In the summer of 2018, I drove down Highway 101 for a day and drove back, alone. Unlike traveling with other people, when you’re alone you are much more likely to approach strangers and, as such, I met people. It was beautiful and they were informative and I walked through central Californian coastal towns, taking turns based on stranger’s directions to stranger destinations.
Through a strange course of events, I developed a plan to continue this travel, alone, after graduating in December 2018. The plan was, hit the road, no plans, sleep in the car/tent, and get a dog so I don’t go crazy being alone. Not knowing where I’d end up after the trip and whether or not that life would involve enough time to love a dog properly, I decided it would be an old dog and the trip would end when the dog passed.
‘No plans’ being a central tenant of the trip, in my remaining semester I fell in love with a boy and decided I wanted to keep him. But I couldn’t have a boy and a dog, so now I’m on the road with Lukas, my boy (though he likes pet and treats as much as the next woofer).
So we decided to make this blog for a few reasons:
- Journaling : we want to remember and have a sort of archive to look back on.
- Friends&Family: If you’re reading this you almost definitely fit into one of those categories and therefore know Lukas and I fairly well…needless to say, staying in contact is neither of our strong suits, so this is our mechanism of keeping you in the loop.
- Sharing: When we researched information for this trip, like building a sleeping platform in an SUV, we used lots of travel blogs for inspiration. If there’s a chance any of this could help someone realize their plans/dreams, then I think we may as well feed the ether.
So there you have it, that’s what’s here and why we’re here. We left our starting point, Ithaca, NY, yesterday (3/12/19). We booked it to Providence, RI to see an old friend of mine, and now we’re setting up this website in the Children’s section of the Athenaeum, nestled between Brown and RISD’s campuses.
More to come in days to come!
Van-ish 