A few months ago when we announced our plans to take an Gap Year to travel with our kids between our boys 5th and 6th grade year, we contemplated getting an RV.

It seems so iconic.  Get and RV and see the US National Parks.  Take your house with you.  Stretch out on the road.  Skip the packaged snacks and have a fridge full of yummy, healthy food.

On a dreary January day, we visited the local RV dealer and hopped from one motorhome to the next.  When we first arrived we thought we might like just a simple van, but as we explored the slightly bigger RV’s we liked the idea.

We left that day with touring in a RV as a strong possibility in our minds.  We even brought a brochure home of our favorite!

Then we let our excitement sit for a bit.

We got busy with our trip preparing and our normal crazy busy lives.

We got a bit stressed out.  (ok, ok, I got super stressed out.)

Then along came another chilly day in April and we decided to go look at motorhomes again.

Just for fun.

Within minutes we couldn’t see our boys, but could hear their footsteps running from one RV to the next.

Before we knew it we were all in great spirits laughing and imagining what life would be like living in a tiny (but actually really pretty big) house on the road.

The boys found “the perfect” RV complete with bunkbeds and started talking about who would get which bunk.  They imagined who would get which drawer to put their clothes and things in.

My husband got in the driver seat.

(You can tell by the smile on his face how much fun we were having imagining life on the road!)

We were blown away by how home-like the huge buses felt.

Some of these have full living rooms with kitchens nicer than most houses on dry land.  We even found one with a huge, full double stainless steel fridge.

Our kids were having a blast.

But my husband and I had this lingering gut feeling…It isn’t for us.  Not now.

We don’t want the added responsibility of a big house on wheels.

We don’t want to drive this big thing in and out of national parks.

We don’t want to learn how to hook up hoses and drain things.

And we don’t want to smell that new “car” smell all the time and to wonder how much to sell it for when we are done with being on the road.

But it’s not just about what we don’t want.  It’s really about what we do want.

The reason why we called this blog Project Gap Year is because we are taking on the project (task) of designing our daily lives to create a lifestyle this next year that we want to live every. single. day.

We want to slow down our lives.  We want to disconnect from the to-do list.  We want spontaneity.

We want to be able to read books together as a family.  Or simply wake-up without an agenda.

We want to be able to change our minds about what we are doing for the day.

We already know what it feels like to have too much responsibility and be over-scheduled.  It doesn’t feel great.

We want to feel free.

Not only free from our schedule, but free from stuff.

We already decided that selling our house is a must. Selling most of our possessions is a must. Selling one of our cars is a must.

We know that less moving parts is better for us.

Project Gap Year all about simplifying.   It’s about opening the doors to possibility.  It’s about meeting new people.  It’s about seeing new things, experiencing new cultures.

And for us, this means just our family and some backpacks.

Who knows, we might get an RV later, but for now, we are happy to just be free and travel by car, plane, boat…whatever is available for the day.  And to sit in a garden apartment in Sydney for a few months.

The other night as my son was going to bed he said, “Mom, it’s going to be great to be homeless.”

Ya, he gets it.

xoxo,

Summer

I want to hear from you…

What is most freeing to you?  Traveling by motor home?  Booking one-way plane tickets?  Or simply saying “no” to adding one more thing to your schedule.