It’s difficult, to pack a family of 5 for a Year living in a trailer around the United States?
Yikes-Packing a family of 5 for a year living in a trailer makes this real! Funny as it is, Charity has a thing for “little”. Tiny houses, tiny people, and well that’s probably why she married me…who knows. So this is a BIG tiny dream come true for her.
So how do you do it? Ever wonder How to Pack a Family for a Year in a Trailer…we just finished packing our 1,600 feet four bedroom house into one Pod storage box. 3 kids, Mom and Dad all moving from our house into our 224 square foot Airstream Travel Trailer. You take all the essentials and pile them up, then go through it 6 more times jettisoning everything that even crosses your mind as a “will I need this?”.
Irony is we are doing what I’ve made fun of my whole life. I spent countless jokes at the expense of mobile home dwellers and making stupid comments about “trailer trash”, and later joking that I’d probably end up “living in a van down by the river”. Here we are taking my 3 girls and wife to “live the dream” of living in a trailer. And lately I’ve been thinking the dream might just be in the nightmare genre…I’m a little scared…naysayers have been few, but vocal. But, I keep holding onto this: traveling lights up every piece of life’s passion I have in my body. Since I was a little boy, every time I’ve jumped on a river guides raft, or skied, or been on a hike in the mountains with a guide, or carved through single track on my mountain bike, I have thought if only I someday get to do “that” (insert cool 20 something adventure guide summer job), or conceded that in the passing of time I might have missed the opportunity to live a grand adventure. But that’s short-sighted and lame…a weak-ass excuse for living a passive, static, and stuck life. I’m done with that thinking. I want to live big and take my family along for the epic adventures, too.
So “why” really boils down to this. Charity is “down” for the adventure of living, working, playing, and schooling on the move; and we have work flexibility that allows us to do it from just about anywhere. We (and Chase Bank) own a home in San Clemente. This is a a year of firsts, we’ve become first-time land lords and given up San Clemente residency till March 1, 2018.
I made a quick journal entry February 25th, 2017 – 3 days before we launched from San Clemente
We load up and roll in 3 days, discovering the U.S as a family of five in our 31′ Airstream trailer. As excited as we are to start our year long “tiny home” adventure it’s beginning to settle in. I am a bit scared…how will the girls do? Will I still be able to be as productive as I need to be as operate a truly “mobile office” as we roam? I’m gonna miss people and regular SoCal life by the beach. Community is something I take for granted but need to thrive. How are Charity and the girls going to fare with the “homeschool” life?
Lots of questions, but a ton of fun to challenge status quo and GO!
Pods really made our Short term move easy…short term moves are normal for college kids; everything fits in the back of a hatchback. But for good reason, families settle down and steer clear. This move was easier than ever – skipping the garaged boxes and loading directly into the Pod sitting in the driveway. We loaded, locked, they picked up, and all of our stuff disappeared for a year. Then, magically, when we come back the ONE Pod will reappear … and the move is done. (Thanks to Dave Jansen’s persistence to use literally every inch of the pod), we sent one back empty and jammed our whole earthly belongings into one 8×16′ Pod…with the exception of what we’re taking with us for the year. There is a possibility we’ll just dumpster dive 50% of what we packed and paid to store this year, when we get back.
We’ve done a lot of consolidation in order to keep things light and small enough to fit all 5 of our “wares” to live in 224 square feet for a year… nice , but I wonder: “I might want my clothes back from Goodwill after we got home.” Nah, who am I kidding, 90% of my clothes are T-shirts from Over the Hump, Ride for Rwanda and Revolution Bike Fest ..the rest are clothes Charity brings home, when she realizes my boxers are showing through the holes in my jeans… [Here’s a little fun fact…I actually have not had to downsize my closet space a lotted to me in our home to fit in the trailer). My closet space at home is only 8 cubic feet bigger than the closet space in the Milly the Airstream. Charity has the other 224 cubic feet in the home closet.
With all that consolidation it’s official, after this trip, I might need to buy 2 new pairs of jeans to get my wardrobe back to what it was before we left. But I am not going to miss any of the crap in the attic or garage.
