It has been one of those soul searching weeks for me. Okay actually more like a soul searching month. Why you ask? Well, I guess I can sum it up in one sentence. I am not very happy with how my life is panning out. I admit that I am not as happy in our new house but after a couple months of settling in I am sure that will go away. The issue is deeper I think. I feel like we are just going through the motions. We work, we play, we eat, we sleep. I work inside the home and my husband works outside the home but all of that is to maintain a lifestyle we aren’t all that jazzed about. What is the point of doing that?
We have no aspirations to have a bigger, nicer house. We have no aspirations to have nicer, newer cars. We have no aspirations to put our kids in fancy schools or accumulate more possessions. We already feel we have too much stuff. But yet to maintain what we do have, we have to spend so much time working… secularly, maintaining our house, cleaning, etc. And when we are not satisfied that this is what we want our lives to be, it makes us wonder what we are doing. We are “living” to work and keep doing the same thing day in and day out. How many families are in this position? They give up so much of themselves and their families so they can maintain a life that does not make them truly happy?
Last week I sat down and thought about what it is I would be doing if I could have a life makeover. It was pretty simple actually. I want to be traveling and experiencing new things with my family. THAT is what I really want. We would like to go some place tropical where we can surf every day and be beach bums for awhile. I would keep working to provide the money because I love what I do. But of course we don’t want to be tied down in case we want to move on to another adventure so we wouldn’t buy property or commit ourselves. I guess what we really dream of is being vagabonds. The kids would be unschooled by necessity and we would all travel and learn together. It would be awesome if we had a sailboat eventually too. But getting a loan on one, and maintaining one, sounds like a ball and chain we don’t need.
Just thinking about how possible this would be I decided to search for an apartment in Costa Rica and found several options that we could afford NOW. If we did not have a rental agreement we could technically sell everything we own except for our beds, clothes, and car (which we would put in storage) and go to Costa Rica for a couple months or a couple years, right now. Actually my hubby pointed out that selling our car would give us a nice chunk of play money for buying bicycles and surf boards. ;) We have zero debt and no obligations other than the rental agreement on our house. I have been day dreaming about just taking off for the tropics for awhile and find that if we are willing to just make the leap… we actually can!! Costa Rica even has a government sponsored healthcare plan that foreigners can get for $50- $100 a month. Food costs are way lower and since fruits and veggies would abundant and the cheapest, we could finally make that leap to being 100% raw vegan. We could do this…
I decided to see if I could find other families living the vagabond, nomadic lifestyle and found some. I have been reading their blogs/sites with abandon:
Zack Aboard – Okay not exactly vagabonds but they are live aboards… they live exclusively on a boat.
Toast Floats – Another boating family and this one travels all over in their boat.
The Wide Wide World – This family just spent 10 months traveling the world.
Extended World Travel– A family of 5 that has been traveling all over the world together for a few years. This site has a free ebook that talks about how they are able to live this way.
So now that I know it doesn’t have to be a just a dream I think it is actually time to start planning. Increase my income even more, get a little nest egg going, and research our options more. Realizing we can do this is giving me butterflies in my stomach… really BIG butterflies. Selling almost all our belongings and heading for a foreign country with no plans to return sounds kinda nutty and while I am certainly unconventional I am not nutty. ;) BUT I know that the daily grind we are currently living is not what we want. Are we brave enough to really go after what we DO want???
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.” – Leo F. Buscaglia
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.” – Philip Andrew Adams
That last quote is a doozey… so TRUE! I guess I just need to start preparing for the day I can live my dreams instead of just dream them and then hope I can summon the courage to make the final leap when the time comes.
So what do YOU think? You all are like family right? Does this sound nutty or courageous? Is it practical or reckless?
What I am reading in the meantime:
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel
I have been telling my wife about this for awhile. I got the idea after reading about homeschooling families who live out of RV’s and travel.
I just got my wife to agree to homeschool our kids this year. That is to much change from the norm for her for now.
Good luck on everything.
sounds wonderful! the idea of being free from our stuff and the daily grind of working has been pulling at my heart strings for a long time. I believe in finding peace and happiness in the now, fully accepting and loving where you are, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan and dream, right?! I say go for it–and keep writing so we can live vicariously :)
I lived in my pick-up truck for a couple of years way back in the mid-80s. I loved it! Life was simple, manageable. I sold my house and drove away with the basics. When I met the kids’ dad, we kept traveling. After we had kids, we traveled in a motorhome when they were little. We followed warm weather and woke up in a new place every day. Do it! Purge your stuff ruthlessly and take off! You won’t be sorry.
*sigh* That’s totally my dream. Earlier this year a couple of my friends moved to Costa Rica with their kids (tinygrass.com) and I’m so envious. I wish we could do that, escape this and live a life we really want. Unfortunately we’ve got debt and obligations, and I’m not making enough online yet to keep us covered in the basics and he’s in poor health to do manual labor. I keep hoping someday
You sound *exactly* like my husband! I am a vagabond by nature person too and my husband and I have had many many conversations about living out of an RV. We may do just that when we retire since we both plan on having jobs where location doesn’t matter that much.
