2020 #vanlife #pacificocean #vanlifebroughtawonderfulsurprise #writing #nomads #minimalist #liveinsteadofjustexist #explore #daretolive #exploringrabbitholes 0 Comments

Those of you who have been following me here and maybe, hopefully, on our Exploring Rabbit Holes website, know that in August of 2017, we decided to completely dismantle our lives and be true to who we really are.

Who were you before society told you who you should be?

Have you ever thought about that?

I did that night and then made a life-changing decision.

Thankfully, my bestie felt the same way and was onboard.

You can follow our journey on our Dare to Live YouTube channel.

In January of 2020, we sold our house and moved into our homemade camper van in the middle of winter in the Dakotas. 🥶

We took off and got as far away from the bitter cold and snow as fast as we could.

The first day went well, but after that things got rough. 😬

I already wrote a post about it on our website.

You can check it out here. http://exploringrabbitholes.com/van-life-was-cut-short-this-is-why/

Honestly, I think we have a cool van and I slept really well in it.

Our cat Church even likes it and claimed it as his van.

However, I felt unproductive while we traveled and our WiFi was sketchy.

I need to be productive and have reliable WiFi to do my work.

Other issues we had was where to park for a few days, not having enough water or room for our needs, and Kevin hated driving the van.

Van life wasn’t his thing . . .

. . . But we kept going with full intentions to travel parts of the US and videotape our journey for our YouTube channel.

When we reached the Pacific Coast, we got a wonderful surprise. 😊

By complete accident, we came across a small coastal town and ended up camping 100 yards from the beach for eight days.

It was wonderful. 🥰

We explored part of the area and loved it.

Kevin and I looked at each other and said, “I can totally live here.”

So, we decided to see if we could find a place to rent for at least a year to see if this was where we wanted to be for the rest of our lives.

According to the residents here, it’s hard to find a place to rent.

The way we live our life is if we’re on the right path things will flow. If not, they won’t and we continue to move on.

We found two places to rent within 24 hours. 😁

No shit.

Everything flowed flawlessly.

We picked a place that’s half a mile from the ocean (you can see the ocean from our street), the Rogue River, and we’re surrounded by forested mountains. 😍

Oh, and for an added bonus there’s a 2-story bookstore with a kickass coffee shop a block from where we live.

The coldest it gets here is 40 degrees and the hottest is 75.

We totally scored.

This place is fucking amazing!

We’re within walking distance to just about everything.

And the food here is awesome.

We can’t believe we found this place.

It’s perfect for our wandering and creative spirits.

We plan to explore the Pacific Coast and already started.

Here we can live instead of just exist.

If we never would have tried van life and being nomads, we’d never be where we are now.

Van life brought a wonderful surprise.

Back in August 2017, we decided to change our lives, despite the disapproval of others.

We made a plan, became minimalist and stepped out of our comfort zone.

We not only dramatically made outward changes, but we also worked on our inner self through meditation, reading, studying, lectures, writing, and being each other’s support system.

And we’re not done. 😜

We’ll never be done.

None of us will.

We’re all in the process of becoming.

But I’ll tell ya what . . .

. . . Kevin and I have grown so much since we decided to allow our true selves to take the helm instead of allowing society, culture-conditioning and the ego-mind continue to lead us on a path that was littered with anxiety, frustration, monotony, enslavement, and overall, a false life.

Now we’re working on getting settled into our new life here in a small coastal town.