I've been hesitant to write about this for many reasons. Primarily because our blog, up to now, has been more focused on the design of the bus and what's in it. We'd always hoped to write about our travels as well but honestly, it's hard to have the discipline to blog or vlog while you're traveling. I struggle to do it because I want to enjoy the moment and I'm not naturally a big picture taker. Case in point, we have virtually no photos from our honeymoon.
All that said, we can't go back in time and it doesn't feel right to write about the best things to do in Florida right now. Call me conservative but I feel icky promoting travel during a global pandemic.
What a time to be alive eh?
We began our travels right around New Years Eve and we had some amazing adventures for about 3.5 months traveling through the US. We had grand plans of taking our bus through Mexico and Central America as well. One of my big dreams is to drive all the way to the southernmost tip of South America and back. Yes, I know that involves shipping the vehicle at some point, as you can't drive through the Darien Gap safely.
Our plans were cut short in March, like most people. That was when things started to really heat up around Covid. Before that we had heard of the Corona virus but it wasn't something we needed to worry about. It all changed so quickly. Within a week the virus was close to home and toilet paper was in short supply.
We were in New Orleans - one of my most favourite cities in America. We had planned on staying in New Orleans for a month or so. It was where we planned to get working remotely and do some volunteer work. We had barely been there a week when it became pretty clear that we had to make a decision about coming home.
Anyone who knows me will know that getting a year off to travel was no small feat. It took me just about 4 months to get approval and to transition my work to various people in my organization. Not to mention, it took us about the same amount of time to buy, build, insure and license the bus. We worked really hard to be able to make this dream a reality and to be completely honest, cutting it short was hard. We very grudgingly decided to come back to Canada. We drove for 10 hours a day for 3 days straight to get back quickly. We had zero issues at the border and we quarantined in Sudbury at our family's cottage for 14+ days.
Shortly after we were back, it became clear that this was not a short term pause to the trip we had been dreaming about. We needed to figure out what the rest of this year was going to bring for us and we had a lot of questions to answer...
Where would we live?
What would going back to work look like for each of us?
Could we still travel, even just in Canada?
Should we winterize the bus?
For answers about what came next, stay tuned for our next blog post.