11 Steps we Took to Follow a Dream and Travel (And so Can You).
This post is for those who have jobs, mortgages and debt. This post is for those who do not have a boat. This post is for those, whose kids talk back. We share our steps to ditching suburbia – to follow your dream and travel!
We have a few posts devoted to spending and traveling, make sure you take a look:
Spending and Traveling – No Texting and Tacking!
We did it with no super-powers, plenty of debt and absolutely no extra time for dreaming. We were a traditional suburbia family. We sent our kids to public schools, and I drove them to a myriad of activities every day. I had never homeschooled before.
In fact, whenever my kids talked back, I threatened them with homeschooling!
Then, one day, during a Florida vacation, after a brief fishing trip, my husband said something super crazy,
“Let’s buy a boat and sail the world!”
I blamed it on too much sun and pretended I had not heard a thing.
However, the idea stuck, first in his head, and a bit later in mine as well. The idea turned into a dream, and we followed the dream.
Below are the steps we took to follow a dream, ditch suburbia and sail away. They can be your steps too, so I am keeping them imperative, rather than declarative.
Step 1 – Have a Dream!
Do you really have a dream?
A vague thought, infrequently visited with a glass of wine (may we recommend a few reds?), or during the routine frustration of rush hour… familiar?
This is not a dream, not at all. It is a wish, a pleasant thought. To follow a dream, you must first have a dream, a clearly defined one!
We wanted to change something, to interrupt the routine of living at work, rushing to activities and being a family on the weekends. That is, if the suburbia home did not require us to live at the home-improvement store, on the weekends.
I knew something had to change, I wanted to change something, but I wasn’t quite sure what, nor how.
The captain, on the other hand, spelled it out fairly confidently – we were going to buy a boat and sail away…
I needed a dream – there was one!
Step 2 – Agree on the dream!
Living on a sailboat had never crossed my mind. I spent my childhood in the mountains of Bulgaria and I had no idea how to sail. It was a crazy dream, the kind that we were not discussing, period!
It took me a while (one and a half years to be exact), but I chose to give my husband’s dream a chance, and things finally clicked into place, for me too.
It was not always easy, but it worked out in the end. Curious how I made it work – I have an entire post on it – How to Live on a Sailboat, if Sailing is Not Your Thing.
Single-sided dreams have torn families apart. Some dreams are better than others. Usually, one person is a bit more strong headed than the other. So be it. This is not a competition.
You must follow this step, if there is more than one adult in the family. You must both agree on following the same dream.
At the same time, you need not agree on the reasons – I was fed up with suburbia and wanted to give homeschooling a chance. I also loved traveling and changes. An RV life would have been just fine for me, but the captain was really drawn towards the big blue…
Step 3 – Focus on the positive research.
Become that choir they preach to!
The internet is an enchanted forest. You enter with a very clear idea of what to look for, but soon enough you become lost and out of time and direction! A terrible feeling of complete wastefulness.
I had plenty of my own doubts and fears about abandoning our organized lives and diving into adventures, so I cherry-picked the success stories. I read inspiring blogs, articles and books about the benefits and joys of living on a sailboat, with kids.
I did read about mistakes to avoid (we still made plenty), in order to take away some of my fears, but I never saw Adrift, nor rewatched Titanic – what’s the point! There was nothing to learn from them.
There will be plenty of friends and family members to point out just how crazy and dangerous your plans are, prepare your success stories and data for them!
There are currently (as of June 2022) over 6000 members in a Facebook group called Kids4Sail – all families with children, who sail, or are preparing to sail, or used to sail and cruise. They became our new community and resource for advice and encouragement.
Once you have a dream, which you agree upon, collect some inspiration. Read about others, who were able to follow your dream – ditch suburbia and sail away.
Wondering where to find them?
Sailing Totem has a long list of sailing blogs and vlogs to read!
Step 4 – Invest in your dream – time and money!
Ditching suburbia to sail and travel the world does require some commitment.
One can only destroy that, which has been created. To destroy a dream, you just stop dreaming, to destroy a plan, you stop planning. Once you invest a bit more than thoughts and hopes, it becomes harder to abandon the dream.
So, we purchased a boat. It would take a bit of an effort to go back on that one!
We did not have “dream cash” sitting around, so on our way to abandoning the world of debt, we did the exact opposite – added yet another loan! We broke our own rules of sober financial planning.
Do you have to put yourself in that situation? Not necessarily. However, you must make a first step. It might be clearing your house to rent or sell, renting a storage unit, signing up for a sailing class.
Joe had learned how to sail on his grandparents’ boat, so he taught me and we both kept learning as we spent more time aboard.
A less scary and quite fun step would be to attend а boat show. An even better event would be one of the sailing families’ get-togethers in Annapolis, MD – they happen twice per year and are amazing! There are at least 20-30 kids of various ages present.
Search for the latest news and announcements on the Kids4Sail Facebook Group, via the link above, in Step 3.
Step 5 – Keep the dream, but scrap expectations.
What if that dream was never meant to be? It is a possibility. Consider it.
As we lived around three hours away from the Chesapeake Bay, we decided to buy a boat and keep it as a weekend getaway, allowing us to become a bit more comfortable sailing. This helped ensure our dream would have a better chance of succeeding.
