Our new travel style: living life two weeks at a time

Yesterday we concluded our 14 day stay outside of Hurricane, Utah.  We moved 2 hours south to Lake Mead, Nevada where we plan to once again take advantage of the maximum allowed stay of 14 days.  

This is our third time living on the road full-time since 2013.  Each time with a different truck/trailer combo and each time with a different style of travel.  And if there’s anything we’ve learned in the last 8 years about how to get maximum enjoyment from our travels it’s to slow down.  When your home has wheels, you have the freedom and ability to do anything and go everywhere.  Until you figure out that it’s an expensive and exhausting way to live.  The more you move, the more you spend and the more decisions there are that need to be made.  Where are we going?  How are we getting there?  How long is it going to take?  Where are we going to dump tanks?  What is plan B if we can’t find a campsite?  The list goes on and on.  When the decision-fatique sets in, it greatly reduces the amount of pleasure that comes from traveling.  

When we returned to life on the road 5 months ago, we wanted it to feel more like living and less like constant traveling.  Since June, we’ve stayed 10-14 days at each spot, all of them free camp sites on public land.  The only exception being the occasional overnighter at an RV park to catch up on chores using the park’s many resources (laundromat, unlimited water & electricity, etc.).  This new travel style of ours is a result of everything we’ve learned since buying our truck camper back in 2012 when we would spend more time driving than camping.  Now, instead of worrying about where we’re headed next we have ample time to settle in and enjoy the here and now.  

That is probably my biggest complaint about how we used to travel.  I would be so caught up in figuring out where we were headed next that I never stopped to appreciate where we were at that moment.  

These last two weeks outside of Hurricane, Utah I did just the opposite.  Aside from hiking and biking daily, I never left the area and could not have been more content.  I marveled every day in the magical place that, for two weeks, we got to call home.  On the last day, I had the same thought that I’ve had at every single spot this year…I don’t want to leave.  That thought always making me smile because it means one thing, we must be doing something right.