so even a few days before this trip, we were still unsure where we were going to go. But mister had a look through Airbnb and picked out some cool places for me to choose from, one of which is a Gypsy Caravan.

This one stood out to us both and as soon as I read the description of the place, I was sold. Cozy cabin, solar shower, sheep farm, and stargazing! I mean what else could you ask for?? We booked it straightaway and could not wait to see the real place. The place I am talking about is listed as Gypsy Caravan at Gatherwild Ranch on Airbnb (click on the name to check it out!)

We rented a car and drove upstate from Manhattan. The whole journey took us about 3 hours. Keep in mind that the signal around that area is pretty bad so we had a little bit of a hard time finding our way because we depended on googlemap so much haha but, nevertheless, we made it!

We were greeted by the owner, Laura. She showed us around the property, which is huge. Basically the whole land around the house is hers and you are free to roam wherever. There were also bikes for guests to borrow. We visited the sheep first thing but I was a bit disappointed only because we couldn't pet them haha they were surrounded by an electric fence so we couldn't get too close. Then we walked back and the caravan was ready for us!

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The caravan itself sits remotely from other things so there was not any problem concerning privacy because there was not many people around. The real deal though, is the composing toilets. YES you heard it right. Composing toilets!! lol I'm so bummed I forgot to take a picture of it to show you guys. So how it works is, instead of a normal toilet with a flush, you do it straight into a huge bucket and after you're done, you cover it with a pile of sawdust (there's a full bucket of it in each toilet). It sounds very challenging and scary but it was actually quite good fun and surprisingly very clean and had no smell.

To add to the coolness of this place, there is also a solar shower. Unfortunately we didn't get to use it because it was too cold during our stay so we used the indoor shower in the farmhouse instead.

The way they decorated the whole space is very cute and thoughtful. There were fairy lights everywhere and some hammocks to chill on. 

After exploring the place, we took out the bikes and went to town to get some groceries for our dinner. We were very excited to use the outdoor kitchen! 

Germantown is very small and peaceful. There is one convenient store/market called Otto's where you can buy all the necessities. It felt like we were in some kind of vintage films because everything is so old school looking and I loved it!

We settled on making some spaghetti with tomato sauce and bacon. We also got some eggs and avocado for breakfast the next morning.

It was already late evening when we got back and by the time we started cooking, it got sooo windy and dark. I thought I was going to die from the chill hahaha. We had to use flashlight from our phones since it was so dark we couldn't see properly what we were doing, and the light bulb in the kitchen didn't really do us any good. Plus, the wind was such a huge obstacle to cooking. It took nearly 20 minutes to boil water lol but we made it and it was delicious. We spent the rest of the evening inside the cabin because it was getting way too cold to be outside but how I wish we could just lie on the grass outside all night because, oh my god, the star!!! The sky was full of hundreds and hundreds of stars. I was so overwhelmed by this I almost cried haha. I tried to take a picture but my camera just wasn't good enough. bummer.

The next morning we cooked ourselves some easy breakfast: scrambled eggs with bacon and some avocado and apples. It was delishhh!

After that it was already time for us to leave. We packed our things and left around noon to head back to Manhattan. It was a short but sweet escape from the city life. If we had more time we would probably have gone to the park nearby to do some hiking since the weather was perfect. 

I would highly recommend this place to anyone who needs a beautiful and peaceful getaway. If being close to nature, sleeping in a cozy caravan and seeing thousands of stars at night sound exciting to you, then this is definitely the place for you. My advice is to come here no later than late September because I think it will be way too cold for you to enjoy everything then.

Until next time! xx