After completing the first leg of our travels we spent a few weeks in Wisconsin. It was an event filled time. We visited family and friends, celebrated Tom’s father’s birthday, and my baby sister got married! Congrats sister! We also worked on Stan a lot. We made improvements to help with organization/storage, replaced some broken or malfunctioning items, and installed a solar panel. If you missed it be sure to check-out Tom’s full tour of Stan the Tan Van.

The List

As per usual we were running a bit behind schedule getting everything ready to leave. The thing is that we’re both list people. We used to have post-it notes of tiny lists stashed in drawers throughout our house. Now we both have various notebooks that house our lists. Yes we know there’s an app for that but we’re old-school when it comes to our lists. It’s so much more rewarding to draw an actual line on paper vs. push a button that draws a line on-screen.

Our list of “to do’s” was already pretty hefty by the time we arrived in Wisconsin. We knew there’d be adjustments and improvement to make after our first 6 week leg of the journey. We didn’t expect quite so many things to break or not work for daily use though. If I was about 40 years older I’d say, “They just don’t make things like they used to”. Okay, yeah I did say that…a few times. I’m going to make a really good old, cranky lady someday.

As the weeks went by our lists only seemed to grow. Every time we’d complete a task, we’d think of two more things to add. We pushed the departure date back a day, then two. Finally, we gave ourselves a firm deadline and decided that some things would need to be done on the road.

Certain tasks require stationary time and many tasks in life are easier when you’re stationary. We’ve chosen a mobile lifestyle though and we need to learn to fully adapt to it. This next leg of our travels is going to be a good deal longer than the first so there are some major adjustments we need to make to how we travel and how we approach our travel.

Hitting the Road (again) with a Few Adjustments

By the end of our first leg, we knew there were things we wanted to do differently going forward. There are things about a tiny, moving house that you don’t necessarily realize in the beginning. For example, when you don’t know where you’re staying each night you have to figure that out at some point in the day. When you move every few days, this is a lot of figuring. Add to that a lack of phone service (not to mention WiFi) and you can see how things you usually take for granted in life suddenly require a lot of more time and effort on a daily basis.

We’ll eventually be sharing more about what we’ve learned living in a van, but here are some things we plan to do differently this time around:

1. Bring only what we really use/need
Anything we didn’t use on the first leg, didn’t make it to the second. The pasta spoon, cheese grater, and can koozies were things we could live with out. Although I do think Tom has hidden the koozies somewhere in Stan. The man loves his koozies.

2. Travel slower
The longest we spent in one place on the first leg was five nights. Although we saw a lot, we were moving so fast that it was a bit exhausting. This time around we’re trying not to make firm time deadlines for ourselves so that we can explore at a pace that feels comfortable and take time for the daily life stuff, like grocery shopping and cleaning Stan.

3. Be more flexible
We made a few route changes mostly due to weather but overall we kept to our original plan. We’ll probably need to make more adjustments this time around. We’re going to be on the road much longer, which means more unexpected occurrences to deal with. If we hold ourselves to a tight schedule, those surprises become very stressful.

4. Listen to our bodies
Here’s the part where I start to feel old again. Since our time in each place was limited we packed our days full in order to fit everything in. While we were really glad with how much we were able to push ourselves physically we should have taken more rest days. By the time we finished our first stint we’d both developed some unusual pains and limps.

5. Throw away the plan
We know generally the areas we plan to visit, but we don’t have a day by day or even week by week schedule. We’re hoping to stay at each place as long as we want to be there and move when it feels like time instead of because we’re running out of time.

A Balancing Act

Maybe it’s just the project manager in me, but it seems that much of what we’ve learned or intend to change has to do with time management and simplification (or should I say scope definition?). Sorry, old habits die hard. Overall it’s about trying to find balance on the road. Balancing the going and doing with resting quietly. Balancing capturing pictures of moments with sitting and experiencing them. One of our big goals for the next part of our journey is to find a healthy balance in this new life we live. Take the time to just be. More efficiently manage our life while traveling. Simplify our daily routines.

How do you find balance while traveling? Or in day-to-day life? Any good balance tips?

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