Why We Travel: Stories and Reflections From the Road + Home Sweet Oceanside
“Travel is not a reward for working, it’s education for living” - Anthony Bourdain
On October 7th we loaded up our Toyota 4Runner, roof rack and all, with our two boys (ages: almost 4 and 1.5) and Finnley, our 10-year-old Irish Terrier, and said goodbye to our home for a couple of weeks while we hit the road.
DESTINATION:
Legacy Hill Farm - just outside of Red Wing, Minnesota
About 2,000 miles northeast of our home in Oceanside, California
Legacy Hill Farm is a client of ours, and Lane’s parent’s business. It’s a gorgeous wedding and event venue they’ve completely transformed since the days Lane grew up on the same property. There was a two-fold intention for the trip:
a work trip to help Legacy Hill Farm with some intensive work that needed to be done in person, and
a fun trip to get out of our routine and get some much-needed adventure time together as a family.
Road trips are in our blood. We love them. I couldn’t count the number of road trips we’ve done over the last thirteen-plus years that Lane and I have been together… there have been so many. This wasn’t our first trip of this size either. We did the same trek a year previously when Jett, our youngest, was only about four months old. Phew, that was a wild undertaking. 😅 Even with all the work it takes to get our home ready, pack, load up, and make sure we have all. the. things. for two little kids and a dog on the road… and even though we know we’re bound to have some hard moments along the way where we want to pull our hair out… and even though we inevitably have so much laundry and cleaning to do when we get home…it’s always worth it.
We just got back on October 21st. There are always so many great “aha” moments and stories that accumulate along the road, and it only seemed fitting to share some of our road trip reflections with you all.
8 Takeaways From Our Big Road Trip
1. If you can’t do it now, then when will you?
Probably like you, life is so full. We’re running a business, managing a team, taking care of two little humans and a dog, maintaining a home, and trying to find time for ourselves and each other – and everything else in between. Most days every hour seems like it’s claimed for something, and our typical day-to-day life is jam-packed. When we sat down to talk about actually pulling this trip off, we almost talked ourselves out of it. We looked at everything going on and almost decided to fly Lane to Minnesota by himself for a few days because it seemed too hard to make it all happen. But then we took a big breath, stepped back, and asked ourselves, “Well, if we don’t do it now, when will we?” And we knew the answer was that it just wouldn’t happen, at least for another six months to a year. If we were going to do it, now was the time. Then we started looking creatively at what it would actually take to make it happen, and although there was a good amount of coordinating that needed to be done, it was more doable than we initially thought.
And so, we nailed down dates, mapped our route, booked hotels, and started packing.
Sometimes the thing that seems really difficult at first isn’t as difficult as you think once you actually begin to look at what it will require to do the thing.
2. New places and new spaces incite creative thinking
It’s become a running joke at our house that if we’re feeling stagnant or stuck in any way with our business or in life, we just need to take a road trip.
We laugh about it, but it’s true. We always manage to have breakthroughs with ideas, clarity on the next steps, and “aha” moments for client projects when we get out on the road. It’s not lost on us that there’s power in changing our environment, and that simple act can get us out of ruts and grease up new ways of thinking so we can get a fresh angle on things.
Sometimes you need to physically change your scene to incite new, creative thinking and problem-solving. Don’t underestimate the power of a road trip (and it doesn’t need to be a destination 2,000 miles away). 🤙
3. Getting out of your routine stretches your flexibility muscles
There’s nothing quite like traveling with two toddlers and a dog to slow you down and stretch your flexibility muscles, but you don’t need those exact elements at play to test your ability to pivot and change plans. Road trips are just innately good at requiring this of us.
Whether it’s stopping more frequently for extra potty breaks or crawling in the back, hanging upside down, to open the cooler for snacks again, right after you just did that five minutes ago… or you take a wrong turn, get a flat tire, or can’t find a gas station nearby when you really need one – road trips demand we stay limber, adaptable and ready. (*Thankfully we did not get a flat tire on this trip, but everything else was pretty on point. 😆) You have to stay on your toes and be able to adjust to whatever comes up. At home and in our normal day-to-day routines, it’s so easy to sort of go on autopilot. But putting yourself in a totally new situation and routine, for a few days on the road, can wake you up, force you to stay flexible (or else be miserable), and remind you that you’re livin’.
Sometimes you need to break your routine on purpose. Exercising your flexibility muscles and ability to be adaptable without being completely thrown off and stressed out, especially as a business owner, is one of those skills that’s always worth stretching.
4. Abundance > Scarcity: There are so many ways of living
We drove through soooo many tiny towns on our road trip. There were bigger towns and a few big cities too, but a lot of small towns. As we passed through them, we always found ourselves wondering, “Who lives here? How’d they end up here? What do they do here for work? What do they do here for fun? Why do they live here? What keeps them here?” It’s fascinating to see the ways so many different people live, and it reminds us that there are truly so many ways of living.
We find it so helpful to see different ways of life. It reminds us there are so many different ways we could be doing things, and it simultaneously emboldens us because it confirms the ways we love the way we live. It’s a good reminder to appreciate the diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and values that people have, and it serves as a mindset gut check – to choose and believe in the abundance of opportunities and ways of doing things in life and business, rather than operate from a place of scarcity and lack.
Quick Story from Lane:
On our way home, we stayed one night up in Telluride, Colorado’s Mountain Village. It was somewhat of a ghost town up there because it was off-season until Thanksgiving weekend. I got chatting with our valet/bell service guy who helped us at check-in. I asked him if he lived nearby and how long he had been working there. He said that he had moved there from Mississippi sometime within the last year and had been working at the hotel to help establish himself in Colorado.
