A Journey Into the Unknown

Our family is on the road again. We kicked it off on another yoga retreat with our favorite neighborhood yoga studio, and now we just entered Germany with no specific plans for what happens next. There’s no need to have specific plans while traveling in RV. Instead of buying tickets and booking hotels in advance, we can decide at a whim where we want to be on any given day, and if it doesn’t work out for some reason the worst case scenario is sleeping in some random parking lot, carrying a cozy bed, a fully-equipped kitchen and a hot shower always with us. But that’s the worst case scenario that only happened to us once, in every other case we stayed on well-kept campsites, charming historic small towns, and beautiful wild spots.

The first time we went on a family trip like this our daughter was barely 5 months old. To my surprise traveling with a tiny baby was relatively easy—as long as she had her mom nearby, everything was pretty much fine. Now she’s well aware of everything that is happening, has strong preferences for where she would rather be, and feels quite overwhelmed when her usual routines are disrupted. Perhaps we’ll find a new routine after a week or two, but for now the whole experience is quite emotionally intense.

Luckily we have plenty of breathing room to navigate these emotional tides. My husband just started a 3-month sabbatical, an incredible perk offered by his company to the most tenured employees. Until now at least one of us was always working on our road trips. We enjoyed them a lot, but taking care of a small kid wasn’t easy with no other trusted adults around. Now we’re incredibly lucky that we can travel without hurry or pressure, and give our daughter all the time and attention she needs in adapting to this nomadic lifestyle.

This sabbatical is also a great occasion to take a bird’s eye view on our lives and reevaluate where we’re headed. Where do we want to live in the long term? What projects do we want to focus on? What steps do we need to take in order to get there?After wrapping up the 100-day writing challenge, I can see at least a few overarching themes that deserve to be expanded further. Is there a coherent way to put them together in a book, or should they rather become longer separate essays? Mapping out the whole territory was pretty much impossible when writing daily, but taking a step back will definitely make it easier for me to see the overall bigger picture.

There are two things I know for certain at this stage—I want to keep writing here at least once a week, and making music. After many months of promising myself I would do so, I’ve finally cohosted a sacred music singing circle in Warsaw a few days before we left. I would still probably be procrastinating on it if I haven’t met two incredible people who set it all up and strongly encouraged me to join them. Even though I won’t be hosting this kind of ceremonies while traveling, I still want to prepare better for the next one, practice my guitar skills, and who knows? Maybe even record some songs and put them online while we travel?

Most importantly, I’m looking forward to spending more time in the physical world again, hiking in the woods, rolling in grass, building sand castles with my kid, drinking coffee under the hot Italian sun, swimming in cold mountain lakes, cycling around small ancient towns, eating too much focaccia, and watching stars at night. For all my life I’ve been working in front of a computer. Most of it happened in the world of bits and ideas. This is the time I can fully live through my body like a tiny child does, and I have no doubts this will bring some new intellectual insights and revelations as well.

Where are we going? Probably south at the moment, but after that who knows?

What are we going to do? Whatever we feel like doing, there isn’t much on our todo list.

Who are we going meet? Hopefully more people than the previous time, I brought a guitar with me, and I surely do hope all the right folks on the campgrounds will feel called to join me in singing.

Why are we doing this? Because we can, it’s an incredible joy and privilege to be able to drive around the continent and do whatever we want to.

What happens at the end of this journey? I have no idea, but I’m so curious and excited to find out.