Everyone I have talked to has told me “You have to do what’s best for you”, but that didn’t make the decision to quit my job and start living in my car much easier.  The genesis of this idea dates back to early 2023. I was driving home and thought, “I wish I could just keep driving until I got to Maine.” The problem was that I had to work the next day, and the next day, and the next. Later that week I shared my daydreaming with a co-worker. She also wished she could make a journey like that and jokingly decided that maybe we both needed therapy. In May, I threw the idea to my family to gauge their reaction. I presented it as a 6-month trip that culminated in Alaska. Alaska became the hypothetical destination inspired in part by Chris Mccandles but also because I had always thought Denali was a cool name for a mountain. My mom laughed it off, and the general consensus was that this was a quarter life crisis that I would need to maze myself through, but not one that would be solved by quitting my job. I decided to sign up for online career coaching expecting the person on the other end to talk some sense into me and squash the travel bug that was growing inside. Her advice was the opposite. She convinced me this was something I would need to do to make my future-self avoid regret. I agreed. If I stayed in my current job for five more years until I was married, had a mortgage, and bought a dog, then this dream would be just another forgotten thought. Really, it was and is now or never. 

When I discovered the back seats in my car folded down, this whole trip began to look a lot more financially feasible. The past year I have assumed everyone would tell me that this seems dangerous and warn me against putting the gap on my resume, but really people’s main concern is how the heck I am going to be able to sleep in my Honda Civic – a reasonable concern for someone who is 6’7 (6’6 ¾ for auditing purposes). The viability of car camping still exists somewhat in the unknown. To date, I have only slept in my car to test this out once. It’s a snug fit. I did it in 20-degree temperatures, which should be lower than anything I encounter. Yet I don’t think this trip has the same integrity if I stay in a Four Seasons. Roughing it in my third-hand 2008 Honda Civic with 210,000 miles and its body of bumps and scrapes is bound to lead to more interesting adventures.

A line I keep feeding to myself and friends while working through this is “I want to have a story I can tell my children and grandchildren on my death bed.” You’d think with the way I am building up and dramatizing this trip that I would be selling all of my possessions and moving to Tibet to find spiritual enlightenment. Instead, I quit an entry level job, rented a U-Haul, and moved all of my possessions into my parent’s basement. I am realistically looking at four to six months of what critics will call unemployment. I call it a loosely calculated adventure. I have savings, I have a spreadsheet, and I have the latest AAA Roadside assistance membership card. I am not walking a tight rope with no safety net, and yet this still feels like an adventure that many people long for but put off until retirement. I am sure I could stay in my corporate life and still have tales to tell my grandkids in 50 years. But I have also seen a co-worker die months before retirement. I have seen a friend spend the prime of his life fighting off brain cancer. I am going to spend my money and my youth on sore feet, a stuffy car, sun burn, flat tires, and too much Red Bull while I still have something to trade.