Traveling More: Could We Live in a Small Space?
We had a lot of fun buying our first home. We were so excited to tour so many homes for sale and dream about raising our family in different neighborhoods. We spent sleepless night after sleepless night with so many questions:
Should we buy new construction or an older home?
How many bedrooms and bathrooms should we have?
Can we afford granite countertops, an open floorplan, hardwood floors, and stainless-steel appliances?
Is there sod on the lawn and a patio or deck for outdoor living space?
Where will the 60-inch flat-screen tv go?
Then, we were so excited to find the perfect house for us – a 2,400 square-foot home in a gorgeous new construction neighborhood just a few miles from everywhere we needed to be. We were happy to be homeowners and to have a home so big and beautiful, and our little boys had so much fun setting up their new rooms and meeting their new neighbors.
That honeymoon period lasted about nine months until one day we woke up and started complaining about the mortgage payment, the long Saturday cleaning sessions, and the never-ending yard work to be done.
“Why did we need such a big, new house again?” was all we could think about.
Pretty soon, things started needing repairing, and the costs were adding up quickly. Then, a few months later, when I got an opportunity to transfer to the coast – somewhere we’d always wanted to live – the big, exciting, beautiful home we had loved became a giant burden threatening to crush our dreams.
We had a choice to make – Stay in our dream home or move to our dream spot?
We chose to move to the coast without a second thought, and since then we’ve chosen the next and the new many times over, the square footage decreasing over and over again as we went from a large two-story home to a ranch, then to a river-house, a 42-foot fifth-wheel camper, and finally to the 30-foot Airstream we used to travel around the US for 7 years.
At the end of the day, we had to choose between comfort and adventure, and we’ve sacrificed one for the other ever since.
We had to choose what was most important to us – a king-size bed, granite countertops, a reading nook, and a 60-inch television or the opportunity to see new places, experience new things, and meet people we never would meet otherwise?
Thankfully not everyone has to make that choice to travel more – we chose to live super tiny because we knew it would enable us to get to more places, and we had a blast.
We didn’t even miss the granite countertops, extra square footage, or big-screen tv nearly as much as we thought we might. (And I really loved not spending all those hours cleaning.)
People always ask us, “But how do you fit that much life, work, and school for four people into a 200-square-foot Airstream for seven years?”
And our answer is always the same - We don’t. Instead, it’s all about the outdoors for us.
Doing school outside on a picnic blanket on a sunny day
Taking work calls in a hammock by the lake
Reading together by the campfire
Spending Sunday afternoons hiking canyons, swimming in oceans, and exploring new trails
Eating meals on picnic tables all over the country
It does get tricky when it’s raining outside, but when you have a house that rolls, getting to a sunny spot is a whole lot easier. (And it is difficult to find privacy in 200-square-feet with four people, but it’s not impossible - our camper has doors and curtains, and our family has rules)
But we know every family isn’t the same. This was our family’s sweet spot while we traveled the US. We’re hoping we’ll find our next sweet spot for international travel - currently dreaming about backpacking around Europe, Japan, and New Zealand but haven’t quite figured out the logistics just yet.
Choices like these are hard, but if you think traveling more might be your sweet spot and you aren’t sure about living in tiny spaces, I can tell you this:
Every time you say yes to trying something new, you’re making the next time a bit easier.
If you struggle with choices like these, you’re not alone. There are millions of questions, doubts, fears, and logistics to sort out when it comes to making big changes, especially when those changes involve living in tiny spaces, but there are also a few mindsets of our own that tend to hold us back. It was the mindsets that surprised me the most.
A critical moment for me was realizing that I couldn’t please everyone.
Not everyone loved our choice to sell our big, beautiful home and move to the coast. There were also a few concerned family members who had a hard time when we started traveling around the U.S. in a camper.
Another critical moment for me was realizing that I knew what was right for my own family and I had to go for it no matter the cost. (I’m still working on that one.)
If you dream of traveling more but aren't quite sure you could live in a small enough space to make it happen, try it for a few weeks and see what happens.
Then try it for a few months or a year. You might just surprise yourself.
And remember - whatever you choose doesn't have to be forever. You can always shift.
Want to know what it looks like to live in small spaces with kids?
You can see a photo tour of our Airstream on our travel blog here or details about our renovation here. You can also check out how we fared living on a catamaran and what we're doing now.
Still have questions or want to chat about it?
Hop into the email group and let me know. I’d love to hear from you!