For us it helps to remember why we are staying put. We have three older children who are most definitly not vagabonds by nature. When we thought of moving from Texas, we realized the kids had moved at least every two years for most of their lives and they were actually settled, happy, and thriving while we stayed put. So, we made the choice for them to stay. While it’s not the best choice for us, it is the best choice for them.
One thing that has helped me to get through it is to use my ‘settled’ time productively. I am currently in school getting my nutritionist degree so that I can work to change our culture of eating in the US. I would like to eventually write a book and travel and give speeches regarding changing the public school cafeteria standards. In order to do all of that, I need my degree and some experience, and I’m using my settled time to accomplish that.
Perhaps, you can look at your current situation and see what you *can* do towards your goals, and not all that you can’t do right now? Yeah, it sucks sometimes.
Thanks so much for sharing this. My hubby and I feel similarly about staying put in one place and working to live. This is fueling my fire to look into plans to get out of here for a while. I don’t think it is reckless at all, go for it!
Hi there,
I found you when you linked to me (thank you). And I wanted to add some words of encouragement. You CAN do it. You already jumped the largest hurdle, which is opening your mind to realize there is more out there than the daily grind. Yay for you!
We’re between voyages at the moment. My husband and I traveled on the boat before our son (but terminal illness in my mom brought us back and drained our resources). Now we’re prepping to head out again as soon as humanly and financially possible. Boat, RV, or just a year off… it’s worth doing and nobody who has taken that risk has ever regretted it!
Add to your reading list:
Unplugged: How To Disconnect from the Rat Race Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment by Nancy Whitney-Reiter
And
One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with Our Children by David Elliot Cohen
AND
Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, And A Journey To The Ends Of The Earth by Daniel Glick
Feel free to email me if you want and we hope to see you “out there”!
Hello,
Wow, this was an intersting blog! I found you because you linked to our website, thanks! We are a home(un) schooling traveling family. Our “children” are older now, 15 – 21 and real world citizens. They (well, we all) have learnt sooo much from traveling, I don’t think there is a better way to aquire knowledge about the world and about yourself.
It really looks like you are on your way to making traveling into a reality. You have taken the first, most important step, to decide.
It also seems like everything is going your way so I really want to say; Go for it!
It can feel scary to leave the wellknown, of course, we’ve been there too. We have never regretted traveling though, on the contrary!
There’s a Swedish poet, Stig Johansson, who wrote something like;
” All those days that came and went, I didn’t know that was life”.
That’s one of the things that encourages me when I feel hesitant to take a step out of the ordinary. This is life, it’s here and now, do with it whatever you can, don’t wait!
(by the way, I’m also into raw.)
Thanks for stopping by Maria! Your site has been very inspiring…
Oh you also need to check out the documentary Surfwise. You can get it on Netflix. Vagabond lifestyle to the extreme!
BOATBABY, thanks! I already ordered all the books you recommended!
Sounds like this is on a lot of people’s minds lately. My husband and I were talking abot moving to Baha. If we sold our house we wouldn’t even have to work for awhile.
It is scary, though. I’ve always just jumped into things, but with two boys –11 mos and 2.5 years it seems scarier. I think we’ll do it, though.
We are at the same stage as you. Thinking about it and thinking about planning. Good luck!
check out http://www.familyonbikes.com they are riding from the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of Argentina
http://web.me.com/gypsyjournalist an American family living in Costa Rica and the kids are making nature videos
Tiffany, I think with some planning and research you could make this work. Three summers ago I took off with my then 6 year old daughter for 3 months and taught free English classes to children in Venezuela. It was a wonderful experience and I would do it all over again, but for much longer. How do the kids feel about it? My husband and both would love to live and work abroad, but our now 9 year old daughter is so opposed to even moving out of the city (we live in Seattle). She needs her friends, our extended family, her neighborhood-all the familiar stuff.
May I ask what kind of work you do that brings in an income and could you do it abroad?
Also, I want to say congratulations on having zero debt. This goes to show that you are both fiscally responsible. That is a goal we are working toward (we have massive student loan debt) and it is uncommon for our generation. Good job!
Melissa, I do Internet and affiliate marketing, blogging, and I write and sell ebooks for my income.
Our kids are onboard with it at the moment. If we don’t seize the opportunity it may be too late very soon. Our 5 year will be the one to form attachments and not want to leave.
This is exactly what I’ve been trying to get dh to do but only modified b/c we have 2 adult daughters and 1 granddaughter that we’d miss terribly if we were to go for more than a month. lol. But I would LOVE to. That said I’ve been looking and crunching numbers for RVs and I think we’ve just decided to travel with a backpack and use air travel for now… for a few weeks here and there. We are like you in many ways; everything you said about the lifestyle and being debt free. But dh gets stuck in trying to save for retirement… and there are no guarantees we’ll be able to travel after retirement age (we are only 44 now.) so I want to do the fun stuff now! lol. I think our first excursion will be to southern Mexico… I hear some surf calling my name.
Good luck in whatever you decide – I think you should go for it!
Robert Louis Stevenson:
“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be happy as kings.”
I say go for it!!!! We definitely would if my income was sufficient (part of it’s not portable). Can’t wait to hear about your adventures!
