Many, many moons ago, as evidenced in songs and a tongue most akin to ancient Sanskrit, it is said that the first Gypsies, or Romany, came from Rajasthan, India. Nomadic by nature, they spread west, across Persia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and into islands further afield like Great Britain and beyond.

In Europe, perhaps the most iconic symbol of their traveling existence is illustrated in their colorful caravans. These mobile homes are known as vardo, or traditional horse-drawn, highly-decorated, intricately-carved, brightly-painted wagons, and were used by Gypsies as their homes. The tradition of the vardo is often seen as a high cultural point of both artistic design and a masterpiece of woodcrafter’s art.

Enter Jay Nelson, visionary woodworker and surfer from San Francisco, who built a dreamy, vardo-like shell upon a utilitarian Toyota Hilux to amble up the Australian coastline, with the mission of camping, shredding and merry-making along the way. Surfers and Gypsies aren’t that different, turns out.

“I feel like a lot of Jay’s creations are fictional, imaginative-type extensions of himself,” said Eric Geiselman, one of Vissla’s surf wanderers that went on the journey. “It’s like he’s trying not to grow up and his woodwork are these fictional surf vehicles that he makes into reality. It kinda takes you back to a place when you were dreaming as a kid.”