After a year on the road and July 2022 loomed ahead, I was finally ready to settle down again (for now anyway). While the past year had been exciting and challenging in so many positive ways, it has also been pretty exhausting. Between pushing myself to get out and explore every new place, making new friends and having to leave them, the constant moving, and living out of bags that all fit in my trusty Mini Cooper, I was ready for a break.

On top of that, by May/June of 2022 while Covid seemed to be slowing down, other shit kept hitting the fan. The logistical realities of long-term nomadic life when you’re traveling with a dog and need a real workspace (I’m talking extra monitor on a desk type of need here, not just a laptop in a coffee shop) were starting to wear on me. Renting AirBnBs in some places costs more than having an apartment in others, and gas prices around this time were skyrocketing, so any transit between locations was also getting more expensive. It was time to give both myself and my wallet a break from the extra expenses that come with how I was traveling.

Not to mention, any plans I tried to make to visit a few of the places left on my wish list kept falling apart. As we have previously discussed, sometimes the Universe makes itself known and just says “this is not for you”. When I was trying to visit New Orleans for a month, or even just a week around Jazz Fest, the prices were astronomical. I ended up staying in Charleston for an extra month because it was the same or cheaper than even a single week in NOLA during the same time. When I was looking at going to Austin for a month or two after that first plan fell through so epically… the Dobbs decision came down and Roe got overturned. Texas was, and still is, at the head of the charge to not only ban abortion but also criminalize anyone involved with one. On top of that, the Uvalde shooting happened in May and the Texan response by the police, and by the government to gun ownership and regulation was abysmal to say the least. No state is perfect, but as I was thinking about where to go next, Texas just took itself off the list a few times over. With those two spots off the roster, the number of places I had really wanted to explore longer-term was slowly dwindling down to zero.

So it’s May/June 2022. I’m in New Mexico once again at my family’s house, watching the doggos while my parents went on a nice long retirement trip after two years of delays. During this period I had a lot of time to think about the traveling I had been doing and what I had found in each place I visited that spoke to me. It was in this time that I decided where my end location would be. The only choice left was if I was going to spend a few more months on the road to see anywhere else, or if I would just commit to being a normal long-weekend or week-long traveler in the future there vs renting for a month+. I decided it was time to settle back down, get my stuff out of storage, and sleep in my own bed again for a while. THEN I could go out and explore again… just maybe for shorter periods of time. With that decision made, it was time to look for an apartment and make arrangements to finally leave life on the road behind for a while.

So that was part 1 of how I started to make that final choice on when and where to settle down. Next up I’ll share where won, and what some of the things I love most about it are.

Thanks for coming along on this wild ride of a journey.

~ Happy traveling, V ~