We drove into Slovenia, twice, we missed the correct exit after purchasing our traffic vignette and headed for the capital of Ljubljana. After missing our exit again (we didn’t have GPS for this country so we were on Adam’s navigation), we found a McDonald’s parking lot to power up the computer…except they didn’t have wifi. So we climbed back into the RV to rest.
I was tired and Adam and I began talking and the idea of being exhausted from travel (yes it does happen when you are not relaxing by a beach for 5 days, a 4 month adventure is much different). We talked about not really caring if we walked around Ljubljana and how we had a good 18 days left, where would we go, what would we do. Then, we still had Ireland and due to our quicker expenditure of our travel funds we were not going to be able to experience Ireland in a way we had hoped. Our zest for adventure just wasn’t the same as before.
So, we made the decision to look into coming home early. We luckly found a little café where the waitress allowed us to plug in, grab coffee and a sandwich and sit online for 5 hours. Here, we went back and forth with our travel agent trying to figure out how to affordably change our tickets and not cause us to have to pay huge fees and new ticket fees seeing as though we wanted to leave soon.
We contacted the RV company and in the end…success!
I have to tell you, calling my mom and telling her…cut your countdown by 12 days, im coming home soon…was the best.
Our waitress shared in our excitement (she worked on a cruise ship based out of Miami and was so nice). She gave us a tea pot for us to remember Slovenia by and we chatted it up.
Adam and I had a great night sleep knowing we only had 6 more days.
How do you build a life around adventure and travel?Intentionally and incrementally. Most families who live this way did not leap from conventional to adventurous overnight. They built remote work capacity, paid down debt, tested longer trips, and had increasingly honest conversations about what they actually want from their lives. The leap feels bigger from outside than from inside.
What does an adventurous family lifestyle actually look like?Different for every family. For some it is long-term travel. For others it is weekend adventures close to home. What connects them is intentionality about how time is spent and a preference for experiences over accumulation. The version that fits your family is the right one.
How do you balance adventure with stability for kids?By finding stability within the adventure rather than treating them as opposites. Routines, rituals, and family rhythms travel with you. Familiar foods, bedtime routines, and predictable family dynamics provide stability even when the location changes. Kids need consistency in relationships more than consistency in geography.
What has travel taught your family?That people are fundamentally similar across cultures in what they want for their families. That comfort zone is a smaller circle than it feels from inside. That the things worth having in life require effort and discomfort to get. And that time together doing hard interesting things is the most reliable source of family closeness.
How do you handle the pressure to live conventionally when you have chosen differently?By getting clear on why you made the choices you made and returning to that clarity when the outside noise gets loud. Most families living unconventionally describe an initial period of explaining themselves that gradually gives way to just living the life. The explaining becomes less necessary as the results become visible.
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