My Fifth Nomadiversary
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.
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 to 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 condo?!!? Shoot me first!
Nine to five job?!! Even when I technically had one, I never worked anything resembling regular hours.
I have had a history of some pretty awesome cubicles though. A few of them even had some natural light exposure.
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, 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 six months on the road, and a year 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.
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.
====
A version of this was also posted at technomadia.com.
Here are a few other historical recap posts: fourth nomadiversary, third nomadiversary, and first year recap. Apparently I missed posting on nomadiversary #2...
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.
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 to 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 condo?!!? Shoot me first!
Nine to five job?!! Even when I technically had one, I never worked anything resembling regular hours.
I have had a history of some pretty awesome cubicles though. A few of them even had some natural light exposure.
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, 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 six months on the road, and a year 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.
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.
====
A version of this was also posted at technomadia.com.
Here are a few other historical recap posts: fourth nomadiversary, third nomadiversary, and first year recap. Apparently I missed posting on nomadiversary #2...