Must-Visit Outdoorsy Communities

The best places to live are those that mix a life surrounded by the great outdoors with a great community. Many of the places that offer endless opportunities outdoors do not have the support of vibrant communities, and many great communities are far from the great outdoors – the places on this list offer the best of both worlds. These are smart, cultural places that center around outdoor recreation – consider seeking them out on your next road trip… or even for a travel assignment if you consider yourself lucky.

Boulder, Colorado

Up playing in the hills surrounding Boulder – easy to get off the beaten path fast.

The ol’ Colorado standard. Set just West of Denver, some consider Boulder America’s Biggest Mountain Town. Boulder is inhabited by a huge number of the world’s elites in skiing, rock climbing, cycling, and triathlon. Boulder is close enough to almost any-kind of outdoor recreation you could crave while also having a large enough community to find the creature comforts you need just outside your door.

Boulder’s outdoor community centers around the Flatirons – a series of 5 jagged peaks jutting out of the ground. The peaks are around 8,000 ft from sea level, of course town itself is a mile high. The bigger mountains are less than an hour away in Rocky Mountain National Park and there are 14,000 foot peaks nearby in almost any direction. For entertainment, Red Rocks Amphitheatre is close by and brings in some of the biggest names in music to play concerts each summer. The venue is highly unique – the amphitheatre is open air, naturally formed, and set within several large crags of red rock. If you need the big city, Denver is only bout 45 minutes away.

Bend, Oregon

Downtown Bend, Oregon in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains. Industrious people self-making everything.

I recently visited Bend, and it blew me away. Bend is surrounded by huge (HUGE) mountains. Mt Hood looms in the distance at over 11,000 feet (7,707 ft of prominence from the surrounding land). Mt Hood is home to six separate ski areas including year-round skiing on glaciers (available limited time only, while supplies last). While Mt Hood is the pinnacle of outdoor activities in the area, Mt Bachelor is closer and more accessible to Bend – it offers much of the same recreation on a slightly smaller scale. Many of the mountains in the area are volcanic and, therefor, dramatic in their look – steep slopes that standout from much of the surrounding high-desert.

Second to the impressiveness of the mountains, is the very impressive local beer selection… I’ve never seen so many different beers in my life. Breweries abound – many brands you’ve heard of, many you haven’t. But beer isn’t all that Bend makes. If the end of our society came today, Bend would go on. These people are self-sufficient in making everything. Coffee, bread, gluten-free dairy-free bread, locally-sourced everything, local clothes companies, Hydroflask water bottles – you name it, Bend makes it. I definitely see the appeal of Bend.

Lake Tahoe, California/Nevada

I’ve never been to Tahoe (hence no photo), but I hear it’s awesome. Suddenly, I have about half-a-dozen friends living around Lake Tahoe. I personally equate Tahoe with skiing – there are 12 ski resorts in the area with Squaw Valley and Heavenly being the two biggest. But Tahoe, being a huge lake, offers many summer-time opportunities that other mountain communities don’t have. Boating, wind surfing, and everything else you can do with miles of open water. But Tahoe’s greatest strength might be its location and ease of access to everywhere else. Heading West, you’ll end up in Sacramento, wine country, and San Francisco. East will send you into Nevada with quick access to Reno and Carson City. South shoots you straight into the Sierra Nevadas and with a few hours of driving, Yosemite Park. If you’re spending time in Nevada or Northern California, make sure your next ski trip or summer lake trip includes Tahoe.

Montana, The Big Sky State

Montana is huge. The mountains are huge, the lakes are huge, the sky is huge. This is in Glacier National Park in far Northern Montana.

I don’t know how they’ve done it, but the sky is truly bigger in Montana. I have rarely seen landscapes as majestic as your average commute in Montana. My only experience with Montana was a roadtrip that entered in the south through Yellowstone and exited North to Canada through Glacier National Park – every single mile between felt like I was still in a national park. We stopped at Chico Hot Springs, just outside Yellowstone, and enjoyed their massive outdoor pool fed by natural hot spring water – the stars at night were perhaps the most I’ve ever seen (on account of the sky being so big). In the past, the hot springs were a spa for the sick in the early 1900’s. I couldn’t help but think that there is something special about that place and that the water does indeed have to be healing. We stopped into Bozeman for a quick meal while on the road and found it to be a fun, happening college-town. Other small cities in Montana have their own unique personality and have a lot to offer as well – Missoula, Billings, and Whitefish all offer outdoor recreation in the wilderness that stretches out in every direction. Get to Montana where the Wild West is alive and well – you will not be disappointed.

