I have had such a hard time writing this post. It covers so many different things because this is the year that our lives change. This is the year that we have worked so hard for. This is the year that our dreams will come true. This is also the year that we will have to work the hardest, make huge decisions, and finish our to-do list that is currently longer than I am tall. However, when writing our goal list I found that everything that we needed/wanted to do all came back to only one goal. Basically, our goal is to start traveling this year. Everything else that we came up with for our goal list post was just the big items on our to-do list. I wasn’t sure how to go about this. I never want to mislead you lovely people and our goal list just felt wrong. After a lot of thought and back and forth with Michael, what follows is what we felt was the truest way that we could share this with you.

Goals for 2020

• To Start Our Trip

That’s it! Really! There are a million things that we need to do and a few things that have to happen in order to make this happen but in the end, it really is our only true goal. Everything else just leads us to this. Our goal departure date is September 14 and we are planning everything with that date in mind.

Our Big To-Do Items

•  Travel Trailer/RV
•  Declutter/Minimize
•  Save Money
•  Plan/Decisions
•  Sell Our House
•  Preparing for Life on the Road
•  Blogging/Vlogging

Travel Trailer/RV

We still need to buy our travel trailer. We have been looking at different RV sites and places to decide on what layouts we are interested in. We are debating between a bunkhouse with a separate room for the girls or a shorter option with bunks in it. They both have their merits. We will likely decide at the last minute when we find one that feels right. We have set our budget and plan to stay well within it so we have more money to make it feel like home. We will be redecorating/remodeling whatever we buy to fit our families needs and style. We are considering buying something older and updating it.

Declutter/Minimize

We have a lot of decluttering left to do at our house. It feels like we have been decluttering forever. It’s like the more we get rid of the more we have to get rid of. I know this makes exactly zero sense but it is true. When we first started our minimalism journey, we had no idea how much stuff we actually had. As we started to clear things away we realized that we had way more than we were aware of at the beginning.

Now that we are starting to prepare for long term travel, we have begun to look at our possessions differently. A walk-in closet full of clothing or a garage full of tools doesn’t seem like a big deal when you’re stationary. Our kids will have to get rid of most of their toys and books too. We don’t want to leave everything until the very end because it will already be too stressful. We plan to declutter the majority of our belongings by April. We do have a room in the basement that we have dedicated to yardsale items. We will be listing things on the Facebook sale when we have time. The rest will go into a couple of big yard sales in the late spring/summer. We are being really picky about what we are going to keep. We either have to take it with us or pay to store it.

Save Money

We are going to be saving as much as humanly possible between now and September. Knowing that we will need this money to live in the future makes every dollar way more important. We are putting any money we make off of selling things into our travel fund too.

Plan/Decisions

There is a ton of planning to do. We are planning and making decisions about stuff every day. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it wears you out to make decisions all the time. It needs to be done and we are trying to spread it out as much as possible. We are working on a rough plan for our trip but that is just the tip of the iceberg. We are planning our home remodel projects that need to take place before we leave. We are planning for the design of our future travel trailer. I am planning out the girl’s homeschooling lessons. We have to make choices about the capsule wardrobes we are creating and which kitchen items we need to take on the road.

Sell Our House

We have to sell our house before we leave. There are a ton of little projects and a few large ones that need to be completed to give us the best chances of selling it for the best price.

Preparing for Life on the Road

Life on the road with three kids and a large dog comes with a lot of baggage (pun intended). While we are decluttering our belongings, planning what to take, deciding on a layout for our RV, and working on a million things, we still need to prepare our family for life on the road as much as we can. We will be continuing to take road trips with our kids and Jack. We will likely move into our RV before it’s officially time to leave to give everybody some time to settle into our new home. We are working on getting into better shape so that we can do all the hikes we are dreaming about.

Blogging/Vlogging

We plan to continue blogging and start vlogging while on the road. We have decided to start vlogging before we leave so that we can learn the basics and become more comfortable with it. We want to continue to learn more about blogging. Michael does very little with the blog currently because he works more days than I do. He wants to start learning to do more with it especially once we get on the road. We are trying to figure out what filming/camera equipment we really want/need to get started too. We really want to document our trip and make vlogs that we are proud of. We hope to share those with all of you to inspire others to live their dreams. YouTube has been a huge inspiration to us. We have learned so much from watching vlogs and very much hope to impart our own experiences with others in the future.

I’m really sorry that this took so long to put together. I didn’t want to share something that didn’t feel authentic.

2020 is going to be a huge year for us! We really hope that you continue to follow along. Don’t forget to subscribe to our email list or like us on Facebook for future posts! Exciting times are coming!

Happy Travels!