Five years of choosing curiosity over certainty.
If you'd asked me then how long we'd live this unconventional life, I would've said one year. Maybe two. We'll try it, see how it goes, and probably move back to a house with a yard and a good school district before Calvin starts kindergarten.
But five years in, we're still here.
Still grateful. Still curious. Still choosing the long way around.
What I thought this would look like
In my head, full-time travel was sunsets and adventure. It was the Instagram version: beautiful backgrounds, happy kids, the kind of freedom that makes people comment "living the dream!" on your photos.
And sometimes it is that. We've seen sunsets that stopped me in my tracks. We've had adventures that I'll tell for the rest of my life. But the actual day-to-day? It's school at a picnic table. It's laundry in a campground. It's arguing about screen time in a gas station parking lot in Wyoming because the WiFi is better there than at our campsite.
It's real life. Just on wheels.
What I've learned that I didn't expect
That I'm braver than I thought. Not brave in the dramatic way, not cliff-jumping or bungee-cord brave. Brave in the quiet way. Brave enough to let go of a plan. Brave enough to admit when something isn't working. Brave enough to buy a cargo van in Scotland even though buying a hair dryer with a UK plug felt suddenly overwhelming.
Fear has a funny way of showing up in the day-to-day, no matter what your life looks like.
I've learned that my kids are more resilient than I give them credit for. Calvin has made and said goodbye to dozens of friends. Millie has lived in more states than some adults visit in a lifetime. They don't always love it. They get tired and cranky and miss their grandparents and ask when we're going to live in a "normal house." But they adapt. Every time, they adapt.
I've learned that marriage in 250 square feet is an accelerant. Everything gets amplified. The good stuff and the hard stuff. James and I have had to learn how to disagree in a space where you can't storm off to another room because there is no other room. It's made us better communicators. Mostly.
What's changed
We're slower now. That's the biggest shift. In year one, we were constantly moving. New state every week. New campsite every few days. We were running on adrenaline and novelty, convinced that the magic was in the movement.
It's not. The magic is in the staying.
This year, we've been in Scotland for most of the year. We have a cottage we're renovating. We have neighbors. We run into people we know in the village. I can find my way around without GPS, which still feels weird. But it also feels right.
Travel will always be part of our story. But so will choosing what feels steady, supportive, and right for our family in this season.
Thank you
If you've been here a while: thank you. Genuinely. The community that has formed around our little family and our crazy ideas is one of the things I'm most proud of. You've cheered us on through the good parts and held space for the hard ones.
If you're new? Welcome. Pull up a chair. The kettle's on.
Here's to five more years of choosing curiosity. Or at least five more months. We take it one season at a time.
