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When people learn that we live life on the road, we usually get two reactions:

1. Someone is extremely excited and jealous of what we do

-or-

2. Someone is extremely concerned for our safety

With that being said, we thought we would write a post for all the momma bears in our lives to hopefully help them get a little more sleep at night and talk about some of the ways we keep ourselves safe while on the road!

First, let me start by saying that nomadic life is no more dangerous than any other lifestyle. Regardless of where you go or what you do, there are inherent risks – it doesn’t matter if you live in the nicest subdivision in the country, in a bubble, or in a van. Life can be dangerous and there is no way around that.

That being said, there are always things you can do to better ensure your safety; and believe me, we take our safety VERY seriously.  Here are our 5 things we do to make sure we are safe while on the road. **

1. ALWAYS Let Someone Know Where you are and Where you are Going.

When living on the road, you will undoubtedly end up staying in some pretty remote places. Sometimes you can go days at a time without seeing other people or having cell service. In those cases, you want to be prepared. Take the chance to unplug and enjoy some solitary moments, but do not forget to let someone you trust know where you are going and how long you will be there. Schedule a time with them to check in and keep the schedule. That way, if the person does not hear from you, they know that you might need some assistance. We also have gone the extra mile by permanently sharing our location with a few people. That way if someone wants to see what we are up to, they can see our location in real time. Two of our favorite apps for this are Find My on Apple products, Life 360.

2. Stop Geotagging

One of the fun things about this lifestyle is getting to share the experience with others through social media. The challenge with that though is that sometimes that can draw unwanted attention – especially if you have public accounts. To combat this, we decided that we would NEVER tag our exact location until we have left. Sure, that means that everyone is seeing our content a bit late, but that is okay. In the situations where we want to share content right away, we tag general locations – like national parks or cities. That way we can share our content without giving enough information that people know exactly where we are at.

3. Always be Ready to Dip

Wherever we stay, be it an RV Park, a campground, or in the middle of the woods, we are always careful to keep everything packed up so that we can leave on a moment’s notice. This means doing a few things:

• Always parking in a way that we can easily pull out of a site
• Keeping our things packed away and organized at all times
• Making sure that we know what is being used outside of the van (tent, chairs, dog runners, etc.) so that we can quickly pack up.

We have never been in a situation where we have needed to rely on a quick getaway – but we have heard stories from friends who ended up being evacuated from spaces due to fires, severe storms, and flooding.

It is always better to be safe than sorry.

4. Always Have a Backup Plan

Whenever you are planning your route and finding campsites, make sure you have a backup plan. There have been several occasions where we have rolled up to a place where we wanted to camp only to find that the location was closed, there were no spots available, or the space was simply not going to work for us.

In those situations, it is always good to have a backup or two. Luckily there are countless apps that help nomads find camping. To learn more about what we use, check out our post here!

5. Trust Your Gut

We all have some level of intuition, learn to trust it. Our subconscious is aware of so much more than we could even begin to imagine. So, if you get a weird feeling, trust it.

Do not force yourself to stay in a situation that is uncomfortable – it is not worth it. The best thing about living the nomad life is that you have the freedom to come and go. If you get a weird feeling about someone or a place, you can move on. Find somewhere where you are comfortable, where you feel safe, and you are relaxed.

So, there you have it, 5 ways to better ensure your safety while living your best nomad life in the 21^st century!

For the nomads out there, do you have any suggestions or tips that we can add to our arsenal? Let us know in the comments below.

– Bryon and Coddy

**This is in no way an exhaustive list – we didn’t even touch on preparedness, packing food and water, keeping essentials like bear spray, or traveling in groups. The hope of writing this list was to focus on ways that people could stay safe that might not have already thought about. Those big picture items are INCREDIBLY important and should not be overlooked, but we have read countless articles that focus on those things and wanted to add to the content that exists. **