Road Trip 2022: The Power of Community

I have nev­er been more grate­ful to have a pow­er­ful com­mu­ni­ty behind me than when things go sideways. 

I wrote pre­vi­ous­ly that I was very hon­ored and excit­ed to get to speak at this year’s Chau­tauqua in Ecuador. I was hon­ored and excit­ed right up until it got can­celled rough­ly 36 hours before I was going to leave for the event. The indige­nous peo­ples of Ecuador felt the gov­ern­ment was treat­ing them poor­ly and not lis­ten­ing to their side of things, so they agreed the only way they could be heard was to make their pres­ence felt and block all the major roads until the gov­ern­ment agreed to talk to them. Quite jus­ti­fi­ably so, in my opin­ion. The rea­son­ing behind the event get­ting can­celled was beyond our con­trol, so there was­n’t much use in get­ting mad or upset about the sud­den change in plans. 

Nonethe­less, that left me with two weeks vaca­tion from work and my mom on the way down to stay at my place to take care of the cat for me while I was away. The Gala­pa­gos part of the trip was­n’t can­celled, but it did­n’t make sense for me to take one week off and then hop­scotch my way across North and South Amer­i­ca on 5 dif­fer­ent flights for a week before I had to do it all over again and come home. So… what to do on lit­tle notice and even less money? 

It had been a long time since I’d seen my friend Stephen (the founder of the awe­some Camp FI events) so I thought I’d go see him, hang out for a few days, and check out the neigh­bor­hood his cohous­ing project is work­ing on acquir­ing in case I want to move there in the future when it gets going.  My best friend from col­lege was super excit­ed I’d be so close to her, but I could­n’t see her if I flew and her sched­ule did­n’t line up with Stephen’s. But then I real­ized not only could I see her if I drove, but I could see oth­er friends along the way and BOOM! The Great Amer­i­can Road Trip of 2022 was born. 

A few Insta­gram mes­sages, text mes­sages, and phone calls lat­er, my trip was all set. I spent 14 days on the road dri­ving about 3,700 miles to see friends all over the East Coast. I would not have been able to make this hap­pen with­out the con­nec­tions and the net­work I’ve formed over the years of being in the FI com­mu­ni­ty. I’m grate­ful to know so many peo­ple who were flex­i­ble, will­ing and want­i­ng to see me last minute when my orig­i­nal plans did­n’t work out. 

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Like­wise, to those I know in this com­mu­ni­ty, if you ever pass through St Louis on a dri­ve of your own, know that you are more than wel­come to crash with me and Bartholomew. This is a very rec­i­p­ro­cal kin­da thing lest any­one think I take advan­tage of the peo­ple I know and not give back. I’m excit­ed to see friends on their road trips for two dif­fer­ent days in July and a third vis­it in August. I’m right down­town in St Louis with easy inter­state access and a spare park­ing spot in my park­ing garage! 🙂 

The Trip

I stayed one night at every stop with one excep­tion. That meant a lot of dri­ving, but I have a new-to-me car that is super fun to dri­ve, and I find dri­ving very med­i­ta­tive so I did­n’t real­ly mind. (As long as I was mov­ing and not stuck in a traf­fic jam that added an hour onto my dri­ve to go ten miles like hap­pened the last day in Indiana.)

In order, I went to: 

Nashville, TN
Atlanta, GA
Warn­er Robins, GA
Greenville, SC
Durham, NC
Wash­ing­ton, DC
NYC, NY
Port­land, ME
Hart­ford, CT
Buf­fa­lo, NY
Cleve­land, OH
Koko­mo, IN (Not the Beach Boys Kokomo!)

Some of the peo­ple I vis­it­ed I know through my own life expe­ri­ences, like for­mer cowork­ers or fam­i­ly. Most peo­ple I vis­it­ed were friends through this online PF com­mu­ni­ty, so I’d nev­er been to their hous­es before. (And most have nev­er been to my place, either.) I found it was real­ly great to be able to sit down with my friends and have real­ly great, most­ly unin­ter­rupt­ed con­ver­sa­tions. We usu­al­ly meet up at events where there are far too many awe­some peo­ple to talk to in far too lit­tle time, so con­ver­sa­tions are usu­al­ly spo­radic and inter­rupt­ed as oth­er peo­ple arrive or one of us leaves for some break­out talk. I real­ly enjoyed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have deep con­ver­sa­tions with every­one. Plus, this was also their com­fort zone, so I feel like I got to know my friends bet­ter. Plus, any­time you see your friends in PJ’s before cof­fee is get­ting to see the real them. I got to meet spous­es, see how they dec­o­rat­ed their liv­ing spaces, meet kids and pets and see a snip­pet of every day life for friends. Since most of my stops were to peo­ple in the FI com­mu­ni­ty, there was a lot more flex­i­bil­i­ty in avail­abil­i­ty than nor­mal which meant we had a chance to go out and do an activ­i­ty or explore their local community. 