What we did may not be an option in your case. We have met plenty of families who had a great time aboard without owning a boat before. They followed their dream with the help of sailing lessons, chartering boats, coaching or hiring a captain.
Regardless of our desire to try and live on a boat, we were ready to abandon everything, if life events required it. Accepting such scenario eased our anxiety over a possible failure and dream abandonment.
In our family, such a mindset is better known as “Thy Will be done.” It helps to replace pride with gratitude.
Step 6 – Go for it – ditch suburbia and follow your dream to travel!
Did we pick the right time? Define “right”!
You have a dream; you have agreed on it; you have gathered inspiration; you have invested time and money into it. Time to start moving! Time to take that well-researched leap of faith!
Our children loved their schools! I had just completed a successful year into my new career as a Registered Nurse. We had a beautiful large home on a mountain, kept honeybees, cats, a dog and a hedgehog! The kids were strong swimmers on the county swim team…
It was the wrong time to leave, but guess what? It is always be the wrong time to leave.
We had surrounded ourselves with the comforts of life. Mostly, however, what we did was plant ourselves into a tiny place in space, digging deeper and deeper, all for the hope of gaining more time – time for our family, time for our kids, time for personal matters.
Even faith was occupying a designated Sunday spot with no extra time to devote to services or ministries. Talk about seeds in the thorns!
We picked a November, stuffed the boat with our personal belongings and left.
Step 7 – Keep going!
Obstacles may appear, on your way to following your dream. Some details may need to change. Plans may need to be adjusted. Various events might cause frustrating delays.
Embrace the changes, have patience and keep going.
Sailing off into the sunset was what my dream boat-life looked like. That was not even close to how our actual adventure began.
It was below freezing at night; everyone was seasick all the time and we suddenly realized just how important the weather was! Beautiful places to visit were skipped due to weather and work schedules.
Tears were shed by the majority of the crew. So why didn’t we give up? Because we realized where the pain was coming from – from removing comfort and conveniences.
Changes are scary! Changes will push you out of your comfort zone.
Changes are also a powerful generator of curiosity!
That love for adventures and exploration naturally arrived faster for the kids, than for me. A few months into our sailing life, we met other sailing families with children; relaxed the schooling a bit and by January, in sunny Miami, everyone was finally on board with our new boat-life!
Step 8 – Regrets and doubts – only in the morning!
The sun has a way of shining on the water, enhancing the brain’s production of additional amounts of endorphins in the early morning hours.
I made that up.
However, pondering negative scenarios at night does not end well, trust me. So, at night, what works best against invasive negativity, is sleep.
Try to avoid frequent second-guessing. That was earlier in the steps to ditch suburbia and sail. You are past that stage, time to look forward and move on!
Step 9 – Talks about the future – at right time.
The dream to ditch suburbia and travel is not an event. More than many other dreams, it is a journey. Routes must be decided upon; plans will change as soon as you have made them. New friends may determine your new destination.
Inevitably, with such a dynamic dream on hand, disagreements will arise. It is important to address them carefully. You will have your family to lean on, and out there with no Wi-Fi, nor cell service, your family feels even closer!
Many arguments can be prevented altogether, if you select a better time for discussions.
If we had decided to argue during a cold day on the water, in the middle of Math and I-hate-homeschool time, I would be the first to quit and bring us all back to land life.
The same is true for the great highs – it would not be fair to yell, “Look, guys, dolphins!!! Don’t you love living on a boat?”
Step 10 – Keep the dream open-ended
What will you do afterwards? What will you do once you have achieved your dream? This is the equivalent of “Where do you see yourself in five years?”, at a job interview. Let me answer this one for you – you have no idea.
We have met so many families on the water, some with more clearly defined plans, than others. The majority started off in a certain way, but plans changed along the way. It is usually job commitments that mark the date on the calendar with a pen.
You might find it easier to enjoy your new life, if you let go of stringent schedules. Figure out how to let go of the calendar, because it rarely works on the water. As a fairly controlling individual, learning to relax made all the difference, for me.
Allow your dream to last as long as it lasts. Remain grateful in the meantime.
Step 11 – Every voice counts (most of the time)
Adventures on the water must be embraced by everyone in the family. Yet, the decision to ditch suburbia to sail and travel the world was a parental decision. We carried the full responsibility for it.
When we left, our children were 8, 10 and 12 years old.
After a year of sailing, meeting other boat-kids, watching dolphins play by, catching fish, swimming over the continental slope and adjusting to small spaces for work and studying, we all sat down and decided how we wanted to proceed.
The next step in our dream was a family decision, and every voice counted.
Carrying four loans, and sailing was not financially viable. Joe and I decided to eliminate our debt. The children had embraced the adventure and wanted to continue, but they had their own conditions – a bigger boat!
Goodness, a fifth loan?
Well, a year later, after a few good financial decisions, patience and prayers, we were able to eliminate our debt completely and find a bigger boat to buy! The adventures continued!
We ditched suburbia to sail away!
Other posts related to ditching, defeating and selling stuff!
How we Eliminated All Debt to Travel the World! (8 Steps and a Free Infographic)
4 Comments