Routines In A Small Space Help

So like every old couple we’ve developed our little routines. We get up and start our day with a simple cup of coffee, we make the beds, eat breakfast and walk Maggie. We try to get a few chores done everyday and we try to get some excercise too. And we try to learn something about the area we are in. In other words we try to create a sense of normalcy… sameness… routine. We’ve learned that that sense of routine helps make it feel more like being at home on the road as opposed to being on vacation in a van. Not that there’s anything wrong with being on vacation in the van, it’s just that that is not a sustainable way of living for months and months at a time. You get tired and burnt out if you give in to the “Got To See, Got To Do EVERYTHING” mentality.

When you live life in a van the time you spend together is a precious. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have daily chores and routines. In fact it’s those routines that give us a sense of peace and sanity in our van. Whether it’s making coffee, making the beds, driving to the next location or dumping the tanks, planning our next few days, walking Maggie or watching another beautiful sunset… each plays an important of life together in our van. You see, routines in a small space are really important. Without them life is full of haphazard occurences and sometimes chaos… and chaos in a such a small space causes stress and anxiety. We try steer our van and our lives together away from both of those… isn’t that why we chose a life in a small camper van anyway. Oh yeah… and the most important routine? We laugh… not the LOL kind of laugh but the old fashioned laughing about the small, crazy things in our life that we’re blessed to live together.

Now that’s also not to say that we don’t go out and splurge on activities or great meals, because we do. It’s just we try to not fall into the trap of doing that every day. If you’ve been on a cruise ship then you know the mental fatigue that comes from waking up and going, going, going all day long until you crash and sleep frantically and then get back up and do it again… every day until they push you off the ship and load in a new batch of folks that will do the same thing. But those that work on the ship… their life is different because they’ve learned that that breakneck pace is just not healthy for weeks or months at a time. The same thing applies to living in a van on the road. Sure you could do something big and fun and expensive every day (if you had the health and wealth to pull that off) but we choose not to do that.

What we share with you is usually those big things that we do each week. We sometimes share the mundain things too, like walking Maggie, making coffee, grilling out but most of the time we share the things we think we’d be interested in seeing if we were you the viewer. Same with this week’s video. We hope you enjoy it and we’d love to hear from you about how you travel for extended periods. What’s your pace when you’re out there? For us we try to keep a healthy balance between constant fun and a normal life.