Choosing the Right Camper to Live In

As we have done our traveling in the last year, we have slowly but surely made some changes. One of those changes that we came to was the decision to buy a trailer and live out of it full time. Our journey to the trailer probably took way longer than necessary because Kelsey was very particular about what she did and did not want our trailer to look like. Phil was more concerned about the inside, which is more important in the end. When we actually looked at all the possible options we each wanted in a trailer we knew we had our work cut out for us.

Here are some things Kelsey wanted/needed in the trailer:

Phil and Kelsey normally blog on their website at minimalistlifemaximumresults.com

Phil and Kelsey normally blog on their website at minimalistlifemaximumresults.com

1. NO STRIPES – Kelsey likes to be unique and she did not want her trailer to look like the other trailers we often see on the road, this means no stripes decorating the sides. If you like the look of the trailer or RV with stripes that’s fine, but you see those trailers everywhere. It is kind of hard to find a trailer or RV without stripes nowadays. We want to be unique and that’s what we were looking for.
2. Solar energy – This wasn’t exactly a deal breaker like some of the other items on this list. It is relatively easy to put solar power into an already existing home, whether it’s a standalone home or a mobile home. It makes it much easier when it is already installed for you. If we were going to pay big money for our new home, we preferred it already done for us.
3. No shower – This was kind of a weird one since most people think of a shower as a necessity. Kelsey did not want to deal with the hassle of the shower and fell in love with the idea of having to join a gym in order to shower. That little incentive to shower can be a huge motivator to go to the gym and get in better shape. This is a tip not just for people on the road but for all you home dwellers out there too! Another benefit of not having a shower is reducing the amount of water used. The average American shower uses 17.2 gallons of water. That can equal out to over 6000 gallons of water used per year, per person. Just on showers!
4. Small in size – We like downsizing and quickly realized we tend to have more space than we could ever need. We also like getting rid of stuff and living as minimalist as we can (hence the title of the blog). By doing this and going as small as we can, we are forcing our hand even more. Sometimes a big (or small) change can do a world of good in your life if you feel stuck.
5. Enough room to change comfortably – We looked into the van life a little bit, but we are still working professionals. That means we have to dress business casual – so looking presentable in a van would be tough. Not impossible but definitely becomes more difficult if you have only a small van’s amount of space.

Phil’s lists of wants:

1. Towable by a small SUV or crossover – Phil has never wanted a truck and has always wanted a vehicle that optimized gas mileage. Anything bigger than an SUV or crossover would really impact this ability to stay eco friendly in the car department.
2. Decent amount of windows to give open and outdoor appearance – The draw of the trailer is that you’re outdoors, you can walk outside at a moments notice. If your trailer is stuffy with no windows, it makes it feel like you live in a small box, not a tiny home.
Camperlife3. Kitchen of some kind – Phil isn’t really big on cooking but we have made healthier food choices in the last 12 months. Cutting out Cheetos, pop tarts, potato chips, chicken, beef, etc has been great for us. By making a big life change for the better, we didn’t want to make a big life change for the worse. Our kitchen is only an induction (energy saving) stove top and a mini fridge, but we are able to use that efficiently to keep up our healthy lifestyle.
4. Toilet – This one is kind of important to Phil as he goes roughly 20 times a day. Technically, he also wanted a shower but after some negotiating the no shower lifestyle ended up winning out. And the toilet in this place is composting! So less water and even better for the environment!

It turns out finding a trailer that meets all of these needs is way more difficult than it sounds. By way of luck (or more just constant searching) Phil came across an all wooden solar paneled travel trailer that actually fit all of our wants. The company is Homegrown Trailers, and they are amazing. Not only did the company already meet the needs we had laid out on paper but when we went to look at the trailer they came up with ideas to customize the trailer even more to fit our needs. It was perfect timing since the company has only been running since early 2016.

We do have to give some honorable mention to Air Stream as that was our top choice until we found out perfect match with Homegrown Trailers.

Suggestions to finding the trailer for you:

philkelseybeds1. Make a list of what you want and categorize by what is and what is not negotiable.
2. Set a budget – Don’t go over your comfortable amount to spend just to find the perfect trailer. If it’s perfect and you still want it, it will always be there later. We ordered ours back in July and are happy to make money and get ready to pick up in December.
3. Do research – And a lot of it!
4. Don’t settle – wait until it is exactly what you want. Kind of going along with the budget point above. If the trailer doesn’t have what you want, it’s not the trailer for you – unless you are very interested in the DIY trailer, which some people are.
5. Make time to call the company and see what other types of options or customizing is available.

