You can read about Jordan's awesome DIY tips on Do It Yourself RV, but I thought I would continue her story with why she hit the road full time and both the positive aspects and challenges of living in such a small space.
Can you tell me why you became interested in living full-time out of a teardrop trailer?
For quite a few years I knew my life was out of balance. I started to really look back at the times in my life when I felt engaged and balanced and at the things that I did that brought me happiness and fulfillment. I found the times in my life that I lived simply without a lot of stuff to distract me were the times I did feel and have those things.
Then, three years ago, there I was, with more stuff than I had ever had before – a house and garage full of things I didn’t even remember I had. I felt suffocated and trapped under it all. I had a job that I wanted out of, but couldn’t find anything else that I could support myself on. Little did I know that my life was all about to change in a big way. “Things fall apart so that other things can fall together.” is a quote I have on my blog that pretty much sums up what happens in life so often. I ended up losing my job which lead to losing my house; but if none of that had happened, I may not have had the clarity to take back my life and make it what I wanted it to be, not what I thought it should be.
What are your favorite things about your teardropping life?
I love living simply. I am an Environmental Educator so living simply is important to me as well as living with little impact on the environment around me. I love challenging my brain to come up with unique solutions to problems —“MacGyvering” a solution to a problem using or repurposing what I already have (or can obtain for free or just a couple of dollars).
I love that I can feed my soul everyday by just stepping out of my little trailer and watch the sun rise, or converse with the hummingbirds that come to my little feeder, or watch as the sun’s light changes the view as it moves across the sky throughout the day. Getting to enjoy the small treasures nature gives us every day that we so often take for granted, is such an amazing gift. I love traveling and discovering new places. Since I’ve only just started my full-time road warrior life, I haven’t gotten to discover too many new places yet, but I have so many on my list and I know I will also find even more by happy accident.
Meeting other people who are full-timing or part-timing has been great too. They all have amazing stories to share, knowledge to impart and are such an inspiration. I love meeting people who have figured out what I consider the secret of life – living your life the way YOU want to live it. I wish more people would allow themselves that gift.
What are the challenges?
El Nino! That kid has wreaked so much havoc on my maiden voyage! I was prepared for some colder days and nights but not for the entire three months I’ve been out in the Southwest. A lack of heat, plus an outdoor kitchen and outdoor bathroom make life very challenging, especially when the sun goes down by 5:30 along with a plummet in temperature. Bad weather is a challenge with a teardrop period, but when you live in a teardrop, extended cold, bad weather is really tough to deal with. But now that I have made it through a really uncomfortable winter, I know I can do it and have ideas on how to make it easier to deal with in the future – though I hope I don’t have another winter like this one!
The challenge of living in such a small space can get frustrating. I am constantly moving things to get to something else or to use a space to work, and there never seems to be enough places to put things I am trying to move. This isn’t just true for life in a teardrop, I know people in bigger RV’s and even sticks and bricks houses that have to do the same thing, but in a teardrop there are far fewer options of where to temporarily put things. Of course it couldn’t possibly be because I have too much stuff! No, it couldn’t be that...
Sometimes I wish I had a self-contained RV instead of a trailer so all my stuff was together. It does get annoying sometimes to have half my stuff in the trailer and half in the car, and of course the half I need is never where I happen to be at the time, especially when it’s raining. I hope this will get less annoying as I become more organized and develop better daily routines.
Bed sheets. They are too long for my shortened bed and I get tangled in them sometimes when trying to get out of bed. Never good when you have to get up at 4:00 in the morning.
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