How I Plan A Year of Travel

Life as a nomad, one year at a time

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In May of 2020, Steve and I sold our house, moved into a 43-foot 5th-wheel RV, and began life as nomads. With several years of travel under our belts, we feel like we have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't - for us. And planning our year in advance is solidly in the what works column.

One of the questions we get asked the most often is, “How do you decide where to go next?”

Great question, with a long answer. So, in this post I’m sharing everything about why we make our travel plans a year in advance, how I go about planning a year of travel, and some of the RV trip planning tools we find helpful.

There are so many ways to live life on the road, and all of them fascinate me. So let's just start with the most important thing...

The key to any kind of travel is to figure out what works for you

Over the years, we’ve talked to a lot of other full-time RVers who are fully or partially spontaneous with their travel plans. Also, there are a lot of different types of nomads.

• Some people live in a van, some of which are equipped with more storage, technology, and creature comforts than you thought possible in such a small space. Others are as rustic as you can imagine.

• Overlanders typically live in a jeep or truck, but some simply pack what they can on a motorcycle or bicycle. On one of our trips to Alaska we saw several people who were spending a couple of years on a bicycle riding from Alaska to the tip of South America. These incredible people are roughing it on a level completely foreign to us.

We live on the not-so-minimalistic side of full-time travel.

Yes, downsizing from the typical middle class suburban home we lived in for 16 years to a 400 square foot RV required us to pair down our belongings in a significant way.

But, our life could hardly be described as roughing it. 😊 Over the 5 years, we've transformed our little home on wheels into a comfortable haven with every modern connivence.

For us, planning the entire year in advance, as opposed to spontaneously deciding where to go next, works for us. Here’s why, and how we do it.