For a long time now this has been a plan, in the future, going to happen, but not really scheduled. First there came a retirement date for Dan. May 1st, 2019. We have known that for about a year now, and the countdown has been intense. But the rest of it, when we’ll list the house, when we will hit the road, when we will first go international, that has all been up in the air. It has been kind of stressful to not know the timetable, to have no real plans to activate the great adventure. Too many “I don’t knows” when people ask us questions, reminding us of how much we still had to figure out. Until yesterday.

Finally, we made some decisions. Figured out when we could reasonably load our trailer with our camp gear and drive off to explore a few national parks. Figured out how long we wanted to do that, figured out a route, and actually made some reservations. We are committed now to a timetable. We haven’t actually pulled the trigger on the international flight, but we should do that in the next couple of days. We did identify the one we wanted. First big stop? Porto, Portugal. Arriving mid October. Probably for a month so we can explore Portugal and parts of Spain from there, and get in the groove of this whole Nomad thing.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

It took hours, scratching away in my trusty “trip idea” notebook, googling things like crazy, looking up park websites, campsite reviews, Airbnb options in some places, drive times and of course, getting frustrated with each other a couple times. It isn’t all sunshine and butterflies…just 98%!

Yikes, you call that planning?

It feels good. And terrifying. But mostly good to have made some firm plans. Now we know when to sell the stuff we use more often. When to really get the clean out going. When to list the house. I can start researching things to do at the times we are going to be in areas on our travel route. We can get real about international health plans because we know a start date. And international phone service. And getting state residency in South Dakota so we can travel without the burden of California state taxes when we aren’t actually living here. The list is seemingly endless, but at least it isn’t nebulous any longer. We have dates! It is happening! Buckle up, it’s getting real.