So I’m just going to say it: living and travelling full-time with your kids (and spouse) is NOT easy. I’m even willing to say that it is harder than living together in one place while working 9-5 and supporting extra-curricular activities. At least, that has been my personal experience this past year. I was convinced that our new lifestyle would be full of extra time and lots of self-actualization opportunities and sprinkled with many “ohh and ahh” moments where the kids realize how beautiful life really is. But, nope. We grossly underestimated how much time and energy (and money) it would take to orchestrate this traveling lifestyle. And then, we sprinkled some COVID on top of it all, added some pre-teen developmental stages, stirred in some mental health issues, and it turned into a fabulously challenging, but still extremely rewarding twelve months.
The Good
1. Above all else, the best part of the year was the year itself. I have never spent so much time with my kids. Before we left, I found myself asking their school teachers about the kids’ personalities and preferences because they were seeing them more often and for longer than I was. I am so grateful for the time itself. Not every minute was a happy minute – we had all kinds of types of minutes, each of us – but every minute was one more than I may have had if we had decided to stay home and keep working.
2. This year afforded us the opportunities to learn new skills. Since we decided to stay in Canada for the winter, we took that opportunity to learn to downhill ski. It was a skill that none of us had ever acquired. Then we learned some rock-climbing skills. I took a course on weather and weather predictions. Erik did some deep learning about blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. All of us enrolled in online Spanish classes. But these are all things one can learn even if they have day jobs. The other skills we’ve discovered and have had to practice are much more nuanced; we were introduced to personal space limits, comfort levels around outdoor toileting, adaptability when plans change, flexibility to daily routines, letting go of our “stuff” and deciding what is most important, working as a team and giving up something to allow another family member to gain, and realizing individual anxieties and comfort levels around risk. As parents, this learning was especially challenging for Erik and me as we had to discover it for ourselves while also identifying and coaching the kids with their own discoveries. So I feel very proud and fortunate that our experiences have forced us to be uncomfortable and given us the skills to recover.
3. Seeing Canada and many of this country’s natural beauty was also a wonderful and enriching part of our year. Our favorite spots were the territorial parks in the Yukon, the old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, and the many breathtaking vistas in the Rocky Mountains. Sadly, with COVID, we were unable to visit Aboriginal centers and learn more interactively about the country’s first peoples which had been one of our travel goals. Next time.
The Bad
1. The logistics involved in not just the planning but the execution of a long-term travel plan feels overwhelming to me. Luckily, I am married to someone who likes to solve problems. He’s a roll up the sleeves, research things, and throw lots of effort at a problem until the problem disappears kind of guy. For example, we were really, really, really hoping to put our feet into the Arctic Ocean but the border into Yukon was hard closed until just before we were scheduled to leave Manitoba and head into Saskatchewan. The border opened up with the condition that any travelers must self-isolate at a home (not a campground) for 14 days in Yellowknife only before being allowed to venture to other parts of the territory. So Erik researched, called around, and found us a furnished home for a two-week lease (we needed an address for our self-isolation at the border to be allowed in) and a place to park and store our trailer for that two-week period. He then adjusted the rest of our itinerary thereafter to allow for this extra two weeks. Then, when there were unexpected changes in our plans, we had to find places to live with furniture, and gear for winter, and resolve issues with getting our mail and finding medical services, and adjusting finances to support the new plans, and then, and then, and…well you get the idea.
2. But the logistical challenges reach far beyond just planning the itinerary and making the bookings. There were many decisions to make about what to pack, how we would get internet connections, what tools we’d need to educate the kids (that’s a whole other blog-worth of discussion), how we would document what we’re doing, what medicines we’d want on hand, how would we stay connected with friends and family, and what personal items would have to stay behind. This was particularly tough for the kids when it came to their toys, books, and stuffies. It was also a bit of a logistical challenge to receive both first and then second doses of our COVID vaccines since we were not holders of provincial health cards and were living in different provinces when we were eligible for each dose. Every week had new adventures and also new challenges that were sometimes foreseen, but often not.
3. Claire, Molly, and Simon all struggled at one point or another this year. As each of them stumbled through their personal issues, it would alter the family dynamic. And with living in such tight spaces, it was definitely hard to keep the peace. It was hard to give each kid what they needed when they needed it. Sometimes it felt impossible. Parent guilt would creep in and I’d find myself asking whether it was worth it to take this trip. Then I’d be scared that we’d made a bad decision and that we were screwing up our kids forever. Then I’d take a breath and we’d find solutions together, most of the time, and move on.
4. Homeschooling. Maybe one day I will have the courage to write about this topic. Until then, we’ll leave it in The Bad pile.
The Ugly
1. I fully expected that I would worry about trip-related things like unexpected car or trailer maintenance requirements, or falls and bumps and bruises, or touching poison ivy. And those worries existed. But COVID added a whole other crazy layer of worry that I just wasn’t expecting. It weighed on me, a lot. When we left Ontario in the summer, the case numbers were down and life was starting to return to some more “normal” states. But not all provinces were equally challenged with COVID outbreaks and I was worried that our Ontario license plates would not be welcomed. I worried that we’d get sick and worried about where we’d live if one of us fell ill. I worried that we’d have our car vandalized or be subject to verbal abuse. And this worry increased as cases increased into the fall. My worrying over these things that were well outside of my control took a toll on my mental health. I needed external help to put these thoughts into perspective and I was able to do so when we slowed down our pace and stayed in one location for a few months.
2. Turns out that spending lots of time with your spouse doesn’t always equate to spending quality time with your spouse. Over the course of the year, Erik and I had two dinners out alone without the kids. That’s all. One time we left them in the trailer with a movie playing while we went down the street for our anniversary and ate some fancy seafood. The second time, our ski instructor volunteered to bring some board games and entertain the kids for a few hours so that we could have a date. And when you have work to escape to and other commitments outside the house, you can find respite from each other (or avoid talking about the argument from the previous day). This isn’t the case in a camp trailer or when you’re home together full-time. So, as a couple, we had to have some tough conversations about our personal needs and about our expectations for our marriage. We had to get creative and find other ways we could stay connected. I suppose that many couples had similar experiences during the COVID lockdowns.
3. I am a team player. I love being a part of a team. I played on a volleyball team nearly every year for 17 years. I chose to go to military college because of the focus on working as a team. I enjoyed my 20-year military career because it was essentially a huge team with a common goal and I loved being a part of that. But I walked away from all of my teams to spend this year traveling, and I failed to plan for the impact. I wouldn’t necessarily call it an identity crisis, but I definitely went through a grieving period for the loss of my role as a team member. Now don’t get me wrong, being a mother and a wife and a sister and a daughter are all roles that also have team-playing components, but I was missing the me that put up a great pass or that provided some valuable insight on a challenging issue. It took some external help for me to find other ways to feel like a valued team member. Making a sudden lifestyle change had an impact and I hadn’t anticipated the extent of that impact. Thanks to the help I received, I am more at peace with the new me.
It really was an incredible year; one of my most rewarding years to date. We stretched from Ontario to Alberta then North to Yukon and the Arctic Circle. Then we drove South along BC’s coast and spent time on Vancouver Island and in the Columbia Valley. We hiked, we skied, we geocached, we climbed, we rafted, we defied heights, we read (a lot), we laughed, we argued, we cried, we learned, we grew, and we loved. We would, and will, do it all again.