Everyone is different and that’s perfectly fine. If you want to live on the open road go check out some awesome vans, trailers, RVs and mobile homes. There is no wrong choice as long as it fits your needs and is what you want! Thanks James for the awesome opportunity to write about our beginning of nomadic, eco-friendly travel trailer PT and thanks to everyone for following along with our journey!

Onto the Next Travel Assignment

hoboblockBeing a traveling Physical Therapist requires frequent, and constant change. Week 13 or whatever is the last week of your contract will inevitably be your busiest. Hopefully work slows down a little bit that last week as you discharge a bunch of your clients and transition others to different therapists, but life outside of work gets busy. That last week is full of organizing, packing, working on logistics for travel to the next assignment, and often time actually interviewing for and nailing down your next job (and, if you’re really dense, you’ll try to write a blog this week… brutal).

All the chores outside of work on the last week of an assignment make it a stressful week. I’m currently 3 days from my next move and finding myself relatively relaxed. Clearly I’ve learned something over time about making the transition from work to road trip to work. But what is it? Here’s my reflection on the things you can do to take the crazy out of your next job change.

Acceptance

Accept it! This week is going to suck. At work you’re doing a ton to discharges and transitioning patients to other therapists. Embrace it, every waking hour this week you will be working or packing or planning. The only way everything gets done is by finishing one single task at a time, start chipping away.

Goals

If you can identify one group of things you have to accomplish each day, you will break up the burden. To take everything on in one day is too much. Today, I wanted to take the recycling to the dump, get the tail light on the car replaced before the drive out west, and get out one last blog before disappearing on vacation. Boom! Done! I got stuff done today, I feel accomplished, and I’m a few steps closer to being ready to jump in the car and be on my merry little way.

Say Goodbye Efficiently

Yeah, it’s very unsentimental of me. Get over it. You will get requests from friends, co-workers, and mysterious others  for one last hoorah, a chance to say goodbye. The more saying “goodbye” you can do the week before your last week, the better. Get out ahead of your friends and start inviting people to dinner before it’s your last week. You’ll have a blast, you’ll get to spend some good time with friends, and it won’t take precious hours out of the time you need to be packing. If you get stuck in the last couple days tight for time, invite friends over to hang out at your place while you putter around packing and cleaning – if they can drink your wine and eat your food, you don’t have to move it.

Be Good

Everyone knows you’re busy, but do take the time to do the right things. Wrap up all your paperwork at your job. Close cases that have been left inactive. Clean up your work space – effectively tie up all your loose ends and make it seem like you were never there. They say the best referees in football are the ones you that you don’t notice are even there, same goes for travel therapists.

A Time for Rest

When the opportunity arrives, take a break. I very frequently find I reach a point where I have done what I need to do for a day, and rather than stopping, I press on. You’re a traveler. Hopefully you’re living this lifestyle to experience different places and cultures. When break time comes, get out to that restaurant you meant to go to one more time, or go enjoy one last sunset at your favorite vista. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the town you’ve lived and worked in for thew last few weeks, take one last chance to soak it in.

——-

I think that’s all I have tonight, folks. Most of my bags are packed, but I’m doing home care, so the car has a lot of work stuff in it. I need to finish work before I can start packing the car.

From here, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, we’ll make trips to Maine, Florida, and Italy – for family time and fun – before driving out to Colorado for the next assignment. I’ll post pictures on the travels as I go, but you may not here much from me for a few weeks.

Enjoy where ever you are!

 

Lightening Round

Grand Illumination Night is a uniquely Martha's Vineyard holiday. A group of a couple hundred small Victorian cottages called The Campground (different than the campground we live at) all hang lanterns on their houses and illuminate them at the same time. We've done some homecare in these houses too - neat, weird little places.

Grand Illumination Night is a uniquely Martha’s Vineyard holiday. A group of a couple hundred small Victorian cottages called The Campground (different than the campground we live at) all hang lanterns on their houses and illuminate them at the same time. We’ve done some homecare in these houses too – neat, weird little places.

I’m going to do now what I do every time I get crunched for time and realized I haven’t posted in over a month, whip off a quick stream-of-thought blog about what’s been happening in my life recently out on the open road. Life right now is in a camper in Martha’s Vineyard, so it makes for pretty easy writing, but it will be a brief one. Don’t expect great grammar, don’t even expect good spellign.

Life has been fast paced and it’s been tough to keep up with the website. There’s been a lot of you reaching out on the discussion boards who are just getting into travel, and we have some good discussions going – so keep it up! I have a couple of half-written blogs for you, but they are posts that require a little more thought, so expect those in a couple weeks. The main thing keeping me busy has been this dang 1/2 Iron Distance Triathlon that I have been training for since I arrived here on the island 4 months ago. It is going to be held right here on the island in just a week and a half, so the end of this crazy, time-consuming training is near. I’m really looking forward to it. The 70.3 miles will cover the entire island and some beautiful vistas, but the training has been ridiculous, so I won’t be doing another one anytime soon.

