What if you could explore the world and live where you want, when you want. It sounds great, right? You could winter in Ecuador, Florida or Quebec City, depending on what sounds best to you. Enjoy the holidays in the warmth of Valencia one year, take in the Christmas markets in Vienna the next year, and then see what the holidays are like in the Big Apple (NYC) the following year. That’s how we, and lots of other people, live: experiencing the world without boundaries or restrictions. You can too.
We gave up our apartment and possession and now travel with only what will fit in our small SUV. Free to go where we like and stay however long we want, we’ve lived in vacation homes, apartments, condos, a tent, hotels, guesthouses, hostels, and even a super comfy converted storage unit (Yes, it was comfortable.) A treehouse and a yurt are on our list of shelters we might try. We can be in any city, state, or country, limited only by our imagination. Does this sound like something you might want to try?
A key to making nomadic life do-able is “slow travel”: spending more time in the places you visit. No longer will you need to unpack and pack every few days. Traveling this way gives you more opportunities to meet your new neighbors, experience what makes each area unique, and venture off the beaten path. We live like locals where we can without being tied down.
One of the great things about slow travel is you tend to lose track of time. Is today Tuesday? Friday? Who knows. Every day feels like Saturday when you travel this way. Endless Saturdays is awesome.
After a long and much-loved career, Karen decided she was ready to retire. At that time, between my job as a tour guide and our personal travels, I was spending 200 days a year on the road. We were living in the San Francisco Bay Area, paying premium prices for an apartment we left empty as often as we could get away. When we realized we were spending a huge chunk of money every month on something that didn’t align with the things we loved doing, we decided to make a change. We wanted to put our hard-earned money where our hearts were, and began making plans.
In order to make our dream a reality, we had to eliminate all expenses that didn’t help us achieve our goal. Gone would be the expensive apartment and all its associated costs: rent, insurance, utilities, internet, parking, etc. Instead of shoveling our things into a storage unit “until we returned”, we carefully curated our belongings and found new owners for what we wouldn’t be taking with us. Amazingly enough, this lightening of our load helped us dream bigger and know that we really could pull this off. It’s counter-intuitive, I know, but true: owning fewer things gives you incredible freedom.
We love the flexibility of traveling light, and we love life on the road. Have you ever dreamed of traveling from place to place, following the whims of your heart? You can do it. You just need to believe, and put one foot in front of the other on your journey of preparation and adventure.
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