THE BEGINNING
I am writing this as we have come to the end of our year long Great American Roadtrip. It is a long story with a lot of exciting adventures and learnings. So lets rewind…
In the beginning our dream was to create a life of adventure and fun together.
We got married in 2021 (“adventure together, adventure on” was our theme. Foreshadowing?)
Bought a van in 2022
Started our road trip in 2023
Several international trips scattered within those years (Costa Rica, SE Asia, Italy, Turkey, Greece)
This didn’t happen on its own. It began with the above intention and making small steps toward what we wanted. The dream wasn’t going to be fulfilled without action. So we cast aside doubt and fear and took action. We stayed true to ourselves and our vision. Knowing what we wanted was the first step.
Knowing why we wanted this change was our driving force. We knew that we weren’t getting any younger. We got married later in our life and really wanted to make the most of our time together. You just never know what tomorrow will hold. We just knew that we needed to create our tomorrows- together.
Then the actions we took were:
Dreaming and talking about those dreams out loud to whoever would listen.
Following vanlife on social media.
Creating a vision board.
Researching van companies.
Renting a campervan to see what it feels like. (We loved it!)
Visiting companies and touring their vans.
Talking to a financial advisor and saving money.
Looking into the retirement process.
Talking to people who are currently traveling in their van and learning the ins and outs of their experiences.
Joining FB/IG groups and following inspiring people.
Establishing a loose timeline to reach this goal. We needed to have an end in sight to be able to turn this dream into reality.
We decided on a van and on the company to build it. Then put down the deposit! Yikes, this is happening!
Ordered the van (then waited 9 months for the supply chain to produce her.)
Shipped the van to the builder (BeMyVan-now called Noovo Vans).
Created a good rapport and relationship with our builders (Noovo Vans.) This turned out to be more important than we realized!
Retired and drove into the sunset. 🙂
We have to have a roadmap to make a change. A vision, a “why” and preparation are important to the journey and not to be skipped.
#adventureon, #fiindyourwhy, #envision, #createyourbestlife