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I stayed with some­one I knew at every stop except for one. I did­n’t know any­one in upstate NY at the last minute, so I booked a camp­ing site on Hip­camp and had a great time relax­ing in nature in my tent for an evening. See­ing friends is super amaz­ing and ener­giz­ing, but it’s also real­ly nice to just sit in an Adiron­dack chair in front of a camp­fire as well. 

Thoughts and Highlights of the Trip

At each stop, I did some­thing with a friend that was reflec­tive of me and my rela­tion­ship to that per­son. I went to a bar­cade, had deli­cious gourmet food from tal­ent­ed friends, walked around more than a few down­town areas, went bowl­ing, went to a minor league base­ball game (where I hap­pened to run into some­one I’d known since I was 7 years old!), toured a house for sale, went to a farmer’s mar­ket, took a long stroll down the Hud­son Riv­er, went mini-golf­ing, played video games, went to Top Golf and just gen­er­al­ly enjoyed myself for two weeks. 

Food con­sumed cov­ered local food like Nashville Hot Chick­en, Thai, Viet­namese, Ethiopi­an, Mex­i­can and the usu­al Amer­i­can fare like burg­ers. I was also able to vis­it tasty gluten-free restau­rants and enjoy treats friends made for me like gf peach cob­bler, gf blue­ber­ry muffins and gf clemen­tine cup­cakes. Sur­pris­ing­ly, I did­n’t gain any weight because I was also doing active things at most places. (I even set a per­son­al step record in NYC at 22k steps!)

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Some mem­o­rable quotes from friends includ­ed gems such as “Car don’t care” and “Life is Uncer­tain — Eat Dessert First”. I had a sys­tem set up for my stuff in the car. I prob­a­bly brought more than I need­ed, but as my friend said, the car don’t care what you put in it. I had a big suit­case in the back of the car with all my clothes in it. At each stop, I would get out what I need­ed for the night and the next day and put it in my much small­er overnight bag. I had a cool­er in the back­seat that had an insu­lat­ed bag in it where I kept things like the afore­men­tioned tasty treats peo­ple made me and the food I brought along to eat on the road. I did­n’t stop at one fast food restau­rant while on the road. Instead, I would pull over for gas or a restroom break and get out food from the cool­er like fruit, cheese, meat, and some sort of chip or snack mix. Much cheap­er, much bet­ter for you, and way faster than idling in a fast food dri­ve thru. At each stop I’d bring in my overnight bag, my food bag, and my book­bag. This made it way eas­i­er to keep track of my stuff and as far as I know, I did­n’t leave any­thing behind (which is some­thing I was noto­ri­ous for doing in the past). A lit­tle space in the fridge and freez­er for my food stuffs to stay cold was also helpful. 

Is This a Money Blog or Not!?

Obvi­ous­ly I kept track of the mon­ey spent while on the trip. I rea­soned if I was will­ing to spend $1k on a plane tick­et to some­where, I could afford a few tanks of gas and oth­er mis­cel­la­neous expens­es to see friends. Expens­es were:

Gas: $420
Food: $393
Misc: $244
Total: $1,058

I end­ed up spend­ing more than I thought I would, but just a shade over $1k for 14 days away from home is real­ly, real­ly good. It aver­aged out to about $75 a day. The aver­age price of a gal­lon on the trip was rough­ly $4.65. The low­est I paid for gas was $4.09 in Macon, GA and the high­est was $4.89 in upstate NY. I did see gas for $3.99, but I also saw gas at $5.40. Be sure to use apps like Gas­Bud­dy and iEx­it to make sure you can locate where the cheap­er gas sta­tions are. Also keep an eye on state bor­ders. Tax­es vary wild­ly from state to state. It was worth it to push my tank to E to get gas for $4.33 in Pad­u­c­ah, KY ver­sus pay­ing $5.40 in Illi­nois. At each stop, I attempt­ed to pay for our activ­i­ties or meals. Some­times I was able to, some­times I was­n’t. But I def­i­nite­ly did­n’t want to come off as a free­loader and want­ed to thank my friends for let­ting me crash in their spare room, on the couch in the liv­ing room, or in the basement. 

Recap

All in all, I had a won­der­ful time vis­it­ing friends and see­ing the vary­ing beau­ti­ful land­scapes of the East Coast. Since I’m from the Mid­west, I tend to get excit­ed when I see any­thing even remote­ly resem­bling a moun­tain. I drove through at least 4 sep­a­rate moun­tain ranges so that was super excit­ing. Less excit­ing for me was dri­ving through the Hol­land Tun­nel into Man­hat­tan, but I survived! 

I wish I had been able to give my talk about The Pow­er of Flex­i­bil­i­ty and Adapt­abil­i­ty on the Path to Finan­cial Inde­pen­dence, but hon­est­ly I feel like we all lived it by hav­ing the entire trip can­celled. Iron­ic, eh? For­tu­nate­ly, I had no plans for Labor Day this year, so I will instead be giv­ing my talk at Camp FI: Mid­west in Min­neso­ta! Come hang out with me and dozens of oth­er cool peo­ple at a camp in Min­neso­ta if you’re available! 

As always, thanks for read­ing! Have you tak­en any cool trips this year? Sound off in the com­ments below!

Love,
Gwen