We wrote this post a few months back for the Enlightened Equipment blog. While the title is a bit outdated at this point, the ideas still ring true. So we want to share it with all of you. Enjoy!
Over two years ago we came up with what we now consider to be one of our best ideas: to build our own adventure van and drive it from Seattle to the tip of South America. The plan was to spend one year traveling the Americas, climbing, hiking, exploring local cultures, and….well, we didn’t really know much beyond that. At that point this whole endeavor was just a concept. We built expectations in our minds, but in all honesty we had no idea what we would encounter or how these experiences would change us. We are now ten months in to our grand adventure, the timeline has expanded to a year and a half, and we realize that we are not the same people that drove away from Seattle in February. We have grown more accustomed to living on the road, our perspective of long-term travel has changed, and our priorities in life have shifted.
Months 1-3: Working through the kinks
The first three months of travel were a doozey. Full of ups and downs with emotions running high and expectations being tossed aside as we fully took in how drastically our lives had changed. It was a bit terrifying to say the least. Life in Seattle was comfortable with a little house, great jobs, an awesome community, a talkative cat, and a functional bathroom, to list a few. Comforts are less easy to come by these days. This trip in concept was something of a fantasy and although we were consistently working towards it, part of us thought it would never actually come. Once it did though, we accepted it and moved forward, which honestly took most of the first three months.
The first month or so was probably the hardest. We were meeting a few friends in Mexico for a climbing trip and so we had to bust down through the states with little time to waste. This didn’t exactly leave time for relaxation after a stressful move, but hindsight’s a you-know-what. As we approached and crossed our first border into Mexico, nerves were high. What would driving be like, what are the rules? Well, within 2 hours of driving in this new country neither of us had been to before, we were hit by a local taxi. They attempted to swindle us (in Spanish) into an insurance scam for existing damage to their car, even though they deliberately hit us! Things were not going how we expected to say the least.
Along with our difficulties in adjusting to driving and the language barriers in a new country we had a lot of logistical troubleshooting during this time. We came across electrical problems in the van from our inverter (which runs our fridge) beeping incessantly, electrical connections for our lights and water pump jiggling loose, to oil leaks and coolant lines breaking. Adjusting to spending all day every day together was also something new, and with the added external stresses this took a lot of patience. When starting a long-term trip, and already having so many hurdles, it wasn’t exactly inspiring to consider this could be our life for the foreseeable future. Tired, stressed, and feeling uncomfortable, we pushed onward fixing things as they came and hoping these were just kinks that would work themselves out as we went.
Fortunately, after these uncomfortable first weeks, things did get better. We spent time with friends old and new while climbing in beautiful El Potrero Chico and the surrounding Monterrey region. We adjusted to our new life as we continued south through mountainous regions and jungles and eventually started to feel comfortable living in tiny quarters in a different culture and country altogether.
These months moved slow in some ways and fast in others, as you could imagine ripping up your comfortable life and living in a van could go. We started living unconstrained by anyone other than ourselves, and that was an odd feeling. At that time we comforted ourselves with a bit of structure and order to our lives, and were living based on an arbitrary timeline we built to be able to complete the trip in a year’s time. Without much of a plan other than moving on from Mexico in two months, we attempted to see as much as we could. Living this self-sufficient lifestyle slowly grew on us, but at the same time only being in Mexico to kick off the trip was comforting as we felt that if something really went wrong, we could bail quickly enough back to the States.
Months 4-7: Realizing the important things
During those first few months of sticking to the schedule, we found ourselves stretched thin, not enjoying things as fully as we could and skipping places we now wish we wouldn’t have. Deciding to alter that mindset was one of the big hurdles that helped define the rest of our trip. Slow down. By not rushing we actually found that we spend less money, which helped re-define how long we could travel. We became happier and felt we were able to enjoy the present more instead of just looking ahead.
After traveling as a lonely duo for the first few months, a bigger realization came to fruition: Community is a huge part of what makes us happy. It’s as important to our mental well-being as water is to our body. So during this second stage of our travel, we finally decided it was time for another change. We settled down in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala for most of the summer, took some intensive Spanish classes, made a ton of new friends, and for the first time in ages felt like we were part of a community. And you know, we were the happiest we had been since we started this trip. Suddenly our timeline of one year expanded to 14 months, 18 months, even two years on our more optimistic days! Late night conversations revolved around when/if we should leave, or if we could work remotely to sustain ourselves in Guatemala. But alas, the pull southward snuck back in like a recurring dream. We had a goal and we needed to see it through.
The remaining time in Central America was spent traveling with our new van-dweller friends. We learned a lot from them, and also from ourselves with what we want to see and expect throughout our travels. We found that we love productivity and when things grow too quiet and stagnant, it’s time to move on. So Steph honed her photography skills and James learned to surf, which really helped keep our minds creative and our bodies energized for the journey ahead.
Months 8-10: Where are we even going?
Month 8 finally saw us in South America. Being on a new continent was a bit of a trip, and helped motivate us to keep moving – there is so much to see and so little time before the South American winter! We were loving the momentum, loving our van, loving the Andes, and feeling more confident with our Spanish than ever. Being on the road after a rather stationary couple of months just felt right, and we had a hard time imagining a life without our little rolling home.
Our confidence in ourselves and our van grew and we found ourselves adventuring through the most remote mountain villages, driving through rivers in the Amazon basin (even getting stuck in one once), and generally loving life. These days we have grown so used to always being together that it’s difficult to remember how life used to be with long days in separate offices and just a few hours of quality time to spend in each other’s company. Things aren’t always easy, but we have become experts at going with the flow and staying positive through the challenges.
After working through so many kinks and challenges, when we were feeling our most self-assured and honest, something unexpected happened: we started talking about life after. Not like “man this sucks, let’s go home”, but “how can we build a life that is stimulating but also grounded and community centered?” Throughout our travels we have met a ton of amazing people who are traveling indefinitely, some who are just starting and some who have been traveling for five years or more. But there are things that a life of endless travel just can’t provide, at least for us.
We are still loving life on the road and have no plans to stop anytime soon. In fact, we expect to be some form of houseless for at least another 8 months. But we have come to realize that the greatest gift we have given ourselves through all the ups and downs isn’t instagram-worthy views or epic travel stories (although we certainly don’t mind those), but the time and space to take a step back from the default American life and objectively examine what it is that makes us happy. That is a gift that not enough people give themselves, and we are so grateful for it.
