“...I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
well, folks, (insert mary tyler moore music) we're gonna dooooo it! we're puttin' our money where our mouth is and gearing up for the granddaddy of all road trips. after much thought and deliberation and serious logistics wrangling, we've decided to put everything we own in a storage facility and become full-time airstreamers and travel the U.S. until...well, we get sick of it. say what?!
we're planning on an early august 2010 departure, so there is much to do between now and then. pack every stitch of our house, sell my car (bye bye little blue passat wagon!) and make sure we are equipped from a business perspective for life on the road. being that we both are in the very fortunate position to have jobs where we can work from home, we figured that home could just as easily be a silver twinkie, no? that means some pretty serious techie stuff, but after a few trial runs in savannah and charleston, i think we've sorted that end out and we're both able to do our jobs (quite well, i might add) from the road. we've even upgraded our truck (affectionately dubbed "tundy too", since we traded in the '08 tundra for a swanky, more comfortable '10 tundra).
i can't tell you how personally exciting this is for us. but you might wonder exactly why we are doing this. living in approximately 200 square feet with your spouse and (often times a lil' gassy) dog means a few things for sure: you had better get along really well, have a top-notch sense of humor and not get hung up on little idiosyncrasies that living in a trailer can present. as cushy and creature-comforty as the airstream is, it's still a small space and let me assure you, every nook and cranny counts. but all of these little things pale in comparison to the idea of seeing this country via the winding back roads, the small towns and the big cities, too. weekends will be filled with route 66 oddities, fall festivals in towns we've never heard of, quirky local attractions, and the natural beauty of state and federal parks and delightful people whom we'll meet along the way. when you are pulling your home behind you on wheels, it's a new front and back yard every week. i love that.
aside from the incredibly compelling adventure-of-a-lifetime bit, there are also some significant savings to be had from paring down for a while and living a little simpler. sure, you have park fees, but you also have no rent/mortgage and no utilities. my car payment and insurance goes away, too. so we figured, why not save some decent cash, and when we're tired of living like gypsies, we'll have a nice little down payment for a house upon return.
we do hope you'll follow our adventures in the wild blue yonder through this blog and also via twitter (@airstreamADV). we'd also love to hear some "must sees" from all of you – feel free to share the places out there that can't be missed, whether that be a legendary diner, a museum or a roadside produce stand.
see you down the road, friends!
xoxo,
jen & richard