Living in a camper has been great. I was kept very busy when we first moved in. There were a lot of little repairs that needed to be done. Water heater work, re-sealing some seams, and installing a screen room were the major low-lights of the work. After a few weeks of maintenance and finding out what it’s like to be a homeowner, we settled in and evenings after work have been filled with dinner on the deck and typically a campfire. There’s a lot of things I like about living in a camper, including being minimalist in my consumption of space and energy. The main attraction to the 5 months of camping is being outdoors. I have spent many, many hours on the deck and by the fire. There will a be a couple blogs soon related specifically to living in a camper, so I will digress for now.

Kate working wicked hard on the Vineyard. As I try to claim I've been too busy to write a blog....

Kate working wicked hard on the Vineyard. As I try to claim I’ve been too busy to write a blog….

Being on an island has lent itself to a lot of beach time. Sunday is the big beach day around here. We’ve been captured by friends who throw us in the back of their truck where we drive out onto the beach and create a wagon-circle-type caravan – except instead of keeping women and children in the middle of the circle for protection, there is various grilled meats. Not a bad use of the weekend, every weekend.

Kate and I are both working for a home care company out here. The expected productivity is reasonable, and, being on an island, the driving distances aren’t too bad either. Regardless, it has been BUSY at work. With the seasonal bump of tourists and residents work has been in high-season mode for the last 2 months – Martha’s Vineyard goes from a year-round population of 15,000 to an estimated 170,000 people on island last week! There are signs of the work load letting up a little bit soon. It truly has been a great job.

Just another Sunday on the beach. Great fun carting friends, games, and meats out to the beach for an afternoon of relaxation.

Just another Sunday on the beach. Great fun carting friends, games, and meats out to the beach for an afternoon of relaxation.

The weather has been just absolutely awesome here. We have had about 3 rainy days in the last 2 months – good news for us camper dwellers, and us beach goers. Despite the dry summer, the island life lends itself to insane humidity and with humidity, mildew. Not to wish the summer away, but I’m about ready for some cooler weather so I can stop washing the walls. The campground has really quieted down this week along with the rest of the island. Last night was hoody-weather, but I know we have another month left of solid summer as exhibited by the return of 80 degrees and muggy this evening (peepers peeping like crazy in the trees, love it!). With the change of the seasons, the campground will close and we’ll have to move into an apartment for one month before returning to the mountains of Colorado for the winter.

Expect some more thoughtful and thought provoking posts soon. Among my topics will be new grads traveling, how to select where you want to go as a traveling therapist, and, of course, #CamperLife.

Tips for Road Trips – Make the Miles More Fun and Sane

I find myself on long road trips at least twice a year. I work my winters in Colorado to be close to the mountains and, more importantly, to be on my skis as much as possible. In the summer, if possible, I like to find an assignment by the ocean. The trek from Colorado to open ocean is a long drive. I’m from Boston originally, so I’m frequently headed back to the Northeast. I love the adventure of long road trips, but they can really wear you down.

Here are some things you can do to make the trip more healthy, comfortable, and, most importantly, fun. There’s nothing better than enjoying the ride and pulling into port relaxed and ready to hit the ground running.

Eat Right.

This is by far the best thing you can do to make yourself feel better over the course of a long road trip. If you truly make the effort to eat healthy along the way, you’ll hit your destination feeling better all over. On my first few major road trips, I fell victim to greasy highway food, fried snacks, energy drinks, and beef jerky. OK, I still fall victim to beef jerky, but if I keep the other temptations in check, a little dried meat won’t hurt – it’s become a road trip ritual! A hallmark of my early travel career was pulling into the next assignment with an upset stomach and feeling really greasy. Eating right is by far the most important thing you can do to feel normal when you arrive at your next assignment.

Order the Salad

Most highway rest areas are going to have a place you can order a salad. If you can’t find a salad, there’s usually some sort of healthy wrap option. Granted, you’ll occasionally find awful stops without any salad, wraps, or even those woeful gas station fruit cups, but if you order a salad every time it’s available to you, you’ll feel better all over and experience less sugar-crash than eating easier and more tempting options.

