Welcome to another week of life on the road. I’m Genie Leslie, a freelance writer working remotely and traveling the country with my husband.
This week, we’re in Montreal, recovering from a full weekend of driving and trying to learn a few simple phrases in French.
This summer, when we saw a friend in Savannah, she asked us a ton of thoughtful questions about our travels to which we had stumbling and awkward answers. But I’ve been thinking about her questions a lot more, and wanted to take the time to reflect on them and come up with real answers. After all, we’ve been doing this for over a year; I think it’s time for some thoughtful reflection.
How have we surprised ourselves the most?
I’ve surprised myself by becoming a complete night owl on the East Coast. I really thought I was going to keep up a routine of a regular wake-up time and getting a lot done before work. Instead, I’ve ended up sleeping until 9 or 10am, working the day, and then doing everything personal in the evenings: exercise at 8pm, shower and dinner after that, decompression time, and then getting my own writing or reading done between the hours of 11pm-2am. I didn’t see this coming at all.
Also, discovering that beta blockers helped with my mountain panic was huge. I’ve been able to work through this fear of mine more than I’d expected.
Some of our locations have surprised me too, because our list was constantly changing as we went. I didn’t have Arizona or New Mexico in mind when we started, and I am so glad we went to both. I didn’t expect to see the Grand Canyon. Montreal was a late addition, too.
Aaron was surprised how much he enjoyed the much more rural setting of Mercersburg, PA. He enjoyed the corn fields we drove by, observing the friendships of the small-town bar where everyone knew everyone, and the quiet solitude. But, he added, “Maybe I’m full of shit just because we really needed a month off.” (No, really, we both needed the month off and honestly could’ve stayed there longer.)
I was going to say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well we’ve handled the flexibility of the whole situation. But when I mentioned this to my husband, his response was “Well, I’m already good with flexibility but I’ve been pleased with your handling of flexibility.” To which I rolled my eyes. He’s not wrong; managing my anxiety with all the changes and uncertainty is not easy. But I still say we’ve grown as a team in handling flexibility, everything from planning for job changes, calmly making our way through a flat tire, and re-evaluating how we communicate over emotionally charged topics like caring for family members. We’ve traversed some pretty rough terrain as a couple this year, and I think we’re stronger for it.
Which state has the worst drivers?
In the moment, Los Angeles definitely felt like it had the worst drivers. We experienced so many moments driving on the highway, in bumper-to-bumper traffic, where cars would just change lanes without using their turn signals. Hello?! We are all way too close and trying to move forward without you jumping in front of us unannounced. Just use your blinker—we’ll happily let you in.
However, surprisingly, Nashville had quite possibly the scariest highway system. My theory is that it has to do with the river winding through the city and the number of bridges you have to cross to get anywhere, but I swear, you take 4 different highways to go 10 minutes away. And on two of those, you take one exit ramp and then have to stay in the exit lane to immediately take the next exit on this new highway. When you don’t know your way around and you’re relying on Google Maps to tell you the next step in the 15 seconds between exit one and exit two, you can get a little stressed.
And THEN we braved the New Jersey Turnpike. Whoa. That was terrifying. Very little clear signage and, often, the lanes aren’t even painted! There are far too many cars speeding along that highway for the white lines to be so faded that you don’t know where your lane begins or ends.
But honestly, the more we travel, the more we (sadly) realize that there are not-great drivers everywhere.
What is our criteria for where we land?
A place where we can afford to live with enough space for working from home; we don’t want to be crammed together in an office or forced to work from the bed or couch all day. We don’t need two separate offices or anything, but enough space that we can set up each of our desks separately.
A place where we have access to the arts (theatre, comedy).
A good amount of green space for walking/running, meeting up with people, and future dog walking.
A diverse city.
I would love a decent public transit system. I know that taking the bus will feel different to me now in comparison to pre-pandemic times, but I’m also still wearing masks in indoor spaces anyway. And I do miss the days of reading on the bus instead of worrying about traffic, and never having to figure out parking.
