Nomadic Life in AirBnBs

How we’re traveling, what we’ve brought with us and how we manage our lives while on the road!

We are slow traveling through the US, staying in AirBnBs. We typically are in one spot for six weeks, which allows for lots of time for exploration and is enough time to find a good space to work (sometimes a coworking space, sometimes it’s creating a space at home to work), a gym, spin studio, etc. Six weeks is long enough to be able to settle into a good routine with work, workouts, cooking, weekends, etc.

We keep our driving days to a max of six hours – the cats get pretty antsy with drives any longer than that. It was really hard to find places to stay when we started, as most AirBnB hosts were nervous about the kitties. We pretty much could only book places that were listed as pet-friendly, and even many of those wouldn’t allow cats (only dogs). As we’ve built up strong reviews as guests on AirBnB, we’ve had a much easier time booking. We are incredibly lucky to have two amazing, sweet, well-behaved kitties; most cats don’t travel well, if at all. Luke and Leia adapt to new spaces very quickly and don’t get territorial (they don’t go to the bathroom anywhere except their litter boxes).

We considered the RV life and actually almost bought one in February 2021; we were at the finish line with earnest money down and working on financing, but things ended up falling through at the last minute due to a lemon law recall on the truck making financing impossible. It ended up being a blessing in disguise because the wedding was two months away and it would have been way too much to take on learning to drive a truck (a dually, no less!), tow a 35-foot fifth wheel and plan the wedding. It’s something we hope to revisit one day but most likely a sprinter van. Seems a lot more approachable!

One of the questions we often get asked is what we travel with. We have fit our life into our small Mazda CX5 + a rooftop storage rack and a trunk storage unit, which is attached by a hitch. It’s been a process to get here!

We packed up all our furniture and belongings in September of 2021 and put everything into a storage unit. We traveled this way previously in 2020 but we had 2 cars at the time, so everything fit. We sold Jordan’s car in the summer of 2021 and planned to travel together in the CX5; however, the morning that our journey began, we realized we had absolutely grossly overestimated how much space we had.

As we started laying out all of our bags, the panic set in. It wasn’t even close – it wasn’t like we could take out a couple sweatshirts. We had probably double the amount of stuff that could fit in my car. We frantically started calling around, trying to see if we could get a hitch put on the car that day and then tow a little U-haul trailer. No luck. We ended up renting a car (from the sketchiest car rental place, by the way), and filled both cars up with bags (the car was a Forerunner!!).

Once we got settled in our first destination (Gulfport, FL), we returned the car and started brainstorming. We found a storage unit that attached to a hitch behind the car and this has solved all of our issues.

We have loved being able to do the long road trips together, with the kitties!

Here’s what we travel with:

Kitchen

• Vitamix
• Crockpot
• One Greenpan frying pan
• Small electric chopper
• Morning coffee equipment (Aeropress, temperature-controlled kettle), small kitchen scale, 1zpresso hand coffee grinder
• Assortment of random kitchen items that we often find to be missing in AirBnBs (lemon/cheese grater, 2 knives, measuring cups – teaspoon, tablespoon, cups, liquid measurer, clothespins, Stashable resuable bags, lime/lemon juicer, etc.)
• Yeti mugs and coffee mug
• 2 running water bottles & big water cooler
• Assortment of large and small glass Tupperware containers
• Assortment of spices and oils
• 2 small coolers for any refrigerated items that we bring with us as we move locations
• Limited amount of dry/non-perishable food
• Small 4-bottle bag for any leftover liquor/wine/champagne
• Vitamins
• Cocktail shaker

Cat items

• Two litter boxes; we stack them and keep one out while we are driving
• Luke’s special cat tower/bowl that he loves to sleep in
• Toys, wet & dry food, treats, water bowl
• Feliway spray & two diffusers
• Two giant scratch posts and two scratch pads

Clothing & shoes

Clothing and shoes are minimal and we’ve paired this down a lot over time. Clothing includes jackets (rain, lightweight winter, etc.), every day clothes, workout clothes, bathing suits, a couple of nice things each (dress shirts for Jordan, dresses for me). I have a couple of small travel bags for jewelry. For shoes, we travel with running shoes, hiking boots, flipflops, nice shoes (sandals & boots for me, dress shoes for Jordan), tennis shoes.

Work/electronics

• Laptops, mouse, keyboard, side monitor, laptop height adjuster
• Tabletop standing desk converter
• Small desk (it collapses/folds up)
• iPad
• Airpods
• Kindles
• Assortment of office supplies (charging cables, pens, tape, envelopes, sticky notes, notebooks, stamps, measuring tape)
• Firestick
• Extension cord & power cable

Exercise

• Two hydration packs
• One hiking backpack
• One wet bag for kayaking, paddle-boarding, etc.
• Hats
• Workout headphones
• Tennis bag & rackets
• Discs for disc golf
• Two yoga mats
• Foam roller

Miscellaneous

• ViscoSoft mattress topper and 3 ViscoSoft fleece blankets
• 2 pillows
• 3 card games
• Tripod
• Go-pro
• Small speaker
• Toiletries (including hair dryer, straightener, curler, glitter and a few medicinal/pharmacy items – thermometer, etc.)
• One Wheel (Jordan)
• Small safe
• Light alarm clock
• Cat camera

After round one of nomadic living, we realized we had brought a bunch of stuff we didn’t need; and with covid subsiding, there was some stuff that we no longer needed to haul around (dumbbells!!). We cut the amount of clothes we brought in half, and once we left Florida in Sept 2022, we left our beach chairs, umbrella, Bocci ball

We intentionally left certain things behind (like winter clothes) and decided we’d buy what we needed depending on where our travels took us. So far, we’ve purchased heavier jackets, hiking poles and snowboots.

We have the rest of our belongings in a storage unit in NC. Every time we pass back through town, I like to go and check just to make sure everything is still there and the carefully stacked piles of boxes are still standing!

We use St. Brendan’s Isle Mail Service (SBI) to manage our mail while travel. Mail delivery is, without a doubt, one of the most challenging things of being nomadic. I could write multiple blog posts about all the insane and weird things that have happened with our mail and packages, but I’ll spare you the gory details!! SBI has worked really well; they can receive mail and packages, and then we can choose to scan things (so we can immediately see what is inside the envelope), shred, archive, or have them sent to wherever we are at that point in time. Some banks don’t allow a permanent address to be a mail service so our permanent address is still in NC (and we’re registered to vote there), and some mail still goes to NC (many thanks to Larry and LuAnn, my wonderful in-laws, to helping manage that!).