Traveling by Ferry in the San Juan Islands, Washington

Six months.  Six long, adventurous, exciting, and family filled months.  I can hardly believe that it’s been six months since we pulled our green VW Eurovan out of my parents’ driveway in New York and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime.  And here we are, six months later, living out of a different vehicle, clear across the continent in the damp woods of Oregon.  My thoughts of having a place to call home, cooking healthful meals with a full indoor kitchen, and starting a garden with the little guy have begun to increase lately.  We still have lots more to explore, but I’m equally excited about our post-travel adventures.

Instead of writing about more of the lessons I’ve learned (and there are many), I thought I’d share the best two pieces of advice or words of wisdom that we received.  The first was from my former boss, a fantastic mentor and friend who completely understood our motivation to take this sort of trip.  When we were discussing the ins and outs of our travel while we were still in the preparation phase, he advised me that when we got to the point in our travels that we felt like we were done traveling, we should continue on traveling for another month.  By doing this, we’d really learn if we were done traveling or if it was a temporary set-back that was making us feel that way.  As a result, we’d never look back and wonder if we stopped traveling too soon.  Such great advice, not just for our travels, but for anything we’re doing that we’re thinking of stopping or changing.  This advice has helped me get through the down periods (and thankfully there haven’t been many), when I can’t take another wet night in a tent or another day of trying and failing to find healthful food.

The second was less advice and more words of wisdom from a dear friend from law school.  She grew up in a small southern town in an area not known for its intellectualism or cultural diversity.  This did not prevent her parents from finding a wonderful, like-minded group of friends in their local area.  She passed along their words to me as we search for a new home: no matter where you are, you’ll always find your people.  I may be paraphrasing this a bit, but it’s been one of the most reassuring nuggets of wisdom that I’ve heard during our travels.  It has enabled me to put less pressure on myself to find just the right place to call home.  There are many “just the right places” or maybe none at all, but either way, we’ll find our people.  And isn’t that the most important part of finding a place to call home?