Get this, he said he lived two hours away from the hotel! He works till 11 p.m. and then gets home at 1 a.m. Why? Because he said he had to get out of where he grew up because he knew he would just fall into some bad ways of living, and he saw an opportunity to live for cheap in this little Colorado town. He appeared to be embracing it all with a great attitude.
Telluride was a new shot at life for him. I’m at the point in life where I couldn’t imagine driving two hours at 11 p.m. every night to drive home. Props to him. I had never been to Telluride before, but after being there the context that this guy was speaking from made a bit more sense. I did a quick Zillow/Redfin search when I was there, and no home was listed for less than $3M. So, I imagine the rent is quite high as well. Telluride is quite isolated from other towns. It’s a mountain town all by itself. There are a few small, like really small towns on the way to it from Grand Junction (from our northern route driving south), but other than that, it’s an island in the wilderness. This guy said the payoff he gets for driving two hours is an apartment for $400 rent…wow! He said he is in a driveby small town with nothing there. His life is so different than mine, and likely yours too.
Here’s the thing that hit me as I kept thinking about his story: Perspective gives insight. Envisioning this guy's life gave me the education for living that Bourdain spoke of (in the quote at the start of the blog in case you missed it). I don’t want his life, but I appreciate his audacity. I love seeing how different someone else’s life is than mine. It reminded me that our own way of life at some level feels automatic and 100% normal.
Sometimes it can feel like almost everyone else does the same damn thing as you every day, or at least something similar. But this isn’t true. Getting out of our bubbles is important and allows us to reassess what our life is like and if it’s going in the direction we actually want it to.
5. Health is everything
If you followed my Instagram stories at all during our trip, you likely saw that we got hit hard with sickness the second half of our trip. First, our oldest, West, got sick when we were still in Minnesota, then it slowly made its way to Jett (who I also discovered was teething… it was rough… #iykyk) and then me while we were driving home.
Luckily, Lane managed to stay healthy until we got home. We do a pretty good job on road trips to pack healthy snacks and food to eat on the road rather than stopping every time at fast food restaurants, but inevitably you eat a little crappier on the road, don’t drink as much water, and are exposed to germs and new environments. Well, let me tell you – we had some really rough moments on the drive home with all the sickness.
There’s nothing quite like being sick to make you really appreciate being healthy. It reminded me that health really is everything – and sometimes when we’re so busy in our day-to-day lives, it’s easy to deprioritize healthy practices (cooking at home, drinking enough water, working out, etc.) But if you don’t have your health, the ripple effects can be massive with how you function, sleep, how you’re able to spend your time, etc.
Sometimes you need a kick in the butt with sickness to give you the motivation to prioritize your health and put into action better daily practices to take care of yourself – for yourself, for your family, and even for your business.
6. Don’t underestimate the power of a good playlist
PEOPLE. When we hit rough patches on the road – the cranky, tired, low patience, totally over the car moments – let me tell you, turning on a good playlist was like magic.
Sometimes just the medicine you need is throwing on some favorite jams to do a little car singing and dancing (and you don’t need to be on a road trip to implement this one 😉).
7. It’s important to do things that fuel your true spirit
On our routes to Minnesota and back, we stopped in some places that we had been to before and also added in some new ones to the mix. Being somewhere new refueled our adventurous spirit, while at the same time, going places where we have memories was also just as great.
Telluride, CO was a new destination for us (and now we need to go back when we’re not all sick 🙃) – even still, it was so beautiful and inspiring. Meanwhile, Sedona is a place we’ve been to at least a half-dozen times before, and we just absolutely love it there. We love the fact that it’s just a seven-hour drive from our home in Oceanside, and we want to get there 100+ times before we die.
Going somewhere with memories brings the memories to mind. It reminds us how fast life goes as it often feels like “we were just there,” but then we do the math and realize three to five years have gone by. We can’t stop the speed of life, but the places we keep coming back to (Sedona, Palm Desert, Park City, etc.) connect us with our past and bring excitement to the future times we will spend there with our family.
For us traveling and exploring new places and old favorites fuels our adventurous spirit. Whether you have that same spark for adventure and travel or a spirit rooted in community or something else… invest in it.
Sometimes you have to step back and ask yourself what it is your true spirit needs, and whether it’s something new or revisiting something old, be sure to make the time for it in your life.
8. There’s no place like home
We hit up some amazing spots on our road trip including St. George, UT, Park City, UT, Frisco, CO, Telluride, CO, and Sedona, AZ. We loved spending time at all these places. We’re drawn to them, and when in each of these cool locations, we find ourselves having conversations about when we want to come back and make each of them our final destination for a few days. Yet, not one of these cities made us want to move away from Oceanside, CA. We love the West. So much so that we named our firstborn after it 😊.
For us, the West is filled with places that make us feel free, inspired, and rejuvenated. Over the years, we have dreamed into a lot of places and imagined what life would be like living there. As we kept leaning into those questions and feelings, we have ended up in Oceanside. (We wrote another blog about that – Why We Chose Oceanside, CA as Our Life and Business HQ). A trip like we just did would be just the trip to make one question why they live where they do. For us, it was the opposite. We loved the places we got to visit, but it also made us love Oceanside all the more. There is nothing like loving where you live. If you don’t, we think life is too short to not. ✨
Sometimes you gotta get out to make you appreciate what you have, and sometimes you gotta get out to realize you need to mix it up. I don’t care if this hashtag is old news, it’s still true: #YOLO! Go celebrate or find your dreamland.
Always rooting for you and your dreams!
More soon,
Mahla
CONSULTANT + PARTNER
P.S.
Subscribe to get our weekly blog with marketing, business, and finance tips dropped straight into your inbox.
