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 Charleston, enjoying sudden thunderstorms and walking to King Street.
When we started this, I thought I’d reach a point of being sick of traveling.
Instead, after almost a year, I’m still excited to see new places. I’m thrilled by the idea of not settling down yet, of seeing more of the country. I enjoy seeing new neighborhoods, trying local cuisine, and finding the best parks.
But Y’ALL. My body is tired.
As I’ve talked about before, moving from place to place may be wonderful and exciting, and we’re privileged to be able to do it. But nothing is perfect, and that includes our current traveling lifestyle.
In less than a year, we’ve lived in three time zones while still working only on Pacific Standard time. The times when I’ve really been able to take advantage of the extra morning time have been great—get in some exercise or writing time first and then start the workday actually feeling ready to go. But it’s hard to reset this routine in every location.
I found my groove in Austin, waking up to walk in Walnut Creek Park, starting my day with fresh air, movement, and dog watching. I’d come home, make coffee for me and Aaron, and enjoy it while writing or just sitting quietly. I felt like I’d mastered the Central Time Zone.
Then we went to Mississippi, where we stayed for free at my mom’s house instead of an Airbnb. And suddenly, I lost all routine. For one, the room we slept in stayed pretty dark throughout the day, so morning sun was really no help. Also, we were sharing the space of someone else. I felt weirder about moving furniture to accommodate an indoor workout than I would in an Airbnb. Plus, there was a third person who could always come home and want to use the room I was exercising in. Not to mention that our Mississippi time was also filled with family time and needs, throwing off our schedules even more. And let’s be honest, we all kind of revert back to old habits when we stay with our parents.
We got to Nashville, and I slowly built up a routine again. I had my indoor workout room, and I had the park I liked to drive to for walks or jogs. Perhaps I was once again mastering the Central Time Zone.
And then we left, and drove into the Eastern Time Zone. Seriously, y’all, I didn’t think at this point one extra hour would feel very different but it does. If I want to start my workday at 9am PST, it’s noon for me. Noon. If I need to work all the way to 5pm PST, that’s 8pm.
I have done some running in the mornings in Charleston (no indoor workouts, because our space is too small and the apartment building’s gym is out of order for some reason). But it’s been much harder to find a routine again. We just feel tired. Mostly, we’ve reverted to sleeping later and staying up later as we navigate our new work schedules. You can’t, or at least we can’t, finish work at 7 or 8 pm and still be ready to fall asleep at 10 or 11. It just doesn’t happen. We need time to figure out dinner, eat, spend a little time with each other, and decompress. Let ourselves relax with TV or books or whatever.
And it’s not just time zones that are tiring. We move every month. Pack up, drive several hours or even a couple of days, and then unpack it all. There’s a settling-in period in most places, figuring out where everything is, where you’ll sleep, which nook will become your reading corner. It takes time to truly get comfortable and make it your home base. And then you leave.
Then there are the things you can’t control. You cannot pick what kind of mattress your Airbnb will have. You don’t get to choose the pillows. (We’re traveling with, I kid you not, four pillows that we brought from home. It felt excessive to me when we left but honestly, it’s one of the best packing decisions we made.) You have no idea if the couch will be comfortable for lounging, or napping, or nothing. This is definitely tough. An uncomfortable Airbnb mattress for a long weekend is one thing; a terrible mattress that’s your bed for the next month is quite another. Quite honestly, I feel like the Charleston mattress is making my muscles tighten up every night.
There are also climates to consider. Other than not wanting to live somewhere that gets a ton of snow every winter, I think we’ll probably be able to acclimate to most climates. Seattle may have weakened our abilities to withstand heat, but we can build that muscle back up. Wherever we decide to land, we’ll make it through the adjustment period and find a new normal. But right now, traveling through places for no longer than a month, we barely complete any adjustment periods before it’s off to a new climate. We thought we were getting used to “the south’s” climate in Austin, Oxford, and Nashville—but then we got to Charleston in June, where summer is in full swing and the climate is much closer to that of a swamp. I was not prepared for the humidity, a statement I never thought I’d make as a native Mississippian.
And there are the little things, some of which I’ve written about before. Mail is a constant frustration. And every new house or apartment has its own noises to get used to - Nashville had an incredibly loud air conditioning unit upstairs that startled me every single time it started. And our Charleston apartment is across the street from a hospital’s helicopter landing pad. It’s honestly not a problem if there’s a fan going, but when the fan happens to be off, the helicopter sounds like it’s headed straight for our door.
All in all, I love what we’re doing. And I really enjoy exploring new cities. But I think what will stop us first, before anything else, will be completely tiring of moving every month. At some point, we’ll need to settle down and have a home base for a longer period of time. That doesn’t mean that we have to find the perfect place right away - we could rent somewhere for six months or a year, maybe, to see if it’s right.
But we’re also learning how many places we still want to see. When we do settle down longer term, I want to travel more. We already know we can travel while working, so we don’t have to be limited by a given number of vacation days. And it could be great to get out and see more of the country while having a steady home base to return to.
I think that may be the next phase of our traveling life.
Don’t worry, though, we’re not wrapping it up yet. Based around some family weddings and landing back in the south for holidays, we know we’ll be living this life through December 2023. From there, I think we’ll regroup on how we’re feeling.
And who knows? Maybe we’ll have more energy for the road left in us at this point, maybe not. Whatever happens, we’ll be able to handle it.
As long as the beds stay at least halfway decent.
What else is going on?
We took an impromptu weekend trip to Savannah, which I’ll write more about soon.
We’re considering a break from city life, and choosing one of our next spots farther away from metropolitan areas to get a feel for that.
As Aaron and I continue to care for a family member from afar, this interview with Nicole Chung about caring for sick and aging parents and the broken healthcare system that makes it all so much harder really struck a chord with me. I’ll definitely snag her book.
We saw the new Spiderverse movie and had a good time.
I have a new script idea that I’m playing around with, and I’m looking for indie movies, drama or dramedy, that deal with family dynamics, secrets, and dark senses of humor to watch as inspiration and examples. If you love a movie that sounds like that, let me know! I’ll add it to the list.