Traveling is a privilege and a luxury. Some of us have more travel opportunities than others and some of us have to create our own opportunities. You either love to travel or you don’t. I was raised in a very well traveled family, so traveling was always in my blood. As you get older, you have to figure out ways to feed your traveling appetite if you have one. When I got laid off from work in May of 2018, I started to turn my traveling dreams into reality. I made a lot of mistakes, sacrifices, and burned a lot of money along the way to get there, but the results were well worth the effort.
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The first step I took was creating a couple rough draft plans with different scenarios with budgets and preparing for an emergency, just in case. Patience was the number one ingredient to making this whole travel recipe work. Everyone is different and requires different things/luxuries they may want to travel with or without. I inventoried everything that I had and used my assets to create my rough draft. I have a house and a car as a starting point. Good, I can Airbnb the house and find a low cost, lightweight camper that my 4 cylinder car can tow. Now I have a portable shelter and a small income to help pay bills while I travel with the Airbnb. This was the basics for me and those two basic things take patience to create and secure. I actually bought two campers instead of one. I lost a little bit of money doing that when I resold my first camper. My vision for my trip changed a lot throughout this process. Once I did more research, I realized that I wanted an eggshell, fiberglass camper that I could stand up in to make my dog and myself more comfortable. I could also be considered as “self-contained” with a kitchen and a porta potty which opened up a few more options on places to camp.
Now that I had the basics, which took a solid year to get ready and/or acquire, I was able to to start finalizing my savings and plans. I worked two jobs and odds and ends so that I could to save. I even walked dogs for a dog walking service. I wanted to have a minimum of 3 months of bills in the bank with 5 months of separate travel money. It was big commitment and impacted my social life by staying in vs. going out when I could. My dad spent an enormous amount of time to make sure that my camper would be safe and also equipped with solar so that I could go more rogue if I needed to. He spent a solid month rewiring and installing a 50 watt trickle charge solar panel and battery system with 6 USB ports and even a 12 volt plug that I could use a digital inverter to charge my laptop. He also installed a carbon monoxide detector. I can run my Maxx Air Fan, carbon monoxide detector, inside camper lights, USB and 12 volt plug off of my solar. I bought my camper for $6K and put about another $1K into it to give a rough estimate on costs if you’re looking to do something similar. That does not include what my dad should have been paid for the tremendous amount of labor he put into it. In honor of all of his hard work, I named the camper after him and his Dutch heritage, Hansje the Haulander. His name is Hans, and I really get the vibe that my camper is feminine, so we went with the female version of his name.
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The next step is sourcing all of the things you need if you don’t already have some of it. Lighters, a first aid kit, cooking equipment, a cooler for food storage, and just any other thing you may need. I had to get a hitch put on my CR-V to tow the camper. I had foam cut specifically for my bed because it is not a normal size or shape, so it really depends on how you want to do it and what commodities and amenities are important to you. There is no right answer and if you want to save money, you can car camp. I wanted my trip to be a certain way for me, so I worked harder and longer to have those things. This is all about finding what is right for you and your situation.
I had a mini meltdown a week into the trip in Colorado when I realized how much camping at state parks and other established campsites would cost. I mean, the ugly cry meltdown. I had already blown my budget in one week, my camper door lock was not locking properly, and I was on edge. In the middle of my mini meltdown, I called my handy dandy van life friends from IG, @summitoffreedom, and asked how they were so successful at camping in the middle of nowhere for free. I’ll share all of the details in my next post. This saved a lot more than you could imagine. Out west its around at least $30 a night to camp at an established campground. So camping for free saved me nearly, if not more than, $1,000 per month. I would literally decide the day of when it was time to move and find a new campsite. There was no exact schedule or travel plan. I had a route that I semi followed so that I could get in my bucket list items. I missed a few things due to snowy weather, but it was so freeing just being where I wanted to be that day.
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Where there is a will there is a way. My path to making my dreams come true was exhausting and way different than I had ever imagined. When you finally take your adventure, no matter how prepared or lack there of, you learn what is valuable and not valuable to add to the weight that you are towing. Every pound is precious, especially if you tow with a 4 cylinder vehicle, but so worth it. When I actually got out there, it felt like I dropped off of the face of the planet. I really enjoyed the solitude and I didn’t share much because I was detoxing. I will tell you in advance, traveling like I did and will do again was hard. Very hard. I had no ambition to read or write. I completely stopped and would guilt trip myself for not documenting every waking moment. This trip changed my perspective and the way I live my life… living your dreams is really hard, but the reward is endless.
I hope this helps inspire people to create their own travel plan. Lay out your resources, be smart and save. Be patient. And before you know it, you’ll be out there living life the exact way you want it. If I can do it, I have no doubt anyone can. I’m pretty sure if accomplishing your dreams was easy, everyone would do it. I honestly spent half my time on the road feeling like a badass and the other half feeling like a complete failure. Its hard to explain, because even though it wasn’t a fairy tale, I can’t wait to get back out there very soon! Hope to see y’all out there!
Tennessee Wanderer 