2020 Travel Route & Year in Review

Maybe ‘travel route’ shouldn’t be so prominent in this year’s review post? Oh well, we’ll go with it.

At the end of each year, I always go back and read last year’s Year in Review. And I just had to laugh.

As far as our travels in the year ahead — just as we had no idea how this year would turn out, we’re setting the same intentions for next year too.

Other than aiming to get back to boat life by this spring, it’s anyone’s guess where we might end up.

Well, really – this time last year, could any of us really predict what was to come?

So here I write this, in pretty much the same exact spot we started 2019 out in – Sanford, FL.

First here’s our 2020 interactive travel map (not including tons of little side trips):

The map is created by a WordPress plugin called Nomad World Map. It allows us to easily tie locations, dates, future plans and blog posts together as we go – creating a much more interactive experience. Use the arrows to scroll to different locations and/or click on the points – you can then view the blog post that goes along with the stop.

Video Version

For a video recap of the year, here’s us babbling on about it:

Travel Re-Cap

Hey, we actually DID travel this year. It honestly took me looking at this map to remember that we started the year out in Quartzsite, AZ. That seemed like years ago now.

We brought in 2020 with our Xscapers Community at an epic New Years Eve party – a party in the desert for the record books. We then made our way to Lake Havasu City for the Xscaper Annual Bash. Another epic event.

Our return to Xscapers events was beyond amazing and heart warming. We hadn’t been able to attend such an event in many years since we helped launch the organization in 2015.

The Xscapers Annual Bash in January 2020 was an incredible experience!

Large events just aren’t our comfort zone.

The new Escapee’s Party in a Box

While at these events in January, we started to read news stories of this new virus outbreak over in China. Something to keep our eye on for sure as we made plans for returning to the east coast and getting back to our boat.

We stored Zephyr at our Co-Op park in Benson, AZ – leaving her in the park’s storage lot, so that our owned lease lot could be left in the rental pool. Allowing others to hopefully experience the park. Had we known in late January what we know now, we would have just left the bus on our lot – as what was to come would have the park shut down to visitors all together for most of the year.

Kiki has constant choices!

In our van camper, we made our way back east – each step of the way cautiously keeping an eye on this virus thing. Somewhere along the way, the disease earned a name of COVID-19 and it became more and more real.

We made some of our last social stops along the way in Central Texas and New Orleans, and attended our last big event in middle of February for the RVillage Rally.

I think we knew then that the hugs we’d share with dear friends might be our last for a long while.

At this point, there was no doubt COVID-19 would be approaching pandemic status and impacting daily life. So we sped up our plans to return to Savannah, GA to get Y-Not’s boatyard projects finished up and back in the water.

Our CFX 100L freezer has been unreliable – Dometic just sent us their brand new CFX3 (bottom) version to test out for better marine use.

Launching Y-Not

Chris inspecting the tank.

Storing Y-Not and leaving by van.

Kiki is pleased with our provisioning efforts of cat-supplies. She thinks it should last her a week or two at least?

Our mattress in our living room.

Engine service.

Our fresh tank is under our bed normal.

Despite communication with our project manager to the contrary, Y-Not was not just a couple days away from launching. There were still major projects not completed that left the boat not able to be launched yet – including our aftercooler rebuild service still in progress and all of our porthole lights disassembled (we had them all re-seated and rebuilt).

We impressed the importance of getting our home back in the water before the country went into some sort of lockdown mode – and the yard got things done. Meanwhile we focused on increased autonomy not knowing what the future held – and ordered in a portable water maker, and Dometic rushed us their new CFX3 100L freezer (our previous model CFX was dead upon return) allowing for extended provisioning.

We were launched just in time, with some projects still pending that never got tackled. But we were thankful to have our home back and operational.

We make quite a team – the journey here has been long and tiring. But we did it.

The path from Savannah to Sanford by water.

Arrival to Sanford

But we had no idea where we were heading. Initially we had thought about heading to the Bahamas to wait things out with friends already over there. But when the country locked down and forced cruisers to stay aboard their vessels, that idea quickly went out the window.

At this point, continuing north to pursue the Great Loop made no sense for us. Travel for leisure seemed to range from being impractical, difficult to just generally not fun.

And we just didn’t feel this stuff was going to go away anytime soon. So we needed to get to where we might want to be for several months, at a minimum.

With our domicile set in Florida and family there, heading south was a no-brainer. We thought we might be able to actively cruise up and down the ICW for a couple of months before hurricane season would have us returning to our beloved Sanford (where we had already made arrangements for.)

