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When Heath and I first began touring, we set a really clear aim:
Go to all 50 states in a yr for our honeymoon.
It was loopy particular—all the way down to the time-frame—however that’s what helped us make it occur.
(Okay “technically” we crossed into Alaska one yr and one week after our honeymoon began. However I name {that a} win!)
For the previous eight years, we’ve continued to journey however with much less concrete targets:
- RV on each New Zealand Islands
- RV in Europe
- See the autumn leaves within the northeast
- Zipline abroad (which we simply crossed off final month in Mexico!)
- Spend half of the yr in a foreign country
These have been nice targets to information how we plan our journey every year, however Heath and I’ve craved one thing just a little larger.
Setting Intentional Journey Targets
I acquired main déjà vu beginning to write this weblog put up as a result of I noticed Heath and I speak about aim setting on a regular basis! Normally on the finish of December once we write our year-end opinions. We’re very obsessed for not being productiveness gurus.
However we each love having large targets. They information our choices and assist us select the suitable path once we are confronted with choices.
We’ve talked about journey targets usually with our mates Kara and Nate. We visited all 50 states; they visited 100 nations. And after we every achieved our targets, there was nearly an vacancy there. All of us felt the necessity to assume up a brand new aim to realize.
In quite a lot of methods, there’s strain that the following aim be even larger and higher.
After Heath labored a job in every state, so many individuals stated “Now work a job in every nation!”
Between Instagram and journey blogs and Youtubers, I believe this can be a frequent feeling. It’s not sufficient to only full-time RV or journey with your loved ones. You want to go to each nationwide park or go to each Disney park or accomplish some epic aim that can wow everybody.
I’m not a fan of that social strain, however I do see the attraction of getting a single, intentional aim to information journey.
Why Set Journey Targets?
I hear the entire time from new RVers the identical, type of foolish query: “How do you propose the place to go?”
I completely get it! While you open your life as much as journey, you all of the sudden understand the world is at your fingertips. Particularly with an RV. Anyplace you’ll be able to drive, you’ll be able to go to! It may be arduous to decide on.
For this reason I like setting a tangible aim. It may be easy like spending Christmas with my nieces and nephews or difficult like visiting 50 microbreweries in Colorado. No matter it’s, it helps information and anchor you as you journey so that you don’t really feel aimless as you wander, one thing I do know many vacationers have felt at one level or one other.
For Heath and I, our targets have appeared like this:
2014: Go to all 50 states
2015: ✅ Go to all 50 states (nonetheless had Hawaii and Alaska to go!) and dwell for affordable within the RV to repay all our debt so we will preserve touring
2016: ✅ Re-visit the entire west coast + RV overseas for the primary time
2017: ✅ Re-visit the entire east coast
2018: ✅ Spend half of the yr RVing overseas
2019: ✅ Take our daughter on her first worldwide RVing journey (Italy)
2020: ✅ Full-time RV within the states as a household of three
2021: ❎ the primary yr we didn’t set a journey aim as a result of I knew I needed child #2 and we had been constructing a campground so we took little journeys as an alternative of any large journey. It was bizarre not having a journey aim, and we missed it.
Apart from not paying off our pupil debt till mid-2017 (why did we predict we may pay all of it off in a yr?), we completed all of those loopy large targets and began every year with a robust course.
Typically that course modified. In 2020, we shortly switched from “Let’s see if we love full-time RVing with children as a lot as we cherished it as a pair” to “Let’s purchase a home, the world is in turmoil and we would like a protected place to land.” It was a giant pivot on the time, however one which has allowed us to chase different targets, like having our son, constructing a campground, and dwelling in a home collectively for the primary time in our marriage. 100% was the proper choice for us.
And now that we do have a house base, we will begin trying overseas once more and chasing a aim I scribbled down with a query mark subsequent to it again in 2016: RVing internationally.
RVing Throughout the World
Heath and I (clearly) love RVing. I imply have a look at that listing above. Seven years of my life had been devoted to it! And it’s our absolute favourite technique to journey.
I actually have a complete listing of all of the nations the place RVing is a factor so we will begin brainstorming the place to RV subsequent. Spoiler: we’re about to go to France to spend a month RVing throughout southern France which is understood for being probably the most RV-friendly components of Europe.
With the children becoming a member of us on adventures, we’re aiming to be much more intentional with our journey and set a brand new aim for an entire household. I knew I needed RVing around the globe to be part of it, however I wasn’t actually certain the place to begin. So I requested myself a query:
How Many Nations Do I Need to Go to?
I pulled up Google Maps and a spreadsheet. I like spreadsheet—the extra organized, the higher.
