I wasn’t a fan of sitting tight at home during this pandemic, I actually gained so much from this experience. Spending time with my family is the best. We started out with puzzles, games, and a good amount of binge-watching of various shows. We did some baking, tried new recipes, got bored, and tried to work out some. Plus we started looking at the future and making a plan.

A cool thing that happened was my husband discovered Youtube. Youtube is the goto for help in fixing stuff, a how-to on a sewing project, installing a headlight on the car and so many more fun things. I didn’t realize all the other great stuff that was happening there. It started with my husband watching a show about a guy who quit his job and moved onto a narrowboat. He cruises about the UK canal network.

He is very entertaining and just overall fun to watch. I wasn’t interested at first and happened to walk through the room where my husband was watching this show. I found him truly enjoyable to watch. He brought this odd sense of peace to me when I was feeling over the top anxious about everything. Definitely check out his channel on Youtube – CruisingtheCut. My husband was all over it, except we live in the U.S. So the logistics for us won’t be quite feasible. Plus, I want to be on the same continent my children are on, lol.

However, this show led us to another show, he had an episode on other Youtubers he enjoys watching. He shared his recommendations of others to watch and one of them was The Indie Projects. They travel full-time in a self-converted Sprinter van. This was where we got hooked on the idea and it has grown from there. The Indie Projects led us to Eamon & Bec because they met up in the UK. Then Eamon and Bec led us to The Matney’s and it just kept growing for us. The ability to travel wherever we want would be so cool

As with many ideas, we toyed with it. We’ve been watching lots of van conversions, looking at RVs, seeing how we want to live, and just stewing with the idea a bit. I found that there are many ways to camp around the U.S. for a reasonable cost. The discovery of Harvest Hosts was the game-changer, lol. Seriously wineries AND a van, yes, please. The first membership we’re getting is the one with Harvest Hosts. Why? Well, it is a true fit for us. We definitely want to see lots of wineries. We love the trips we’ve taken over the last few years (posts on those coming soon) and want to do more. So traveling in a van/RV makes the most sense to us.

We had a great conversation about the plans and some dreams and from there it is all just logistics. We’re both on board and we said it out loud to friends, that kind of makes it real. Eeeeekkkkk!

So we have a mindset and an idea of what we want and need. Now to really dig in and do some research. We know we want to have someone build it out, we don’t quite have the skills to build it ourselves. The idea is formulating in our heads. We have a good start on our list of what we know we want. We love looking at the used Sprinter vans and seeing what our options are.

This is where we are at. We’ll continue to look at all the van ideas we can so we get some great ideas for ours.

So for now, we’ll work on our fitness and we’ll continue visiting as many wineries as possible. Plus we’ll keep filling our Pinterest board with ideas for different van setups and looking at the future. If you have any ideas we would love to hear them.

Sending peace, love and joy.