Only one year ago, Carol was sitting in the basement of her Virginia home, surrounded by unopened boxes. She had shed all the other remnants accumulated in a standard American life, but that room in the basement, well – that was the final space she had to resolve before she could begin her new adventure.
You see, Carol had decided to become a full-time Nomad and a Minimalist.
“I always looked at what I had and thought, this is way too much stuff,” she said. “You know, 95% of the stuff in this house I (don’t) use. I mean, who needs 20 coffee cups, you know? I mean, I had tons of silverware, tons of dishes, of plastic containers that sat in my pantry that I never touched.”
So, for two years, Carol went through her 2,400-foot Virginia home until she reached that final room that had the scores of unopened boxes, the ones that traveled along with her, from move to move, never to be gone through.
“I was unhappy with where I was living,” she said. “I didn’t want to stay there, but I didn’t know where I wanted to go.”
So, Carol decided to move her entire life and three cats into a 27-foot Class C RV while she explored the United States in search of a new home.
Carol had never lived in an RV or even owned one before she decided on this solution. “>Although she had been a Girl Scout, she was 60 years old now and hadn’t camped in years. She rented an RV once for a trip, but admits that didn’t give her the bug. “It didn’t,” she said. “It really didn’t.”
What did was the combination of two events: one old and one new, that became the catalyst for Carol to change her life.
Years earlier, Carol watched a friend pack everything she owned in to the back of a pickup. “I thought, wow, I can’t believe she got rid of everything and that’s all she has,” Carol said. “I was impressed by that. I think in the back of my mind, I admired her being able to do that.”
Then, years later, Carol watched The Minamilists movie and everything came together.
“So much of our life is lived in an automatic fog of habitual behavior,” ABC correspondent Dan Harris said in the film. “We spend so much time on the hunt, but nothing ever quite does it for us. We’re so wrapped up in the hunt that it kind of makes us miserable.”
When I heard this line from the movie, it made me think of Carol and her big house in Virginia filled with stuff. Carol was from Georgia, worked as a tech person for a couple of major corporations before transferring to Virginia in 2000, and like most of us, she worked to live until the day she decided she didn’t want to be on that treadmill anymore. She began watching Nomadic videos on YouTube and said to herself, “I can do this.”
Downsizing is a Mental Process
“I went through that entire basement,” she said. “I made trip after trip to Goodwill and Salvation Army. Some of it was heartfelt and was a struggle, some of it was very easy, it was just junk, but it was a mental thing. It was, what if I need this? And, still, even now, I think, what if I need it? And hold onto it. But then, I think, if I don’t use it all the time, I let it go. It is a mental process.
“There were some things in there my mother had given me I had not remembered, and, I was glad I went through (every box). I went through this huge room and got it down to a small box that meant something to me and that I keep.”
Carol keeps that one box in her RV as she travels the country with her cats. “Everything I own is in here,” she said.
Carol chose the type of Minimalism that works for her; she did not downsize to a smaller RV or a van, because she understood what was important to her. After everything, she wanted to keep all of her animals and wanted them to have room to run and play. Her RV is full of cat towers and beds, and the overhead bunk is not used for storage or sleeping, but instead as a playhouse for the cats.
It’s been seven months since Carol set out on her two-year adventure.
“I love it,” she said. “I love it more than I ever dreamed. Absolutely love it. I like when I’m being still and camping. I get excited when I’m fixing to go somewhere, especially if I know where I’m going! Sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes you just put it in drive and start going!“I planned to adventure out and see what I might find that I would enjoy and live there, but once I started I was amazed. It really swells my heart. There have been times that I’ve been driving and just started crying.
“In two years I will re-evaluate and see. I haven’t found a place I want to stay, you know. You get antsy and there’s so much to see in the U.S. At this point I can’t see stopping.”
Carol’s style of camping is normally Boondocking. She prefers to camp with others but is also fine on her own. “In the beginning, you’re out by yourself,” she said. “But just be cautious, be aware of your surroundings and you’ll be fine.”
She meets people at Meetups and rallies, like Travelers Campfest, and this January will be going to the 2019 RTR. One time, she was camping with some friends in one spot, met one of their friends and ended up traveling with her happily for two months.
I asked Carol what the biggest stressor was in her new Nomadic Life, and she had to pause for a moment.
“You know,” she said, “if I compare that word to the way stress was previously, there’s just no comparison. But, if I had to choose something, I would say the most stress I had (so far) was when I couldn’t find a place to get my front-end aligned. I was in Santa Fe and couldn’t find a place to do it (it was a foot too long). I had to drive 300 miles to Colorado Springs to get it done.”
Speaking of getting things done, Carol has made a commitment to another significant change. “When I lived in my house, she said, “I really didn’t do a whole lot. I sat and watched TV a lot and didn’t do the maintenance on my house like I do with this. If something went wrong, I called somebody to come out. I didn’t know if it was minor or major, I didn’t know, and instead of researching I just said, hey, come and fix it. The interesting thing is, on this journey, I decided I was going to fix as much as I possibly could myself.
“They say 85% of what goes wrong with these things you can fix yourself, so when things have gone wrong, and things have, I’ve done research and I’ve fixed a couple of things. One of the things that happened recently is the heat stopped coming on and so I did the research, looked on YouTube, looked on YouTube, looked at my manual and went out there, took the panel off and blew it out with a can of air and hit the reset button and now it works!”
And, Carol believes living this lifestyle is better for her health.
“I’m moving around a lot. You got to set up. Level. And when things go wrong you fix it yourself. I’ve changed the oil in my generator. I’ve changed the fuel pump.”
I asked Carol if there were any items she couldn’t live without in her RV. “I was technical before I came on this journey,” she said, “and I’m technical now. It’s important to have a laptop and a phone and an InstantPot. I had a 6 Quart (in my house) but it was too big, so I got a 3 Quart Mini.”
Next up on Carol’s list is to get solar put on her roof. Right now, she makes do with an Eco-Worthy 120 watt suitcase solar pack that she sets up on the ground outside her rig and plugs in. She is also planning to take an RV technician class to learn everything she can about how RVs work.
Finally, I asked Carol what advice she would give to anyone considering a Nomadic, Minamilist life.
“Just try it!” She said. “This is a tremendous amount of freedom. Freedom I’ve never had. If there’s anything in your life you’ve ever wanted to do, this or anything else, do it. Do it and stop thinking about it. Stop wondering about it. You either get it done or make up excuses. If it’s going to make you happy – do it.”
To see a full video tour of Carol’s RV and more of our interview, check out Creativity RV’s YouTube channel.
Thank you Carol for sharing your life with our readers!
Be Happy. Create More. Set Yourself Free.
Robin
CreativityRV
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