What do you do when you no longer have a schedule? There are no workdays and no weekends. Life just kind of is. Time is just as irrelevant as the days of the week…

When we are hungry, we eat. When we are tired, we sleep; every day feels like a Saturday.

So, what does our schedule look like when every day is a Saturday?

We essentially have two types of days:

1.Days when we travel

2.Days when we stay still

Travel Days

Our travel days always start the same way. We wake up with the sun, around 6:00am, and hustle over to the van to start prepping coffee. We have learned that instant coffee is our best friend on these mornings because it is quick, easy, and requires minimal clean up.

Coffee is also the designated time where we plan our route for the day. We pull out maps, research campsites, and figure out the best way to get where we are going.

After we have sucked all the life from our cups of morning Joe, the real work begins: teardown.

In the beginning, tearing down camp was daunting and exhausting. We would spend what felt like hours collapsing tents, washing and rearranging dishes, putting laundry away, etc.

The whole process was painstaking as we bumbled about, tripping over each other and dogs.
Our tempers were tested as we tried to fit everything back in the van in what felt like a life or death version of Tetris; a game that we were destined to lose.

Fast forward five weeks and we have become pros. We both know what we need to do, and we can have the van road ready in as little as 20 minutes.

Once the van is ready, we throw the dogs inside and hit the road.

When we are on the road, we alternate roles between pilot and copilot. The pilot’s job is simply to drive and get us to our location safely.

The copilot is responsible for keeping an eye on the dogs and making sure they have enough water, pinpointing locations to stop along the way, operating the camera, and most importantly, controlling the radio and making sure we are traveling to the best music possible.

Also, the copilot needs to be ready to take over if the pilot needs a break at any point.

This system works well. Alternating drive days means we both drive only once a week. It keeps us alert and focused. This is important since we have made a point to avoid interstates at all cost, opting to take roads less traveled. This choice has probably been one of the better rules that we have made. It has led us through incredible towns and helped us find hidden gems, such as the Craters of the Moon (which you can read more about in our National Parks Review page by clicking here).

This choice has also taken us down some scary dirt roads, up steep mountains, and through areas where there are more animals than people.

In short, if we are not on top of our game, things could go south quickly.

Once we get to our site, we evaluate the area to find the most suitable spot for the van. We try to find places that are flat and open, but also provide some sort of shade. If shade is not an option, and many times it is not, we use bungee cords and a tarp to create our own shade.

Once that is done, we get to work establishing camp.

Usually at this point, we are both tired and hungry so one person will get to work making dinner while the other focuses on setting up the tents, feeding the dogs, and making sure everything is in place.

Non-travel Days

Once we are in a place, we usually stay put for 2-3 days. This is to allow us plenty of time to take advantage of the places we are at and to force us to slow down and enjoy a more relaxed pace of life.

On these days, you will probably find us practicing our photography skills, meeting people, updating social media sites, writing blog posts, hiking, reading, or spending hours swatting flies with our newly purchased fly swatters.

So how do you make a routine when every day is a Saturday? I think we are still trying to figure it out, but at this point in time, this is what is working for us.