For five months my partner and I have been on a perpetual vacation, living off-the-grid in our Toyota 4Runner as modern vagabonds of the American West. That’s right, we said goodbye to the house, ditched the trailer and downsized to a truck (AKA our teeny tiny house), pictured above in central Nevada.

Camped out in New Mexico

Our makeshift RV
Michael removed the backseat and outfitted this 4-wheel-drive SUV with a cozy sleeping platform, privacy window shades, and a Thule roof box we affectionately call “upstairs.”

Sunrise at the end of the road (Carrizo Badlands, California)

Boondocking
We carry with us a large cooler of fresh food, a box of dry food, and two 6-gallon water containers so we can be boondocking out in the middle of nowhere for a week or two without having to resupply. 

Inspired by Leo Babauta’s 38 lessons learned, I wanted to create my own message for anyone inspired to travel the way we do. Here are the 7 most valuable lessons I learned from 5 months of living on the road:

1. You don’t need as much stuff as you think you need.
Really. If you have very little stuff it’s easier to move, clean up, pack up, and keep important items at arm’s reach.

2. Go slow.
There’s no reason to rush. Don’t make concrete plans. Engage with where you’re at rather than worrying about where you gotta be next. If you have stumbled upon someplace pleasant, stay an extra day or two. Why not?

3. Go the opposite direction everyone else is going.
OK, so we have our biases (my sweetie and I are both rather introverted) but I think everyone could appreciate the outdoors a little more if they had it to themselves. We often pass up campgrounds and weekend crowds to make use of remote dirt roads and startlingly quiet public lands.

4. Leave a place better than you found it.
Carry out an extra bag of trash, even if it’s not yours. It’s good for the ecosystem and your karma.

5. Be nice to strangers.
Ask questions. Talk to the locals especially. They often have the inside scoop on the places you’re headed, and maybe even a good story or two. On the loneliest highway you never know when you might need their help.

6. Reward yourself with small pleasures.
When you are away from modern conveniences for so long, it’s important to treat yourself well. For us we splurge on good, healthy, fresh food at the grocery store (and a fair amount of chocolate too). We also figure in plenty of leisure time for reading books.

7. Get creative.
Get lost. Make it up as you go along. It’s not about where you’re going, but how you go.

Hmm, it’s probably about time to share where we’re at in our house renovations. The inside of our home is a work in progress. If I turned the camera in different directions it would still be a mess. But this is our dining nook where Michael and I share meals together. We could squeeze in 4 for a cozy dinner (think Paris cafe).

• Furniture - All of our furniture is re-used. The table and chairs ($300) are from Rusty Gold Vintage Design, an upcycled furniture store operating out of two shipping containers. The heirloom basket is from Michael’s mother. The rug ($20) and Wassily chair knockoff ($150) were purchased on Craigslist.
• Widows – I love how this part of our house gets nice light. We don’t think the security bars are necessary but we haven’t done much of anything on the house exterior yet. We love our PVC-free insulating cellular shades from North Solar Screen.
• Floor – The original wood flooring from 1941 required an archeological dig to get to. It has not been refinished but when we do, we’ll put moulding on.

Ideas for how to fancify the front door? Or anything else? Look at the before photo for some perspective. Yikes!

While it was raining this weekend in San Diego I was being crafty. This is my first official solo foray into canning. After only two tries, this tropical fruit goo turned into actual jelly. Tasty too!

I neglected to share with you the peaches and avocados that appeared in our backyard several months ago (we ate them instead)… So here is what’s been producing in the front yard.

And the tiny citrus tree is blooming and smelling beautifully. (Photos taken by me this morning, after the rains.)

Small measures marks the success of our house project these days. This weekend we installed a food pantry in our tiny 17 inch wide kitchen closet. Michael and I wanted something easy and adjustable so we installed Elfa wire ventilated shelving from the Container Store. (I love/hate that place.)

That pantry door could sport a nice DIY spice rack, don’t you think?

Thank you to all of my curious readers who have been politely nagging me about the blog and wondering what the heck I’ve been doing lately. I can sum it up like this: vacation, wishing I was still on vacation, getting ready for the next vacation. Not to worry, more posts soonish.

After many months of chugging away at our tiny house project, I’m pleased to announce that we have a functioning closet.

I dusted off this old blog post, and while our situation has changed (different house, smaller closet) the advice is still relevant.

We’re rediscovering old clothes we had packed away and forgotten about and getting rid of what we didn’t miss. Hint: if you’re living in a tight space, it is good to re-assess your wardrobe regularly so it’s not such a big project all at once.

If you recall, we are a minimalist couple, and now we are sharing an even smaller closet than we were before… one of those detested deep-and-narrow closets. With a little design and a lot of elbow grease, this closet somehow manages to hold our regular clothes, our work clothes, and our outdoor travel clothes.

Here’s how we did it:

We doubled the usable space by installing 2 closet rods instead of one. We had to screw in one at the very top in order to fit a second one beneath it and still have room for a set of drawers (file cabinets from an office supply store). Michael (my self-taught handyman electrician and sweetiepie) installed a cheapo light fixture and viola! Hooks will be installed on the walls for additional sundry items, but you get the gist. We spent about $120 on putting in the fixtures.

Glad to check that off the list. Oh, and did you see our freshly painted bedroom walls? (Here’s the before pic.) Next we’ll be painting and re-installing doors.

Ahhh. Breathing room. It may not seem like much but it feels really good to get rid of stuff. While Michael has been sanding and patching and plastering, I sold a couch, a set of 4 chairs and a coffee table bench… furniture that came from Craigslist over two years ago and returned to Craigslist (for about what we originally paid).

Now. On to painting already.

This week’s CSA box contained a cornucopia of locally grown organic produce (rainbow chard, kale, lettuce, beets, carrots, snap peas, zucchini, strawberries, cherries, oranges, grapefruit, and an avocado) and has got me thinking about our home, our yard, and the possibilities for a more self-sufficient future. And, naturally, I made a list:

It has been called to my attention that “homesteading” is a term that harks back to imperialism, colonialism and current day gentrification. Check this post for details. Whatever you want to call it, I’m excited to get my hands dirty.

So… it’s a mess. A blessing: we’ve been living elsewhere for a couple of weeks while we continue work on the house. Just a little housesitting/petsitting gig with our favorite pup.

It still feels like we’re camping in this house, but we are making progress:

• Paint colors (flavors?): Spiced pumpkin in the kitchen and endive in the bedroom.
• Michael is stripping the paint off the doors. The old school way.
• Went to Architectural Salvage of San Diego. Found 6 cabinet hinges ($2 each) — the exact hinges — to replace the broken ones.
• Homeowners insurance… we were being overcharged. (They hadn’t calculated our small size.)
• Wiring investigation consisted of Michael crawling around the attic. Looks pretty good, can be easily updated.
• Purchased floor adhesive remover. More on that story next week.
• Celebrated May Day with a lovely day hike.

Previous updates on the house project.

The flickr photos are here. And here’s what we did on week one.