Skip the Energy Drinks

It’s a road trip – you’re gonna need caffeine. But, please, please, PLEASE, skip the energy drinks. I’ve seen some strange things in highway truck stops, but few stranger than the 32 oz “BFC” by Monster Energy. Who knew such a thing needed to exist!? …that’s a lot of beverage. Energy drinks really take their wear on my stomach. An energy drink here and there may not be the worst thing, but over a several day road trip, your occasional energy drink can easily become a 1-2 a day stomach-smashing habit. Energy drinks lead to all the “no’s” of road tripping: stomach upset, sugar crash, and a tough time sleeping when you need to. Stick to tea or even coffee. I know coffee can wear down your innards as well, but not like that carbonated stuff will. There’s some great widely-available iced teas out there that are made with minimal added sugar and with an actual brewed-tea base, stock up on a few of those for the ride for when you need a little bump.

Seek out the Continental

Continental Breakfasts aren’t known for their nutrient value, but it’s free. If you have a free breakfast available to you that may have some fresh fruit, yogurt, or bagels, this is a much better option than popping into the quick mart at the gas station just before the highway. Given two hotels of similar price and quality, go for the one with breakfast included. It’s the most important meal of the day, and I’m convinced that one of these days I’ll figure out how to correctly use the make-it-yourself waffle machine.

Make Time for Meals, Real Meals

Time management will become a theme here. My first Boston to Colorado road trip was in college during the summer of 2004. Two buddies and I took turns sleeping in the backseat of my parents’ car (after mine broke down less than 20 miles into the trip) while the driver pounded Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper until he physically couldn’t drive anymore. We made the non-stop trip to Colorado Springs in under 36 hours. We were toast at the end of that trip. Of course, at the time, I thought it would be a once in a lifetime trip. It turns out he three of us would repeat the trip two summers later on the way to west coast clinical affiliations. This time, we brought 3 more friends with us and made the full trip from Boston to Huntington Beach, California – Coast-to-coast. We stretched it out and took 3 weeks to enjoy the journey (more on this later). After many, many more cross-country road trips, I have learned to build in time for things that matter.

Take time, every day, to eat one real sit-down meal. It’ll take 45 minutes to an hour extra, but you’ll feel better nourished because of it and ready for the next leg of the trip. Also, if it’s a decent option, Order the Salad.

Pack Some Snacks

Throw some carrot sticks in a zip lock, bring along a container of cashews, throw in a couple pieces of fruit you like. It took me a lot of road trips to figure out this simple thing: if you bring your food with you, you’ll rely less on service station food. Fortunately, there’s usually some food left over at the end of an assignment. I’ll pack what I can for snacks out of the stuff left in the fridge and stop by the grocery store the night before I leave for a few extra healthy foods. When you’re sitting around all day (driving), it’s natural to want to snack to occupy yourself – better a healthy snack than a bag of Fritos.

Travel PT Road trip

Our loaded car on a brief side trip to Glacier National Park. We arrived in the off season and had the park totally to ourselves. The national parks always make awesome side-trips.

Enjoy the Journey

It’s a really hard thing to do, but set a couple extra days aside so you can enjoy the ride. Afterall, “it’s about the journey, not the destination.” Fortunately in the case of travelers, the destination is also part of a larger journey, but I digress. Bottom line, take your time, build in side trips, and enjoy these road trips that can either be a hell bent charge to reach the end, or they can be some of the coolest memories of your life.

Root, root, root for the away team

One thing I love to do on long trips is to catch a road game. It’s a lot of fun to go cheer for your home team as the visitors. Check out your team’s schedule ahead of time and see if there’s somewhere you might be able to catch them while you’re both on the road. If you can’t catch your own team, just find a game that interests you, it’s cool to see different stadiums and it really breaks up the trip.

Side Trips

“If you aren’t taking side trips, you are not on a road trip. You are only driving.” -I just made that quote up, but I like it.

There’s the quirky roadside attractions: The Corn Palace, a 30ft Van Gogh, World’s Largest Ball of Yarn. There’s winery and brewery tours – better done AFTER a day of driving. And there’s the endless list of museums and halls of fame. My list of must make stops if you’re driving near them includes: Lincoln’s Tomb (Springfield, IL), Graceland (Memphis, TN), Baseball Hall of Fame (Cooperstown, NY), The Bourbon Trail (Kentucky), and add a day for any major national park you drive by. Skip the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, not worth it, sorry Cleveland. America has thousands of roadside attractions that are worth pulling off the highway for – check ’em out!

Exercise

You may have to get up a little earlier in the morning, but some light exercise will make a great impact on the way you feel sitting all day. I personally enjoy a few mile run in the morning, but many of the campgrounds and hotels I stay in are right by the interstate. The added excitement of cars bombing by in an area not known for runners is a little too much for me. My second choice for a workout is the dinky gym in the hotel with a single cable and a stationary bike – enough to get the job done. However, frequently, my best choice is about 30 minutes of room-based exercise.

