Today is my fifth Nomadiversary.
I’ve now spent five years on the road without a fixed address, never even knowing particularly far in advance where I’ll be headed next.
It has been a great ride.
(This next section was part of our April Fool’s Joke – just thought we’d clarify now, as so many folks took this seriously. We are NOT buying a condo anywhere!!)
The Big Announcement – What’s Next?
But we all know that every nomad is just searching for the right place to settle down, and the past five months living in paradise here in the Virgin Islands have been a great taste of that. This is the place for us, though we’ve kept our intentions secret not wanting to undermine our credibility at SXSW or jinx our secret plans until we had something firm to announce.
But everything has suddenly fallen into place, and today, on my fifth Nomadiversary, it seems like a fitting day to announce some big life changing news…
We’re buying a three bedroom condo on St Thomas!!!
We’ll be heading back to Florida next week to sell off the remnants of our mobile life, and then we’ll be heading back to the Virgin Islands in May to begin our fixed life existence!
We are so looking forward to the challenges of filling three bedrooms of space – we are thinking we’ll use one of the spare bedrooms as an office, and the other will double as a guest room and a library. There is a nice huge living room perfect for a big screen TV and surround sound, and there is lots of great neutrally colored wall space to start covering up with fashionable art prints.
There is no view, or backyard, and sadly only a one car garage. But just five minutes down the road we can see the ocean, and from the overlook we can see all the cruise ships docked in Charlotte Amalie.
We picked St. Thomas over St. John because we could get a better deal on a bigger condo (bigger is better!), and we can always commute via ferry to St. John if we crave some snorkeling or hiking in the National Park. Living in the Virgin Islands long term, we wouldn’t want to be too far away from fast food and K-Mart and the other modern luxuries that are only found on St. Thomas. You can only go so long without McDonalds and Pizza Hut.
In St Thomas I’ll also have a better chance of finding a 9-to-5 job so that I can transition away from the unpredictable rhythms of being self employed. Ideally I’ll find a job involving some sort of cubicle.
I really miss cubicles.
Ahem… As if.
Me, buying a generic condo with neutral walls and no view?!!? Shoot me first!
Three bedrooms?? We can’t imagine ever owning enough stuff again to fill that much space!
Nine to five job?!! Even when I technically had one, I never worked anything resembling regular hours.
St. Thomas?!? We absolutely love St. John (and could be tempted to keeping it in our rotation for places to visit again), but St. Thomas is totally not our vibe. The two islands couldn’t be more different.
In other words…
After five years on the road, there is still no end in sight.
When I set out on April 1st 2006 it was without a clear plan (and no, I didn’t realize I picked April’s Fool Day as my exodus day), other than that I wanted to explore making nomadism a fulfilling life, and not a “trip” with some particular destination or end-point in mind.
I set out trusting in Nomadic Serendipity to guide my voyage.
There were however a few things I expected to accomplish within the first year on the road – in particular I expected to be visiting Alaska, and spending time camped on the beaches of Baja, Mexico.
And I still haven’t made it to either place.
The one thing I did not expect to find on the road was a major life-partnership caliber relationship. But then I met Cherie within my first few months on the road, and a couple months later she was signing on to become a full-time nomad herself.
That is the true joy of nomadic serendipity – you never know what joys the road has in store for you. Every day has the potential to bring about some new unexpected adventure. Every year is literally a blank slate.
- My fourth Nomadiversary was hanging out in a Texas state park in the midst of a field of wildflowers, drinking wine, and learning iPhone programming.
- The year before I was working on a beach in Malibu California, watching the waves crash.
- Nomadiversary #2 was spent in Florida, helping Cherie prepare her house for sale (again), and beginning the research into our next RV – which ended up being our custom built Oliver.
- Nomadiversary #1 was also in Florida, as Cherie and I were preparing to set out for our first trial year together on the road.
In each case, I could not have possibly predicated where I ended up the following year.
What does next year have in store for me? I still have no idea.
I know that we’ll be returning to RV’ing life in our Oliver next week when we return to Florida. But everything past the end of April is wide open and unknown. Will we keep the RV? Will we leave the country? Will we end up living on a boat? Or, will some previously unimaged opportunity strike our fancy – like this opportunity to live on St. John did?
Anything can happen. We’re excited for whatever serendipity has in store for us next.
Five years.
Wow.
Five years is quite an accomplishment. Congrats!
Happy nomadiversary! I actually felt my heart sinking more and more as I continued reading. My thoughts were “Oh no! That sounds so sad.” It wasn’t until I kept reading that I realized the joke. Phew!!
I scrolled back up and realized that the post had even been labeled. The big font about the Big Announcement just drew my eyes to it so I didn’t even notice. Great prank – even after you labeled it, we still fell for it!