Risky? Yes. Crazy? No! We have been thinking the same thing! Have you looked into WWOOFing? This seems like the most viable option for us as we have been looking into Europe which isn’t cheap. Take a look at the website. You basically sign up to work for free on an organic farm anywhere in the world in exchange for room and board!
http://www.wwoof.org/
WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms
It sounds right up your street if you ask me!
This sounds awesome! There is more to life than acquiring stuff and just subsisting. My husband just got a job in London and we are so excited to live the European lifestyle! Traveling on weekends, long vacations seeing new countries and meeting new people – experiencing other cultures. We are selling a ton of our stuff and down-sizing considerably to focus on just the necessities for our family. We are bringing my mom to live with us too. My son is only 2, so he’s the perfect age for this new life of ours. Maybe we’ll stay a long time. Maybe we’ll return to California in a couple o years. Who knows. I like not knowing. What an adventure. I applaud your family’s decision to trade stuff for experience! YAY!
We have talked about this off and on. I have a child with special needs and think moving abroad with him probably isn’t the best idea! But, you never know…
Such a great topic!!! As an avid traveler before I was married with baby, I do miss the excitement and feeling on “oneness” and understanding the came with experiencing other cultures.
I also recommend “Surfwise” – although it might not encourage you to make the leap, it will fortify you with some negatives to be aware of and avoid.
I read you often and rarely comment, but I applaud your courage in examining your life and bravely considering big changes!!!
Go for it! We did this when my daughter was a year old- spent 10 months in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, and only returned due to challenges in my 2nd pregnancy. It was one of the best experiences of my life and I now have the confidence to do it again!
I stumbled upon Kombucha Chic and although she doesn’t have children to think about, she and her kombucha man have moved to Costa Rica. Check out her blog. I would love to do that, but family and work. I guess I am too Americanized.
My husband and I yearn for the day we can sell our house and downsize our lifestyle for a simpler one, too. But it will likely involve moving to a smaller, slower paced city. 5 years ago, (before we had kids) we moved to a small ski town in another state and took lower paying, less complicated jobs. We skiied, biked and traveled to new places every weekend and after 6 months we headed back home. We realized that life without family and close friends wasn’t complete. I don’t regret the experience at all because we learned a lot about what makes us happy in life.
we lived in Madagascar for 6 years as young marrieds, and then young parents. We’ve been back in Canada for 2 years now and I’m feeling the knocking on my heart to get my kids out of this North American life again. We’re changed. We’ve made some goals/dreams to be back ‘out there’ by the time our kids are 10 & 12 ( a few years away still).
If you have a child who doesn’t want to go (as one writer above says), just start prepping them for a future time. I think that if you are tied to your child’s ‘needs’ at age 9, she will certainly have you anchored in Seattle for the rest of her school years. That’s a long time. But perhaps if a seed is planted – the idea of a one year trip – with assurances of some security in the new place like a reasonable & secure home, opportunities to make friends, somewhat familiar food, a child can look ahead and allow the idea to take root.
I have one child who is particularly anxious and uncomfortable in new or unknown situations, and we have begun doing the same thing.
Good Luck everyone!
Nothing is impossible. If you can imagine it, you can live it. I wish you all the best in whatever path you choose!
Hi Tiffany, I find it wonderful to read such blog among your green and healthy world. I am German and together with my Lithuanian partner we live on the road for nearly four years. We have hitchhiked 3 years through Latin America, from Mexico down to Argentina, and are now for already 8 months in Europe. We never know where our road will lead, we simply listen to our feelings, have no plans, and no time limits. Our biggest dream is founding a family right on the road and continue our traveling lifestyle as long as it suits us all. We love the road and I wrote already a book about the first part of our journey in Middle America. Feel invited to find more information about our journey and the book on our website – http://followtheroad.com
Looking forward to see you on the road!
Katja ;))
PS: by the way, there is a website for families traveling in US and Canada: http://www.familiesontheroad.com/ have a look that might be interesting and useful for you ;)
I am new to your blog, and ooooooh, how I can see the influence you will be on me! (In good ways!) I have been in an existential funk, thinking a lot about “what’s the point?” feeling we have settled into such a routine. We too have no grand aspirations of accumulating more stuff, a new home, or private education for our children. We want to LIVE!
This entry is inspirational! I am so glad I found your blog. I needed to read this entry!
I am so inspired!! That is exactly what I want to do, but have always been afraid of the lack of security. I am single and in my twenties, and currently couldn’t even afford a tank of gas, much less a plane ticket or apartment. But I want to work toward this goal. I want to finish nursing school then travel and experience the world while using my skills to help others in need. And with this post and the book you suggested, I think it might be possible!!
I have myself been seriously considering doing this…and I stumbled upon your blog doing research. I am a single mom with an 8 year old son. Would safety be an issue do you think?? Any experience with that??
Hey I just found your site because I have this exact question. My husband just lost his job and we are seriously thinking about hitting the road and building a business online in the process. It is so scary but so exciting.
Actually I am 90% sure we will be gone out of our comfy home withing the month.
I’ll let you know how it goes :)
Good luck with your plans!