Close enough to family for more regular visits. There’s two areas of the country for this one: California, where we’d each be close to at least one sibling; or the south, where we’d be close to parents, more of my siblings, and extended family.
Close to water. Kayaking has emerged as the long-lasting new hobby we’ve picked up, and I think we both want to continue it wherever we land.
Good food. (Aaron almost put Nashville straight to the top of our list purely because of their hot chicken.) (And now that we’re talking about it, he’s craving it again.)
How has our criteria changed as we’ve traveled?
Hot chicken wasn’t even on the list at the beginning, so there’s that.
We could land in a smaller city than we might’ve expected at the beginning.
Also, I think we expected to land somewhere and just really vibe with the culture. But what we’re finding is that most cities do have that melting pot feeling, with different cultures, atmospheres, and moods changing by neighborhood. And we’ve really enjoyed exploring that. But it also makes it harder to pinpoint one city that specifically felt like us.
When we started, we were absolutely focused on a place where we could afford a house and a yard for future dogs. Which is definitely still in the cards at some point. But now, we may not be so focused on home ownership and I don’t think we’re in as much of a rush to get a dog again. Eventually, yes, but not right away.
We’re less concerned about finding the best place now. Instead, we’re thinking about where we might settle for the next year or two, and then go from there.
Ultimately, I think what has really changed is how we think about travel for our future. We want to do it so much more than we used to. And we’re thinking about, even once we land, taking a lot more trips to see new places or finding time to go somewhere for a longer stay and work remotely just like we’re doing now.
Is there anything along the way we’ve realized we absolutely hate?
Apartments without natural light. Our Charleston Airbnb was in a big building, the design of the units was not great, and there was just one window in the front room and the back room. The main hallway, kitchen, bathrooms, and living room got no natural light in them at all.
Also, parallel parking in tight spaces. This is mine, not Aaron’s. I have gotten much better at parallel parking over the years, and then getting a car in 2019 with a backup camera was huge. But in Philadelphia, my issue was not about what was behind me but what was beside me—the streets were so tight. I was afraid I’d hit the car parked to the side of me or one of those metal poles on the sidewalk. I hated it, and Aaron did 99% of the Philadelphia parking. Will this affect where we choose to live? Probably not. It’ll just affect my willingness to drive.
Uncomfortable beds, but of course, we can control that for ourselves once we settle into our own place.
Lighting! Look, we appreciate a bright overhead light, it can be useful at times (cleaning, for example). But when a room ONLY has overhead lighting, oh no. No no no. We need lamps. We need options. The lighting I want for reading is different than the lighting I want for watching a movie. If I could impart one piece of knowledge to almost all the Airbnb hosts, it would be get more lamps.
But these are all small things, some specific to the realities of Airbnbs. In all honesty, there’s not much that we’ve truly hated.
Oh wait, the complete overtaking of downtown Nashville by bachelorette parties. We did hate that.
And what have we absolutely loved?
A local bar and restaurant with good food and regulars chatting up the bartender.
Large green spaces. It really leaves an impression when we stay in a city and find a natural space where we can rest, walk, and breathe deeply. I don’t think we knew this about ourselves when we started, that we’d absolutely crave a great park.
What else is going on?
I had to take a few days off from crocheting Woobles because I was starting to feel muscle strain in my hands. The break was truly heartbreaking, but necessary. I’m working on better ways to hold everything to avoid injury in the future.
We had a stressful outing to Tim Horton’s on our first day in Montreal, as we were unprepared to go through a drive-thru with a French-only menu. We stumbled through our order, annoyed the woman working, and to top it off, Aaron immediately spilled his coffee on himself at the first sip. We’re doing great.
Ok I gotta jump in about the Airbnb lighting situations and say YES!! PREACH!! I couldn’t agree with you more. Lighting is *huge* for me. It can literally change my mood when there is shitty lighting/only overhead lights. It truly is a real issue in many Airbnbs. I felt seen as I read your take on this. Thank you! ☺️