Hello! Today, I am publishing Part 2 to my post from yesterday Unplanned Road Trip Planning. As a recap, we left our house on Wednesday and we are not sure when we will be going back.
This will probably be a 10 to 14 day road trip. This is nothing crazy, but it is more than what we usually do. Some of you who are truly location independent are probably laughing at me. I am such a homebody though!
I do miss my bed, but we’re having a lot of fun on this road trip. Below is an update/recap of different parts of our trip.
How’s it like working on the road and being location independent?
Okay, okay, I know it’s only been since Wednesday that we haven’t been home. However, it feels like it’s been forever! Luckily we have been at a hotel since Saturday at 6 a.m., but on Monday we left the hotel life and we plan on camping the next few days.
I’m not going to lie, I still have to work, so the first thing I did was to see if there was a Starbucks near our first camping location. And WOOHOOO because there is one just a few miles away from our camping spot.
I have done most of my work ahead of time though (I worked like crazy last week). So, if anything does come up, it will just be extra work.
Freelancing and being on the road is a little difficult though. It’s hard to stay on task because Colorado is so beautiful. I have been buckling down at night time though and in the early mornings to get work done.
Usually when I am at home, I am online pretty much all day long whenever I am awake, so only being able to be online when I can find internet is something new…
Where are we staying?
Before last week, I never camped before. We started our trip by driving out to Wes’s family’s property (tons of acres, there’s a really pretty creek, and more) and camping out there for two nights.
We left on Friday evening and arrived in Denver around 6 a.m.
From 2 a.m. to around 6 a.m., I spent my time frantically calling hotels within a two hour radius of Denver, and literally every single hotel and motel was booked besides ONE. We even stopped by some extremely sketchy motels (I’m talking $20 a night run-down motels on the side of the road), and even those were booked. We were just so tired and didn’t think it would have been that hard to find a place to sleep.
We finally found a hotel (Crowne Plaza). They even let us check in early without paying a fee, and didn’t make us pay any extra fees for our dog as well. They said we were lucky because it was the only open room they had. Apparently there were a lot of plane delays/cancellations the day that we got there, so that was why everything in the area was completely booked.
Then, on Sunday we left Crowne Plaza and we went to a La Quinta in Silverthorne, Colorado.
For most of the rest of the trip, we plan on camping at campgrounds. I have never done this before, so this will be interesting! We raided REI the other day and bought every single thing that we need. Also, some people bought items from REI from our wedding registry, so that really helped out as well.
We have been thinking more and more about possibly renting an RV, buying a pop-up camper or doing something else along those lines for our next trip. There are still a lot of other areas that we want to visit in the United States, and having a camper or RV would make things 1,000 times easier. Anyone have any tips on this? Or is this a dumb idea?
What about driving in a Jeep Wrangler?
A Jeep Wrangler is not usually everyone’s top pick for a car when going on a road trip. There are two main reasons for this: gas mileage and it’s a rough drive.
The gas mileage is HORRIBLE! Our Wrangler gets between 15 to 19 miles per gallon. Not exactly the most eco-friendly.
Driving in a Wrangler can also be rough, especially when over a long distance. It’s LOUD, and it’s not very big. We had to take out the back seat and have made a science out of perfectly stacking our bags and camping gear so that our dogs can have as much space as possible. There’s still a lot of room back there for them – they can both sprawl out and sleep.
Even with the negatives, it is nice driving with the wrangler. If we didn’t have the dogs with us, then there would be plenty of room. Also, we like to drive on off-road trails and the Wrangler is perfect for that.
How are our dogs doing?
Our dogs are doing really well. This isn’t their first road trip though. We took them with us to our Gulf Shores (also around 12 hours from our home) trip last year, and they also accompany us whenever we drive to hike or walk on trails near our home.
Whenever we hop in the car, they almost always immediately go to sleep, which is very nice because that must mean that they are comfortable in the car!
We haven’t left them alone at all, and we don’t plan on doing that as well. They are going to be with us the WHOLE time, because we are crazy dog people and we love them.
We have a folding water bowl for them, so we can give them water whenever they need it. We also make sure to make plenty of stops so that they can stretch their legs and use the bathroom.
Also, trying to find a pet friendly hotel hasn’t been too bad. Super nice hotels, of course, won’t let us in, but we’ve not having any problem with other hotels. Our bigger dog isn’t allowed at some because of her weight (many have weight limits of 30 or 50 pounds), but we still were able to find hotels to call home for a few nights.
Do you want to be location independent one day? Do you like to camp?
Do you think being an online freelancer and camping is crazy? Haha!
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