When I’m doing my in-room workout, I focus on hitting every body part to get the blood flowing, and I like to throw in a few postural exercises. When I say postural, I mean working the upper back and core and stretching out the chest – skip the push-ups, they are over-rated and will tighten your pecs, encouraging you to hunch over the steering wheel for the rest of the day. Work that upper back and scapular muscles by laying on your stomach and raising straight arms in front of you, to the side, and behind in 3 sets of 10 for each position, this will hit a few different group of muscle in your upper back and between your shoulder blades. Stretching the front and working the back helps you pull your shoulders back and over time will promote better posture and mechanics for you. I like to throw a few leg exercises in as well – lunges and wall squats are my favorites in the hotel room. Work the core with some slow bridges (laying on your back with knees bent and lifting your hips off the floor while tightening your abs), and you’ve completed a basic, but good exercise program to get the day going. Now go crush that continental breakfast without guilt, and good luck with the make-it-yourself waffles.

Travel PT Yellowstone Road Trip

The things you’ll see on a road trip…I spy a heard of buffalo out my window.

Use Your Resources

Apps (All mentioned are free apps available for iPhone and Android!)

OMG apps! There’s so many that can help you burn those miles of road with more ease.

A decent GPS app is a must. On my day to day I use Google Maps for navigation, but not on road trips! Waze (incidentally, now owned by Google), is a GPS app with some flare. Drivers live-time report road hazards as they drive. The app will alert you as you are approaching debris in the road, traffic and detours, or even the routine abandoned car in the breakdown lane. The alerts are handy and will help keep you safe. If I need to compare the time between a couple different routes or the time added by detouring to a different city, I use MapQuest. I find MapQuest to have the best options for adding and deleting stops to your trip and easily seeing the difference in trip length.

Beyond the generic GPS to get from point A to point B, there’s thousands of apps that specialize in finding particular services. I mentioned Urban Spoon already for finding food. That’s just my personal favorite, there’s other out there that will do the same job just as well. For finding hotels I use the Hotels.com app to book low prices, but the TripAdvisor app to look up hotel reviews. I also use TripAdvisor for reviews of road side attractions to see if they might be worth stopping. GasBuddy is an app that displays gas station prices including information on when a user last updated the price. GasBuddy helps prevent showing up at closed stations with an empty tank and helps find the cheapest gas every time. I’ve found a couple apps out there for RV users and even for tent camping to review and book campsites – Good Sam is a very popular service and app for RVers.

Grab a Buddy

With a little bit of planning, you can work a lot of friends into a single road trip.

If you’re lucky enough to know someone who needs to go in the same direction as you, it’s fantastic to have a co-pilot (to operate all those apps for you). The right friends will even fly-in to enjoy a segment of your road trip with you. I once had a friend fly in to enjoy a weekend in Vegas mid-road trip – what a weekend! There’s a lot you learn about yourself while alone on the open road, but having some company makes the miles fall away much easier.

Couch Surf

I stay with friends whenever I can. On a road trip last fall (of course, from Boston to Colorado), I was able to stay just one night in a hotel on a three night trip. Night number two I spent with friends in Chicago – we went out for dinner and enjoyed catching up. I then woke early the next morning and put the pedal to the metal to make a house party in Denver the next night – way too much driving for one day. But, visiting, eating, and partying with friends made the miles seem less like a chore and made the whole trip feel more like a vacation. I would gladly drive two hours out of my way to crash with a friend rather than stay in a musty hotel room. Think of your next trip and get on the horn to see who you can crash with.

Buy Local

Buying local is one thing you can do while passing through a place to do a little good while you’re there. Your money will do it’s part to help the local economy. Also, from an environmental standpoint, if you’re buying local, less goods are having to be shipped places using less gas to get them there. We’re already burning enough gas zipping back and forth across the country with overloaded cars, no need for everything we buy to do the same.

Eat and Drink Local.

To back up for just one moment to the eating well topic, some of my best road meals have been at local, small town bars and breweries.  Small breweries have tasty beers you can’t get anywhere else and usually have great food, even in the most unlikely places. By blindly following my Urban Spoon app to tasty food I’ve discovered killer small town dives and explored cities I otherwise would have zipped right past.  At local restaurants and pubs, you’re getting a meal, an experience, and doing the local economy just a little bit of good.

Travel PT Road trip camping

Camping did not make the list, but it’s definitely worth a mention. When the weather’s right, it’s a great way to save money, meet a couple characters along the drive, and enjoy some of the great outdoors on scenic back roads.

DIY Local.