Can’t wait to see what’s next for you guys!
Ya allllmost got me! Can’t wait to see where you guys go next.
Nina
Awesome.
I’m just hitting my 1 year ‘nomadiversary’. I’m such a noob!
Way to go guys! We’re looking forward to reading about what you do next.
sorry, forgot the link
Wow, yes…. you got me… All I could think.. ” Well, I do like the colour of the walls !!”
Al just wrote an interesting pose about RVing. ( mostly for boomers )
you two are my inspiration to keep going!
but yea.. St. Thomas sucks!
I knew it was fake as soon as you said St. Thomas. St. John is WAY better! 😀
*giggle* Yeah, you’re amongst the few who would get that reference 😀
You totally had me up until I see the (bigger is better!) part! Lol. Good one! Although I wouldn’t blame y’all for wanting to settle in a place like the Caribbean! No shame in that! Lol
Oh, MAN! I was completely sucked in with that one! I was trying to read your post in between working at my very boring, very mundane, very serious job — so serious in fact that I had not even realized it was April Fool’s Day! So I was reading and digesting only a few sentences at a time in between work emails, trying little by little to process it in small bites. (“A condo? REALLY??”). Finally I got all the way down to the word “cubicle” when I heard the needle scratch across the soundtrack, “ZZZRRRRRIIIPPP!!!”
I was so relieved to read the bottom half. I am just living for the day that my house sells and my mortgage shackles are unlocked so I can reclaim my own nomadic birthright. Until then, it is sites like yours that keep me dreaming. I realize you guys are not here for my entertainment, but it sure does help to have your inspirational posts to look forward to for as long as you are willing to keep sharing the joy.
(Going to the mylar bag for a glass of red to toast to another five years!!)
I hear you!! We got the new homeowners tax credit when we bought two years ago and used it to pay off our truck…so we don’t exactly want to pay that back to the government…so we are STUCK until at least this time next year. So ready to throw off mortgage shackles and hit the road!!
Ha! Good one! I saw the condo pic and read “no view” and thought you guys have completely lost your minds. =)
Baja is excellent. A ton of fun. Should you need any resources let me know as I have a good friend who travels there almost yearly either on motorcycles or in their truck with camper. The only thing to know is to get gas when you can since it can be 200 miles between official stations.
Awesome post!!! Got me!!! I was thinking “what’s in the water on that island!!”
We did find a dead frog floating in our cistern? 🙂
Congratulations on your nomadiversary!
I was sure the rest was going to be an April Fool’s joke, but then you wrote in so convincingly I thought “Huh! Maybe not?” But I was right all along. 😉
I have been following you guys for so long as the go to source of our plans, and Michael and I have jut recently committed to actually getting in action, this very year, that when I read this, standing in the line at the bank, my heart absolutely sank!
I am glad I still get to read your sage advice. Whew!
Alex
Haha, well done, you totally GOT me on this one!! I was sitting here with Pete going: “WOW! They bought a condo! I can’t believe it!” Haha.
And I thought I was so April Fools savy!
Congrats on the anniversary! Looking forward to what you crazy kids get up to next…
Secrets, secrets, secrets! Guessing it was tough to keep that one locked in at SxSW where everyone is constantly asking about your future plans.
I think the most important point here is that we are nomadic, because we are looking for what fits us. I don’t believe everybody should live in an RV, and I don’t believe I should always live in an RV. I do believe you should do what feels right for you and not succumb to the intimidation of it being different.
How’s it feel to find your “right” place?! Confidently incredible, I’m sure.
Hehehe.. thanks for playing along with the joke, Courtney 😀
OH MY GOSH!! I totally knew it was April Fools Day and have been grinning at all the pranks pulled across the web and yet you STILL got me!!
It may be because so many of the nomadic families I’ve been following for the past year seem to be settling down…which I can understand if that’s how they feel led…but it’s still disappointing to someone counting down the days till we can be nomadic (we have to wait a year till we can sell our house…plus we are working toward being debt-free).
I totally thought you were being a sellout to the whole settled life as well until I got to the part about wanting a 9-to-5 in a cubicle…and THEN I knew I’d been had!!
How many times in one day can someone forget that it’s April Fool’s day??? @#$%^&*
Nice one. I was just about to talk to the wife about changing our plans and buying your trailer. LOL
*grin*
Regardless, we do consider ourselves open to selling the Oliver should the right buyer come along. 🙂
Hey Cherie, Would love to discuss purchasing Orion from you and Chris.
Here is my e-mail, lokikaeseman@hotmail.com, if you would like to discuss it.
Respectfully,
S Kaeseman