Leaving possessions behind to go travel the great wide world, in a van, with no strings attached. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? Well, yes it is, but what you don’t so often hear about or see is how difficult getting there really is– mentally and physically.
In my day to day life I deal with anxiety, and with that occasional panic attacks. Doing a trip like this has really pushed my boundaries already in leaving a secure job with wonderful people , and also the comforts of home with a big comfy couch, Netflix, a bathroom, and a snuggly cat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m 99.9% stoked we are doing this, but with that comes some really big mental exercises to keep myself in the moment and not flipping out about what we just did and what happens next.
We have been saving up for some large trip for a long time, but we didn’t know exactly what we would end up doing until we decided to buy a van, build it out, and drive to South America. So, for the past year and a half we have been planning on what that all means to make it happen. Such as: do we keep our stuff in storage? Do we try to sublease our house so we have somewhere to come home to? Do we get rid of everything and let go of all ties we have? The ladder was the obvious choice for us.
So, having chosen to ditch everything we have, how do you even start to comprehend that? Well, we had to essentially plan a timeline on when to do everything. When should we get rid of all our stuff? When to quit our jobs? When to leave? What do we do with Dora? Do we buy insurance? What do we need for border crossings? What medications/vaccines do we need to get? Where does our mail go? How do we keep in touch with fiends and family? Do we try to work on the road? The questions go on and on, and the number of possibilities can get overwhelming.
Our chosen departure date became the deciding factor on when to do everything else. James first needed to pass his Professional Engineering License exam, which he took in October, and wouldn’t get results until sometime in December. That left us little time to meet our hopeful February 1 deadline to sort the rest out, but it was the most logical thing to do. Thankfully, he’s a smart guy and after months of studying he passed! So February it was.
The next few days we felt it. Excitement, stress, nerves, butterflies, and bottled up feelings of pure terror. The tension in the house was palpable as we started really diving into selling things and taking loads of stuff to Goodwill. Finally like an egg cracking over our heads and oozing down our faces we released. We both were trying not to let on how scared we were which kept us both in our own heads brewing up a storm. In normal day to day comfortable life, usually we can handle stresses and get over it with time and a pint of ice cream. This was different. We realized we need to practice brutal honesty and communication to make this trip happen without one or both of us going nuts.
Alright, we were practicing honesty and now that we knew both of us were feeling similarly, it kinda made us both feel better. We continued on in our plans, notice at our jobs was given, and we had a date. January 26th, our last day of work.
After the holidays and seeing as many friends as we could, we got to it. Over the first few weeks of January our house started to empty. We did a few wardrobe cleanses over the weeks, strategically purging as we were still working and living in the cold winter of Seattle for a few more weeks. Art and a few sentimental items were given to friends and family for safekeeping. A couple good friends generously agreed to watch Dora, which took a huge weight off.
Finally, it was the last day of work, so it was crunch time with 5 days to do everything else. I sold my car, we got rid of the T.V., bed, dresser, wardrobe, and then all that remained were organized piles of stuff with nowhere to store them. It was strange and unsettling.
The penultimate day in the house we rented a trailer and loaded all trash and things we couldn’t get rid of for a dump run and started actually moving into the van. On the final day we cleaned EVERYTHING. Having an empty house already, we figured this would be quick– no prob. However, stressful sleep the night before followed by frantically cleaning a now empty house was not 100% ideal. After drowning our anxiety in pine sol and bleach for 4 hours we stopped for lunch. Sitting was the best thing ever, but that also gave notice to just how exhausted we already were. A little caffeine helped slightly, but adrenaline kicked in to finish the task at hand. 5 or so hours later, we finished, cracked a beer, and cried.
Cried of happiness we were done cleaning, cried that we were leaving our home of 4 years, cried to be leaving family and friends, cried because we knew the day wasn’t done. We grabbed some take-out for a last meal in the house, and got to the last stage in our journey that day.
Dora. Our sweet talkative, cuddly cat had to get to her new home. She had only moved one time before in her life, so she definitely wasn’t a fan of her box or of being in moving vehicles. Change is hard for cats, and it was already apparent. We seemed to get her into her box okay, she didn’t realize what was happening until she was inside. We popped her into the van, locked up the house, and James drove his Honda with a few items we decided to keep while I drove the van.
Dora was not a happy traveler. She cried and moaned, and at one point frantically scratched at her door to get away from her own poop in her box. The poor thing had been so stressed that she hadn’t used her litter box in days. While on the ferry we let her out of her box, cleaned her up, and kept driving. She tried to cower at my feet and I had no choice but to push her away before she got us both killed. My heart completely broke at that time.
In my struggle I fell behind James quite a bit, he noticed and so pulled over to let me catch up and I lost all control. All the weight and intensity of the past week spilled over me at once. James jumped in the van and I think he was at a loss as he found me hugging Dora for dear life and sobbing like I have never sobbed before, he’d never seen me like that. We swapped cars and kept moving.
My nerves were still on edge the remaining 45 minutes of driving, but imagining Dora’s feeling of betrayal was slightly better than hearing it first hand. Maybe James lied to me or maybe she really behaved better the rest of the drive, but it made me feel a little more at ease to hear after getting to our destination. At that point all I wanted to do was crawl into a cozy corner with my cat and James and watch a movie while crying myself into exhausted sleep. Our friends, however, had other plans.
We walked in to music, video games and friends that were excited to see us since it would be their last for a while. Exhaustion would have to be pushed aside for another few hours. I tried to put on a happy hat, I’m not sure how convincing I was, but I didn’t really care at the time. Eventually we introduced Dora to her new home and to her new kitty counterpart, Snizzy. An extremely lazy hiss fight later and she found a dark corner to hide out in.
That night was our first official night living in the van. Exhausted as I was, I think I managed maybe 2 hours of broken sleep. We heard the first signs of needed tinkering as the inverter connected to our fridge would beep– alarm status beeping– every so often through the night. This was the start to our new life I guess.
-Stephanie