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
