LIVING THE MOBILE LIFE
There’s something new to learn everyday, adventurer says
After ditching a conventional workaday life, 40-something professional organizer/life coach/adventurer Ramona Creel has been living and travelling full time in an Airstream trailer for seven years. We talked recently about the joys and challenges of life on the road.
What made you choose to live in a trailer?
It was one of those light-bulb moments. One day, I saw this trailer coming down the road, and I imagined being like a turtle, taking my little house with me wherever I went, not being tied to one place. I could instantly envision the lifestyle.
How hard was it to get used to life on the road?
I embraced it immediately, but every day is a learning curve.
Not a week goes by that you don’t learn something new about living in this arrangement, or maintaining your trailer or interacting with the outside world.
Your fiancé took his first trip with you last year, a three-month jaunt. How was that?
I said, “OK bud, this is trial by fire. I guess we will see where we are at the end of three months.” I told him he’d either really love it or hate it. He loved it. He enjoyed the freedom and did really well with the vagaries of the road.
How do handle keeping personal belongings — stuff?
My being an organizer helps me tremendously. My storage is solid. Everything I have is something I love and that serves a purpose. But I have more fun stuff than when I lived in a house — costumes, musical instruments. I do go through it regularly and clean out if I am bringing new things in.
What about storing clothes and kitchenware?
We own four place settings and four plates and four spoons and four knives. It’s not like we will be serving 16 people. When we do entertain, which is fairly frequently, it’s BYO everything. The problem with an Airstream is that it has a curved top, so the tops of closets are not as spatially functional as others. My storage is layered in my closet — I have a layer of, say, shoes in the back and clothes in the front. That allows me to utilize the whole depth.
What about day-to-day chores, like cooking?
I eat real food just like you do — possibly a little healthier because my fridge is small and I have next to no pantry space. So I buy more fresh food and shop more frequently. I cook all the time. Just the other day, I made a “feet loaf” for a party — it’s a meat loaf in the shape of a foot with onions for toenails and ketchup coming out of the top like blood.
Well, that’s sound pretty normal. Sort of.
We are not camping. This is real life. All the stuff you do in real life you do here. When we got back from Burning Man, we did 12 loads of laundry. We don’t do yard work, but I hate yard work.
You’re lucky to be able to live your life this way.
I am pretty lucky. But I have quite intentionally structured my life so I can have the things I want. And I have chosen not to have other things I don’t want. I don’t want children: to me they are something that would get in the way of living this life. I had a house but I got rid of the friggin’ house because it got in the way of how I wanted to live. You can have the life you truly want, but you have to decide what that is, and let go of the other stuff.