Enough road tripping and you’ll need a wind shield wiper, a headlight bulb, a quart of oil, or a new axle (different story for a different time). Try to use local mom-and-pop shops. Avoid the huge box stores. Keep the good people of Anywheresville employed by their fellow neighbors who are all helping to sustain their own community.

 

Finally, ENJOY!

Road trips should not be a chore. Enjoy your time out there on the road. The highways of America have a lot to offer in unique experiences and sights. Grab a buddy and a tank of gas, and go see everything you can!

This piece was written in collaboration with Fusion Medical Staffing and originally appeared on their site at:

Getting There: Staying Healthy, Having Fun, and Enjoying the Ride

 

Relax to the Max

Kate and I finished our jobs on the Big Island today. A standard 13 week contract for each of us that flew by in no time. This is typically the time that we start packing bags for a sunrise flight to visit family on the east coast or throw all the bags in the car for a couple-thousand-mile road trip. This is typically hustle-time. But it’s different this time. As I relax and enjoy my pau hana (after work) drink, the bags are already packed and traveling the brief 120 miles to our next assignment. When we get to Moloka’i in 10 days, our car will already be there with a few weeks worth of Costco supplies packed in the rear. What to do in the meantime? Vacation!

We are spoiled rotten. We get to drive all over the country every year. Usually we travel by car and see some awesome sights along the way. Last spring we drove from Colorado to Maine by way of Key West (Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job! 10/6/13), the year before, we drove from Colorado to Alaska and returned on 10 day ferry trip down the North Pacific Coast (Alaskan Ferry Trip 12/17/12). These trips are always cool and create awesome memories, but they aren’t relaxing. The road trips are many great things, but they are not a break. Logistics, highway food, cheapo hotel beds, and an occasional call to AAA are the common obstacles. In the next 10 days, we will deal with none of that. We will just RELAX. (don’t do it)

A song about relaxing by a band with a travel-themed name. Really the perfect vacation song.

I haven’t written on here much at all about our next assignment, which, by the way, is going to be fantastic. I’ve been keeping a journal on the side. I’m not sure if it will become some sort of blog entry on here in the future, but for now, I’ll offer this brief summary of what we’ve gotten ourselves into: Kate and I will be the two Physical Therapists for the island of Moloka’i when the current PT goes on maternity leave. The only hospital on the island of 8,000 people typically needs one traveler following the recent retirement of one of their two PTs, but with the pending maternity, they will need two travelers. Kate and I will run the show for three months while hopefully grabbing a chance to explore one of the lesser known of the Hawaiian Islands. Moloka’i is less than 10 miles from Maui, but much, much, MUCH more rural and quiet. Moloka’i is one of the last unspoiled areas of Hawai’i and will be quite the isolationist’s travel assignment. A huge majority of people who live in Hawai’i have never been to Moloka’i, but many of the ones who have visited have shared their stories with me over the last few weeks. From tales of hunting wild African antelopes left over from a now closed safari park, to being trapped on a remote deserted beach for days, to the incredible kindness of (most of) the locals – everyone who has been to Moloka’i has a tall tale to tell. Perhaps in the future I’ll share some of the other stuff I’ve written about preparing for our trip to Moloka’i. To be honest, I started out quite skeptical and thought Moloka’i might be TOO rural, but I’ve come around and am crazy-excited for the next 3 months.

People do love their canoes on Moloka'i. Unspoiled beauty.

People do love their canoes on Moloka’i. Unspoiled beauty.

But, work in Moloka’i is 10 days away. The work of planning, and scheduling, and packing is done. We’ll wrap up our time on the Big Island over the next two days with some serious beaching. Then, we take a TSA-free puddle hopper over to Maui for 5 days of camping, hiking, and relaxation. Saturday morning, we’ll take the <10 mile ferry ride over to Moloka’i to let the real adventure begin. My biggest worry over the week will be preparing for a fantasy football draft on Skype with a bunch of buddies from school back in Boston (oh those goons). I promise many pictures over the next week and some unique tales from the upcoming assignment.

I have to run, the sun has set on the last day of Big Island work and I have to get to cooking this steak. 🙂 Aloha!

Mother Nature

An earthquake woke me up this morning.

I was pretty sure the ground was shaking, which was unusual since all that is under the house is hard, steady lava rock that doesn’t even budge when large vehicles drive by on the road. Kate was already out running, I quickly made a mental note that I needed to ask her if she felt an earthquake, and I was back asleep within 20 seconds. Sometime later, I found I had been laying semi-awake in bed for a while listening to the voices from the TV in the next room go on-and-on about the approaching hurricane. I sprung to my feet when the TV conversation shifted to the 4.5 earthquake that had struck this morning. I was a little surprised to find out it really was an earthquake and excited that I had finally felt one. We were in Anchorage 2 summers ago, where the earthquakes seemed weekly, and I never felt a single one. The news has been so inundated with Hawaiian hurricane histories and storm prepping tips, that I’m still not sure if any damage was done by the quake – it hit a fairly remote part of the island, so I suspect everyone is OK.

