1 year anniversary

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June ninteenth is now a federal holiday but it also marks 1 year since I first left Arizona to explore another state in an airbnb long term while working remotely. Essentially how it all began.

It all started because for the previous year I had been researching places outside of Arizona to move to but couldn't find anywhere that was substantially "better" than Tempe/Arizona year round so that I would move there. Instead at the time I had resigned myself to staying in Arizona but had the idea of heading to a colder climate for a month to escape the Arizona summer- becoming a little bit of a snow bird. So I took off for rural Utah for a month to explore the "big 5" national parks and work remotely. At the time I was still deemed temporarily remote- due to return to the Phoenix office at some point and very stupidly my work computer didn't have a wifi card and only connected via ethernet. While I was in Utah though work announced that I wouldn't ever have to work in the office and started allowing me to use a usb wifi adapter. I started fantasizing about extending my trip by another month and going somewhere else and then thought wait why return to phoenix at all?

Well I did return to phoenix for a bit, after all I had an entire house full of stuff sitting empty while I was gone. But I only returned for less than 2 months- enough time to pack everything up and vacate my house. September 4th was when I embarked on the adventure full time and started this blog, but I really feel like I've been living as a nomad now for a year. This year, I traveled to 20 states and stayed long term in 12 states. At this time I have my itinerary planned out for another 4 long term stays through November. From there I'm still contemplating what is next.

With long term travel there are always sacrifices that are made- no continuity in the people you are around. Always discovering which grocery stores are the best and their layout and constantly needing to plan what is next and what there is to do. Of course there are plenty more benefits like getting to meet new people from all over the country regularly, getting to try new foods and getting to explore new places every month.

There are additional irritations and benefits that come from my style of travel staying in airbnbs. My biggest complaint is always having to use a folding table and uncomfortable chair or maybe a dining chair from the airbnb. There's also the re-adapting to the kitchen equipment-pots, pans, stove and other kitchen appliances. It's different every month and difficult to meal plan and prep when everything is unfamiliar. Add in the difficulty of planning the timing for checking in and checking out, making sure to get the monthly discount and planning them back to back and only traveling on weekends and it is getting tiresome. Not saying it's not worth it, but it can be stressful at times.

So after a year of this what's next come November? Right now I'm exploring more to see if other travel options make better financial and logistical sense. Van life? Trailer? What will happen is a temporary halt to traveling while I empty out the storage unit I packed a year ago and re-calibrate traveling. So stay tuned for more updates!

Enjoy a summary highlight of all the states I've been to 😊

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