What the heck are we doing?
This new season of life is a crazy one – being a transient with no real home for almost a year. Now to some, this may sound like a dream and an adventure. But to me, as a major homebody, it sounded intimidating and lonely. Don’t get me wrong – of course I can see this as a huge opportunity to explore new places with my favorite person, and feel very blessed to be able to keep my job working remotely. But the reality is that I’m a type A with a strong desire to feel the comfort of home and structure. Changing my perspective on this is a daily challenge with some days being easier than others.
When Sam first started Podiatry school in 2018, we knew that this time would come. It’s a unique part of the program; to spend the end of your 3rd year and all of your 4th year doing month-long rotations at different Residency locations. For a while, we weren’t sure how this time would look for us. Would I stay in Phoenix and visit Sam on the weekends? Would I move back home to Louisville to be with family + friends, and visit Sam on the weekends? Would I go with him and find a new normal in a new home every four weeks? I was pretty adamant from the beginning that I wanted to come with him, even though many older peers told Sam and his classmates that he may not have much free time to spend with his spouse. I knew that even if he was working 80+ hour weeks, I would still hate to be apart from him for so long.
Once it was decided that I would come along, the reality began to set in for me. We had so much to figure out, and my mind constantly raced to think through all of our to-do’s before the big move. I am such a planner that I wanted to have all of the details ironed out and taken care of. I found it hard to know where to begin and how to prepare for this journey, so this section is all about the logistics of a move like this – how we prepared, what we did with our personal items, what we brought with us, how we filed our taxes, etc.
Logistical pieces of moving around every month:
1. Our apartment – we luckily had a rough idea of which month Sam would start rotations, so we considered this before renewing our lease. The way it worked out for us, we could choose a 6-month lease at our previous apartment and know for certain that we wouldn’t be stuck paying double rent. It does suck to have a 6-month lease, knowing how much more you’re paying than the full 12-month lease. But ultimately, it’s better than the double rent option!
2. Our belongings – since we wouldn’t have an apartment as a “home base” while we were travelling, we knew we had to find a place for our furniture and personal items that weren’t coming with us. Our close friends took the route of selling all their things – which is a great option if you aren’t tied to your items. Not shockingly, I am very tied to my furniture and all of our personal items – ha!
-
- We found an affordable storage unit within Phoenix. We used the recommendation guide to determine the size we needed (we chose 10×10 for our 2-bedroom apartment), and opted for the climate controlled unit. Especially with the Phoenix summer heat, we decided it was important to have our things stored in a cool space.
- We only brought one of our two cars with us on our trips, so we had to find a place to store our other one. Luckily, my cousin had recently moved to Phoenix and had an extra parking spot in their garage. Again, we got very lucky with this! I know that some storage units offer vehicle storage, so that would be my recommendation. Unless, if you don’t plan to need your other vehicle in the near future, it may be worth selling!
- We spent the several weeks leading up to our move purging out closets and our entire apartment. It felt sooo good to donate bags and bags of things! Although the task itself was a pain, I’m really glad we stuck to it and went through all areas of our apartment to get rid of unnecessary items.
3. Our home address – this is where I got stressed out. How would this work? Would we update our address every month at our various AirBnBs? That didn’t make much sense to me. Luckily, we had family who allowed us to put their home address as our official address with USPS. We opted for all digital communications as much as we could, but knew that if any important documents were sent to our address, they would be in safe hands. An option I didn’t fully explore but could be helpful is a P.O. Box. This would allow you to have an address without an actual home. If you aren’t going to be near the P.O. Box for several months, though, I’m not sure how useful that option would be.
Are you considering the nomad life? Let me know! I’d love to hear about where you plan to travel and help with any questions you may have.