Who knew that RV parks had seasons? More specifically, who knew that the RV park in Phippsberg, Maine closed on the very day we were to arrive? Well, we do, now.

We sat in the van and cried for a little bit, then got on Ben’s Verizon Internet card to find another option. Since Vermont’s on the way, and Ben can’t stop talking about the sharp cheddar you can get there, we decided to hit up a park there that IS open this time of year. But all wasn’t lost! We got some killer lobster rolls before we left.

All in all, we rocked Maine pretty hard. Probably best we left early.

Popularity: 11% [?]

If you’re anything like me, you keep constant tabs on your cell phone. It’s your leash. Your connection to others who are so very important to you. Regardless of how often you actually answer it, etc, and like with checking your email, you’re obsessive compulsive about seeing if anyone called.

I’ve been looking at this trip to push a lot of my boundaries…something to use in order to force myself to redefine various realms, definitions, and characteristics of comfort.

On this trip, one of those ways is through my personal connectivity. I want to know what it’s like to free my mental time and space for things other than checking my cell phone or worrying about if I’m connected or not.

Now, I don’t have a choice. It’s not convenient for me or others, but I won’t know how truly valuable that convenience is until I remove it from the equation.

By destroying my cell phone, I’ve made myself virtually unreachable and unable to reach others when I may need to do so. I have backups, such as using Skype through my cellular internet card, but it’s far from convenient or luxurious.

By trashing my cell phone and getting a Skype phone, not only do I reduce my personal and business operating costs from over $80/month to $6 per month. This $6 gets me unlimited call time to any land line in the United States. I can call any other Skype user in the world for free. For an additional $3 per month, I can place unlimited calls to land lines in an additional 28 countries.

I can do all of this…so long as I’m within range of an accessible WiFi network.

From many perspectives, this makes sense.

From many other perspectives, it doesn’t.

And that’s what I’m about to find out.

Popularity: 57% [?]

Trying to explain this road trip idea to people has forced me to do what a lot of people that struggle to justify their actions do: make up new words. My word is “lifecation,” add it to your spell check because it’s going to be hot.

So what is a lifecation? As you probably surmised it’s a combination of normal life and a vacation, although the formal definition hasn’t been officially penned yet. What I can tell you is that a lifecation is a lifestyle in which you aren’t tied to locations. You get to go where you want, when you want, to see the people and places that usually are too inconvenient for a sedentary lifestyle. It sounds all fancy-free, like a vacation, but you don’t get to escape your responsibilities as those would allow. You still have to take your calls, get your mail, and produce an income because lifecations are a full-time lifestyle and need to be sustainable.

You don’t need to live in a van or drive around the US, you just need to give up a set of assumed constraints on your lifestyle. What those are, and how you can successfully keep your life in order while lifecationing, will be explored as we continue our very own!

Popularity: 22% [?]

Day two was spent getting some needed supplies and hanging out with Alexi’s family friends Paul and Barbara.  They were amazing hosts who took us out for a fantastic Greek dinner and amazing breakfast.  In addition, we got a great night’s sleep and a shower in real beds.

It’s an interesting head trip to throw yourself into a minimal working life, then spend time in the presence of someone who has already done very well for themselves who loves what they do and work very hard at it.  It certainly brings more of an experience-based input into the combination of ambitions being lived out on this trip.

One of the things that we’re trying to learn is how to best manage our time in order to keep up the blog timeline, create interesting blog posts, client work, and business operations.  It’s a lot to juggle, especially considering the logistics of travel, the resources provided by the destinations, the sights needing to be seen, etc.

For example, on the way from DC to Baltimore this morning, I recorded 45 minutes of video interviews to my hard drive which I had tried to fit in yesterday morning.  On the drive to Philadelphia tonight, I’ll likely edit those videos as much as possible, then upload them tonight.  From your perspective as the reader, you’re probably not interested in investing 30-45 minutes watching several videos, so we then have to spread out when we publish those videos.  These are the kinds of things we’re still learning how to best address and work through, and there are about a 5-10 of these kinds of decisions a day.

Hopefully, we’ll have a good framework of considerations for mobile lifestyles so that we can articulate them for your benefit.

Popularity: 22% [?]

My first impression of the van was great: it drives like a hovercraft, and has (with a stretch of the imagination) something of a space capsule feel to the interior. It ran like a champ back from the airport, but when we tried to start it back up to make some errands yesterday it just made some clicking noises. We’ve been told that it’s likely an alternator / starter issue, so I had AAA come pick it up and take it to a local shop. We’re not off to a great start but I’m hoping once we clear this up we’ll have cleared out all bad luck for a while.

-Alexi

Popularity: 23% [?]

There’s an article on MSN today about how to take a year off of work. It does a decent job of outlining considerations to make in preparation financially as well as work-wise. They discuss how to prepare and/or tap into savings, statistics about paid/unpaid leaves of absense, and even options for cool seasonal jobs to help ease the financial burden.

While I’ve never taken a year off from work, I’ve been consulting since last November and have had times when I’ve been less busy than others. That said, I have to disagree with the idea of taking a year off from work, even if it’s just me who disagress with the idea.

There comes a point where lacking productivity becomes a burden in its own right. The combination of purposelessness, uncertainty, lack of contribution to something beyond yourself, and boredom all come together and at times can be quite difficult to deal with. Sure, it sounds great to take a year off from work, but the reality is that unless you’ve been working 80+ hours a week for several years, you probably don’t need a year to do nothing.

Here’s the caveat: If you’re going to take a year off from work, still do something. If you’ve wondered why this road trip is happening, this should give you a bit of insight.

If you’re going to take an extended time off from work, find something else to throw yourself into. Chances are that it’s not work that you don’t like, it’s that you’re busting your butt toward something that you either don’t, or no longer, care about. So, find something you really care about, or find something that you think would be remarkably fun and amazing, and do it all the way.

Ben

Popularity: 18% [?]