As we were making our way south, the world was changing by the minute. Recreational boating was being restricted in some areas, marinas turning away transients and new arrivals, and fuel & pump out availability becoming a concern.

So we contacted our marina in Sanford, and they said come on down!

Five long cruising days, and we arrived in late March. And, where we end this year at.

Stationary, But Not Still

Since March we’ve been based in Sanford. The absolute right choice for us. Sanford has so much to offer within walking distance of our marina. The county has had a mask mandate in place for most of the pandemic (albeit no longer enforceable), and most abide. With ample take-out and outdoor dining – life just goes on here.

We’re close to family for distanced and safer visits. We take the boat out on the river & lake for anchoring out adventures. And we have easy access to several state parks for van get-aways.

This being home-based thing really doesn’t suck too much – as many of our RVing and boating friends who have made decisions to settle down for the duration seem to agree.

Being homebodied, introverted nomads who have worked from home in small spaces for nearly 15 years definitely helped prepared us for the challenges of 2020.

Not to say it’s been easy or stress-free. But we definitely recognize how fortunate we are to have so many tools at our disposal.

Work Life in 2020

I remember at the beginning of the pandemic having a heart-to-heart with our team over at the Mobile Internet Resource Center (our day job). I told them I wasn’t sure how the pandemic would impact us. At the time, nearly 1/2 of the nations campgrounds were shuttered – would mobility even be a thing for a while? Would people have jobs and even need or be able to afford our resources?

After several months of hard work – our brand new video course launched in April, which at the time seemed like horrible timing.

We’re constantly testing various antenna.. roof access would be awesome!

And as a team, we decided we’d all do what was necessary to serve our members and keep the resources updates – funding or not.

Little did we know then just how quickly RVing & boating would become seen as THE safe way to travel into the near term future and that WFH would become a trending acronym (that’s ‘Work From Home’).

What did that mean for us?

This has been our most crazy year ever.

Not only is technology changing faster than we can keep up (5G, Starlink) – we’ve had our biggest increase in new members ever as more and more are gearing up to work remotely while RVing or boating.

Which seems like a good thing, right?

Except almost every new member had the same expectations: Travel all over the place, including remote places – while doing 40-hrs a week of video conferencing, remote learning and video streaming. Basically some of the most difficult things to do online while being mobile. Oh, and they all seemed to want to hit the road NEXT week having never RVed before.

Long about early August, I just about hit a burn out point.

Thankfully, things have become more sustainable after the summer vacation camping rush and we’re back to a more normal pace. Overall, working on the Mobile Internet Resource Center has provided needed distractions and focal points to get through the stresses of the year.

Accomplishment Reflections

This year is unforgettable in so many ways and like many – we’ve had a lot of time for reflection.

We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have an existing thriving business at the start of this thing that become high demand. We’ve definitely had our best business year on the books ever.

We started the year off with Xscapers events – an organization we helped the Escapees RV Club found back in 2015. Starting the year off witnessing first hand just how that plan played out and the community that has formed around it has been humbling.

And then we headed off to RVillage rally, another idea we helped launch back in 2014.

We end the year with that company having been acquired by a major RVing industry player – another humbling addition in to both our resume and financial portfolio.

And our own mobile apps celebrated 10 years in the App Store.

Sometimes it’s hard to see your own successes and they can be easy to discount.

I think this year we can’t avoid acknowledging that we’ve accomplished some pretty cool stuff.

What’s Next?

Physically, I can’t see us changing up our situation much in the months ahead. Hopefully vaccinations make getting back to some new normals possible by mid-2021. What that means for us, we haven’t a clue. That would probably put us right smack dab in the middle of hurricane season, with presents its own challenges.

Maybe by spring we might feel safe heading back to Arizona to get some time with Zephyr? Or maybe we won’t.

Workwise, we’re hoping things remain at a sustainable pace where work doesn’t rule us.

We have a lot to contemplate personally as we approach our 50s in the next couple of years – Will Starlink allow us to gracefully retire early? What would retirement look like for us if we did? How would we fill our time in meaningful purposeful ways?

After all, it’s not like buying an RV and hitting the road is on our retirement bucket list.

So those are the thoughts that lead us into 2021.

Hope for a better year for all. That we can start healing the division and damage of 2020.

Thank you for coming along virtually on this adventure –
we so enjoy sharing this space with you!

Wishing you ALL the best in 2021!

Our past year end wrap-ups:

2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,
2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019