I follow a bunch of #vanlife people on Instagram, and lately whenever I see an amazing photo of someone traveling and living on the road I get that itch to go again.
Which strikes me as a little weird, since now I have a tiny cabin and all this space and time, and yet my first thought is still, “Pitch it all!”
I miss the road.
Maybe it's just winter. This is the home-stretch, the final weeks, and I'm ready for shorts and sandals and movement, instead of seeing how much wood fits in the stove and trying to decide how many layers to wear to bed.
Maybe. But it's more than that. … The six months I spent traveling were incredible. The ability to wake up every morning and go somewhere else, anywhere else, to simply choose, is addicting and powerful. Every day is new, all the people are new, every place is new
Traveling – which I think is distinct from 'vacationing' (although that's also awesome) – is an addictive feeling. It's like you trade everything in one hand for possibility in the other. Pure motion is a powerful thing.
Yeah, it's winter. This tiny cabin feels dusty and cramped right now, and my clearest memory is pushing a minivan as fast as possible across an open desert road, a vague idea of where I was heading. Cooking over portable stoves on picnic tables, sleeping in the van, everything so compact and distilled it makes this 200 square-foot cabin look like a cluttered jumble of confusion.
Get here one time, Spring.