For my very first blog post, I want to take the opportunity to highlight my plan for this adventure. If you couldn’t tell already, I plan to be outside as much as possible. That being said, I don’t intend to completely ditch civilization all together. This is meant to be an adventure, not a test of resilience.
WHO
While this is a bit of a solo mission, I do hope that friends, family, and even strangers join me along the way. I often times go out into nature to be by myself, but I look forward to meeting cool people as well. If you are interested in joining the adventure in a literal sense, please reach out to me through my “Contact Me” page.
WHAT
I am an avid hiker, but I hope that this journey will offer more opportunity than that. While I am excited to do a lot of camping and hiking, pretty much any outdoor activity is on the table. I have actually made a list of all the activities I hope to do if that is of any interest to you.
WHEN
The adventure begins on April 1st when I pack up the car, lock up the apartment for the last time, and hit the road. The original plan is to do this for a year, but I have no idea what will happen in that year, and I don’t want to limit myself this early.
WHERE
I will be traveling primarily within the United States, but I don’t intend to adhere to any strict rule. I know what regions I want to be in during certain times of the year, but I hope to keep the trajectory as loose as possible. This is, after all, an exercise in freedom. I want to have the opportunity to go wherever, whenever opportunities present themselves.
WHY
There were actually a lot of things that factored into this decision, some of which are better left for another time maybe, but what it basically boiled down to was that there is no better time for me to do something like this than now. I just turned 27 years old. Yes, going on a long term adventure has been a dream of mine for years, but I finally have the means to do it, I am not tied down by a mortgage or children, and it would just become more difficult to pull off as my career progresses. I’m not saying it’s too late for those who do have some of those restrictions. I once read about a man who took his kids around to a number of National Parks for a year. I am just saying that there is not better time for me to do this than now. Ten years from now, I don’t want to look back and think, “why the heck didn’t I do this ten years ago?”
HOW
Travel
You may have already figured out that I will be moving around by car. I may take the occasional airplane, this will be my primary mode of transportation. On an unrelated note, if you happen to have a car with 4wd that has another 50K miles to go on it, please reach out to me.
Accommodations
The point of this adventure is to get outside, so I will be camping A LOT; sometimes in the backcountry, sometimes not. On occasion, I will need to sleep in my car. Beyond that, I look forward to using this as an opportunity to see friends and loved ones. Beyond that, I plan on using the following resources to get me by.
You may be skeptical of the ladder two, but they are tried and true, and I have heard only good things.
Finances
I am sure I will be asked how I can afford to do this, and the answer is slightly complicated¹. Some of it will come in the form of budget travel tips that become part of this blog. The other part of the answer is simple in that I basically just aggressively saved my money for the past 5 years since college. I’m not extraordinarily wealthy. I’m still paying off college loans. I am fully vested in this. Come April, 2018², I may be penniless, but the adventure alone should be completely worth it.
- ok, maybe not at all
- if I make it THAT far
