The Grand Adventure Begins!
We sold our house to travel full time!
You read that right: we sold our house in Austin, Texas to travel full time in our converted Ford Transit camper van! I’m so dang excited! I keep pinching myself to make sure it’s not all just a dream.
Here’s the backstory: we started planning for this waaaaay back in February 2020 while driving home from a tent camping trip out to Big Bend National Park — we were having such a great time we just wanted to keep going. We looked at each other and decided to go for it and travel full time. After many delays due to the pandemic, problems with the van build and more we finally had everything ready in December 2023! Yeah!
So we listed our house on Wednesday, April 24th and we were under contract on Monday, April 29th. It was so fast my head was spinning! Somehow the perfect buyers found our house — it’s like it was meant to be. They’re like younger versions of us and are roughly the same ages Jason and I were when we got the house 25 years ago.
Then it was a whirlwind of activity getting ready for closing on May 29th, but we did it! (With the help of some dear friends! Special thanks to Lakshmi, Janani and Yvonne!)
After leaving the title company we headed out on a 6.5 hour drive to the Davis Mountains to try and beat the heat (We failed on that front, it’s 96 as I write this under the shade of a juniper! )
Thinking of Traveling Full Time? Don’t Delay, Start Purging Today!
Don’t put it off like I did — it took so much longer than what I thought.
Here are some resources for ya:
Jason got me this nifty scanner (Amazon affiliate link) and it really saved me — I scanned over 20,000 photos! Some dating back to high school. (Yeah I was a film snob back in the day. )You can load a whole stack of photos in there an it scans them super fast! It doesn’t do too bad of a job on artwork, either. We gave it to J’s mom so she could start scanning her photos.
We made heavy use of Craigslist and Freecycle to try and keep things out of the landfill.
Donate things to charities. We donated our car camping gear to Girl Scouts, our nature books to the Native Prairies Association of Texas, and lots of art supplies to Austin Creative Reuse.
I decided I’m never having so so much stuff again. Ever. I really loved our house without so much clutter — and we consider ourselves minimalists! I could feel myself getting lighter and lighter the more I got rid of old stuff.
Use the Good Paper
One last bit of advice: Use. The. Good. Paper! Seriously y’all! Don’t save it for that special project or when you’re “good enough”. Just use it NOW! You can always buy more paper, more paint, more pens, etc. Luckily I had friends I could pass things along to or places to donate it, but it would have been better to use it up! I’m kinda wanting to change my Instagram login as a reminder.
Highlights
I’m sitting in camp at Davis Mountains State Park on Sunday, June 2nd and I thought I’d share some highlights of our grand adventure so far. I can’t believe it’s only been 4 full days since we sold the house!
Clockwise from top left:
WE DID IT! Celebrating and stretching our legs on the side of the road.
Camp at Davis Mountains State Park, Texas.
A hot hike at the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute — yeah my face is all red — it was close to 100 degrees that day!
Stopping for cholla on the side of the road.
Breakfast oats with pecans given to us by a dear friend (thanks, Agnes) and grown by more friends! (Georgetown Pecan Company is The Best!)
Views from camp.
Mule deer at the bird blind.
Water-the-van in camp.
Can’t beat black bean tacos!
That’s it — for now! — Lisa
Sounds awesome. I’m so envious. I have too much stuff too. Doing the travel full-time, will you be able to work from home as in your van? Have fun stay safe.
This is so exciting! Thanks for giving us a front row seat! What a great adventure!