I began making an inventory of all of the nations we’ve visited to this point:
I knew off the highest of my head the place we had visited with the children, however actually didn’t know what number of nations Heath and I had visited. Heath and I’ve visited 9 nations collectively, Ellie 5, and Eli 4. (Sure, it’s going to trouble me till we make it again to Rome and go to Vatican Metropolis that Ellie and Eli haven’t visited the identical variety of nations!)
I had no concept what number of nations I needed to go to or what number of nations I needed to RV in. I do know many mates who’ve the aim to go to 100 nations and even each nation (presently 195), however these targets don’t attraction to me. They’re just a little too large. Particularly whenever you’re taking a look at packing alongside a double-stroller on all these adventures!
I took to my spreadsheet and created a “Need to Go to” listing of locations we hadn’t but ventured. With Google Maps zoomed out far sufficient to learn the names of most nations, I began typing out each nation I knew I needed to go to. I got here up with an inventory of 39 nations.
This was purely primarily based on me saying “I noticed a fairly image of Albania as soon as” and “By no means heard of Saint Kitts and Nevis earlier than but it surely feels like they serve piña coladas, so let’s add that one to the listing.” I haven’t really carried out any analysis into what nations to go to. That can all come later once we began making legit plans! This was simply enjoyable brainstorming the place I don’t have to fret about visas or which season is one of the best time to go to or if I can realistically afford ever visiting the Maldives.
Right here’s what I got here up with at first look:
Sure, I do know my South America and Africa lists want some critical boosting. I have to Google which nations Victoria Falls straddles and of all of the nations in Africa, I most wish to go to Morocco and I didn’t even listing it in my brainstorming! Additionally, what nations are technically in South America however appear like they’re in Central America? Why is that so complicated? Oh and I forgot China! Disneyland Hong Kong is a should.
I’m going again and including to this listing as I write out this weblog 😂 However this listing was nearly getting a baseline for what number of nations I knew I needed to go to simply from fast brainstorming. If there’s something I’ve discovered about journey, it’s that after you begin touring, your listing of “locations to go to” will get longer and longer the extra locations you go!
With this listing of 39 nations, plus what we’ve already visited collectively, I simply drew a conclusive journey aim:
go to 50 nations with Heath.
I’m simply now realizing the parallel between this aim and our honeymoon. Possibly 50 is our magic quantity? 😂
Not all of those nations may be visited by RV, like Cuba or the Philippines. However portion of Europe undoubtedly might be. That’ll be one thing we will look into later, once we really begin planning and reserving journey.
Half-time touring, I estimate that this can take us a decade or two to deal with. I’m in no rush. We like spending a few weeks minimal in every nation we go to, and longer if we’re capable of RV in that nation. We spent two months camper vanning round New Zealand and have traveled for 3 months throughout Italy, so in my thoughts, we’d like at least a month in every nation to completely admire it… Though I simply did a Google Picture search of Saint Kitts and Nevis, so if you happen to don’t hear from me for some time, it’s as a result of I moved to an island paradise. 🏝
Setting a Household Journey Objective
One of many important causes Heath and I began speaking about setting an intentional aim was in order that we may have one thing to information us as we plan large journeys with our children. Saying we wish to go to 50 nations with Ellie earlier than she turns into an grownup sounds just a little too loopy. That’s 45 nations over the following 15 years, which might be doable, however like I stated, we prefer to journey slowly and luxuriate in new nations.
So we set the aim of go to 20 nations with the children earlier than they flip 18.
Since they have already got a number of underneath their belts, that works out to about one nation per yr till Ellie graduates highschool. Rather more doable and fewer wild, however nonetheless an enormous aim.
It’s ridiculous to me as a result of this aim feels small. Shouldn’t my aim be 100 nations? Or higher but all of them? 20 is so few!
(This is without doubt one of the many issues with social media. I’ve been touring for my complete grownup life and I haven’t visited 20 nations but. It’s tricked me into pondering 20 is small, when it’s actually an enormous, superb aim.)
I don’t know which 20 nations we’ll find yourself visiting. Canada will in all probability make the listing. Spain undoubtedly will, since we are going to begin RVing in France in a number of weeks and finish in Spain this October. However I’m excited to let the children be part of this aim. Ellie has been speaking to me consistently these days about how she desires to return to “Ratatouille’s home” AKA Paris, and he or she desires to go to “Bluey’s home” too, AKA Australia. She could also be three, however she continues to wow me along with her understanding of journey.
I’m nervous-excited about this subsequent large journey with the children. Like Heath shared final week, touring with children is so drastically completely different than touring alone and everybody has an opinion on it. Some households love soccer. Baseball. Gymnastics. Mountaineering. The listing goes on. Heath and I like to journey, in order that’s what we’re sharing with our household. And now we’ve acquired clear targets to information us alongside the way in which. Our aim will in all probability change and stretch with time as all targets ought to.
However I’m excited to have this subsequent one down in writing, inspiring us to maintain chasing after the issues we love.
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