Background:
In recognition of our son’s tenth birthday during the summer of 2013, and to celebrate the fact that we had all made it through our first decade together, we decided to press the PAUSE button on life and step off the traditional track. I quit my corporate job and shifted into consulting work and Tim took an eight month leave of absence to create the space for our first adventure.
In September 2013, we started “Chasing the Sun” and focusing on life, adventure and our family. The three of us spent our first eight months living and traveling in our 2003 Ford F250, 2003 8ft Adventure Queen truck camper and 2008 18 ft Hallmark enclosed v-nosed toy trailer. While it was tight… it never got bumpy and we all became much more patient with each other. As hoped, it was also an amazing life experience for the three of us.
The Power of Starting Something Stupid…
“Life is too Short”
“You only get one life, you might as well do it right”
“Live life as if today is your last day”
We constantly hear quotes like those above and yet rarely do we actually step away from the comfort and safety of the track/path/groove that we are in. More often than not, forward momentum along the track/path/groove is what defines our success and that feels good and usually comes with benefits…
We took a great big leap off of our previous path and yet it didn’t feel risky at all. It actually felt exciting, invigorating and so full of potential.* the disclaimer is that we didn’t do this on a whim. We started putting the pieces in place about 6 months before making the change – mostly the financial / job planning stuff.
What’s the plan been??
Our first eight months on the road was a big success. We left our home in the Yukon in September 2013 and returned April 2014. We drove ALOT, explored ALOT and loved living day by day. We arrived back to our house and were immediately struck by how much “stuff” we had that we didn’t really need. We were also committed to maintaining our “Life is an Adventure” philosophy and not fall back into the rut of busyness and work.
Tim went back to work in May 2014 while I continued to coach and consult. We decided to try something completely new for winter 2014 and took a series of adventure trips while being based out of our house in the Yukon. We opted to continue homeschooling Hunter to have greater flexibility and continue to leverage the road schooling philosophy.
After a winter of coming and going we decided to head back out on the road again. We left in mid June 2015 and arrived back home in early May 2016 because Hunter missed his friends and announced he wanted to try out High School (Grade 8) in a “regular school with regular kids”. We are considering this an adventure year in the Yukon while we regroup and plot and plan our next sojourn on the road come spring 2017.
At the same time, we are forever downsizing. We have become experts at kijiji and local buy & sell listings, give aways to local charities and generally purging. Like most people we’ve accumulated so much “stuff” over the years that is not being used and can create value for someone else.
Check out the “OUR GEAR” page to see all the things we pack along with us!