It’s been a little while since I’ve sat down to write an update about our travels. Honestly, it’s not because we’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the time. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite. We’ve actually been enjoying our days being a little less busy.
Over the last several weeks, we’ve spent time in Washington, Oregon, and now back in California. We’ve explored a few trails, visited with friends and family, checked out an RV show, and spent plenty of days simply enjoying wherever we’ve parked our home.
Nothing particularly extraordinary. No big national parks, no bucket-list destinations, no jam-packed itineraries or incredible adventures to report. I think that’s partly why I’ve struggled to find something to write about.
It’s easy to share the big adventures: the beautiful places, the memorable hikes, and incredible views. That’s probably what people think traveling full time in an RV is all about.
But what about all the days in between? The days when we don’t have anywhere to be. When the kids are perfectly content enjoying the campground, when we decide to take a day off from exploring, or when we spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing in particular.
Lately, we’ve had a lot more of those days. And I’m realizing that maybe that’s not something I need to feel like I have to explain or make up for. We stepped into this lifestyle for the freedom to do what we want, when we want — even if what we want is to do absolutely nothing.
What We’ve Been Up To Lately
Before I get too philosophical, let’s recap what we’ve actually been doing over the last couple of months between Washington, Oregon, and California, because it hasn’t actually been nothing.
After visiting Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier National Parks, we were more than ready to come into Washington without any big plans. We welcomed a little rest between adventures! We spent time at several Thousand Trails campgrounds along the West Coast, most of which had full hookups, game rooms, mini golf, swimming pools, and other amenities we hadn’t had much of over the previous few months.
We took full advantage of these little luxuries and enjoyed our relaxing days at camp just as much as the adventure-filled ones that came before. We rode bikes, played billiards and ping pong, enjoyed evenings in the hot tub, ran around the pickleball court, and chased baseballs around the field. These were the kinds of days that felt like we did nothing and yet somehow felt full all at the same time.
In addition to the fun, relaxing days at camp, we also got to spend time with quite a few friends and family in the area. As luck would have it, we happened to be in Washington just as Dustin’s cousin was welcoming her third baby. We spent a week visiting their house nearly every day, catching up with family, sharing meals, watching the kids play with their cousins, and getting in plenty of newborn snuggles.
From there, we continued our travels south into Oregon, where we had a few more days of visiting. I got to spend time with my childhood best friend, Alex, and her family, as well as my aunt and uncle in Milwaukie. I got to hold my best friend’s daughter, catch up with her mom, and laugh until I cried as we played some pretty terrible ping pong together. The boys got to enjoy my Uncle Robbie’s famous blueberry muffins, which I remember eating every summer as a kid when we’d come to visit. It was one of those nostalgic visits that just felt like home.
Of course, we managed to squeeze in a few other things along the way, too. We went on a handful of beautiful hikes so we could still explore some of the areas we were passing through. We met a few other full-time traveling families and some awesome people whom with we shared stories and meals together. We made some more solar upgrades, and dealt with a truck repair that left us without a vehicle for a few days. We visited the Tillamook Creamery for some cheese sampling and checked out an RV show in Salem. We got the motorcycles out and finally got some seat time at an OHV park near Shasta Lake. And we even took our first steps toward getting our YouTube channel up and running.
So, between campground amenities and games, visits with friends and family, occasional hikes, vehicle maintenance, exploring new places, and all the regular everyday stuff, we’ve actually managed to stay just the right amount of busy — or rather, as busy as we care to be right now.
And That’s Sort of the Point
When you read through all of that, it probably doesn’t sound like we’ve been doing anything particularly exciting. And honestly, that’s a fair assessment! We skipped so many parks and destinations through Washington and Oregon that I’m sure would have been amazing had we packed our days full of activities and moved often to check out the next best thing. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that that’s not the whole reason we set out on this journey.
One of the things we talked about a lot before making the leap into full-time RV living was wanting more time together and more freedom. We didn’t want our lives to revolve around work schedules, limited vacation days, or constantly feeling like there was somewhere we needed to be or something we needed to be doing. We wanted the flexibility to decide what our days looked like based on what we actually wanted to do.
And while it’s easy to get caught up in all the incredible places there are to see and things there are to do, I don’t want to accidentally recreate the same kind of busy life we were trying to step away from, just with a different view outside our windows.
We’ve learned that we don’t have to make every stop an adventure or every day an opportunity to explore something new. Sometimes we want to hike a beautiful trail, and sometimes we want to spend the entire afternoon at the campground playing games with the kids. Sometimes we want to pack up and move on, and sometimes we want to stay an extra week simply because we’re enjoying where we are.
I think there’s a tendency to measure a travel experience by how much you saw, how many places you visited, or how many things you checked off your list. But I’m learning that some of our favorite parts of this lifestyle have very little to do with any of those things.
Having the time to visit family for a week instead of squeezing it into a weekend. Letting the kids enjoy a campground and make friends without rushing off to the next destination. Having a slow morning because there’s nothing on the schedule. Those things might not make for the most exciting travel stories, but they’re a pretty big part of why we chose this life.
We’re still figuring out our rhythm, and I’m sure there will be plenty more big adventures ahead. But for now, the only question we’re really asking ourselves is, “What do we actually want to do?”
Sometimes the answer is something exciting, and sometimes it might not seem like much at all. But if we’re enjoying our time, making memories, and living the days the way we want to live them, then I think that’s the whole point.
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