At the time of this posting (9 PM Eastern, 3 PM Hawaiian) we're about 5 hours from Hurricane Iselle making landfall here on the Big Island.

At the time of this posting (9 PM Eastern, 3 PM Hawaiian) we’re about 5 hours from Hurricane Iselle making landfall here on the Big Island.

Every single patient I have seen over the last 3 days has had an opinion about hurricane Iselle and the toll she’ll take on the Big Island, but the bottom line is we’ll just have to prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and wait. This storm is approaching from the East, the Hilo Side of the island, we are over on the West side in Kona. The Kona side of the island has sustained damage from hurricanes in the past, but these were storms that wrapped around from the South. This storm coming from the East will have to plow past two 13,000 ft volcanoes and a smaller 8,000 ft peak. These mountains may stall the storm and will likely take a lot of its force before it gets to our area…. but no one really knows.

In the meantime, we continue to wait. Kate and I both work for clinics that are closed this afternoon and tomorrow, hopefully we’ll scoot by with some wind, rain, and an otherwise relaxing long weekend. We should return to work on Monday for our last five days of work before heading off to Maui for a week’s vacation and then to the island of Molokai for the next 13 weeks… but that’s a story for another time.

Don’t worry about us, we’re prepared and we’ll be fine, but do keep Hilo in your thoughts and prayers, and hope they don’t get hammered too hard by the storm. Personally, after the earthquake this morning, I’m keeping a watchful eye uphill towards the volcano rather than downhill towards the sea. That Mother Nature, she’s a powerful one.

Wiki Wiki

The increasing infrequency of my posts is a clear sign that my work hours panned out. Just a wiki wiki (quick) update on the travel and jobs in Kona.

A wave crashes near our campsite in Laupahoehoe last weekend. Real dramatic ocean on this part of the island. There was a tragic tsunami here not too many years back - interesting history everywhere you look.

A wave crashes near our campsite in Laupahoehoe last weekend. Real dramatic ocean on this part of the island. There was a tragic tsunami here not too many years back – interesting history everywhere you look.

The hospital gig, which was a wishy-washy thing from the get-go did not work out. I had tried to get something going at the hospital through one of my go-to recruiters. When he wasn’t able to come to an agreement, my recruiter gave me his blessing to try to establish a contract with the hospital on my own. So I tried. I spoke with the rehab director and later on the contract manager (the fact that they have a full-time position dedicated to manage contracts should have been a dead giveaway to steer clear). They were very encouraging that something would work out for me to be at the hospital. As they requested, I sent them a written proposal of what I would expect in my contract – 2 weeks went by and they requested I establish a contract through one of the recruiters I had used previously. The situation started to feel a little icky since my original recruiter had found the job, and working with another recruiter on the same job can start to cross travel PT ethical borders quickly.  Hesitantly, I went along with it. As everyone who has been doing travel health care for any period of time knows, credentialing for a job can take up a fair amount of time. So, I got underway on getting my paperwork and vaccinations all set for the staffing agency; I did the tedious skills checks online, I requested old varicella titre reports from my alma mater, I took a drug test at one facility, and I went and got my TB test up to date at another facility – all to find out just a couple days later that the contract wasn’t happening. Bummah. At least I got a free TB test out of it…. silver lining? Whatever, ainokea (“I no care”).

Waipio Valley - "Valley of the Kings" - We hiked here after camping in Laupahoehoe. King Kamehameha the Great was raised here and many Hawaiian royalty have had homes here.

Waipio Valley – “Valley of the Kings” – We hiked here after camping in Laupahoehoe. King Kamehameha the Great was raised here and many Hawaiian royalty have had homes here.

BUT, I got lucky, again, and landed on my feet. Everything is coming up James! The private practice prn job now has me booked 40 hours/wk and would gladly book me 50 hours if I let them. That job is doing just fine. And the kicker is that some of the staff at the clinic also work for a local coffee shop up the street, so I have found my Kona Coffee hook-up!

I have to get going, time to get to work. Upcoming island excitement includes a state holiday tomorrow, Kamehameha Day, celebrating King Kamehameha “the great” who united the Hawaiian islands which has previously each been under separate rule. He united the islands primarily through war and execution, and he also ended human sacrifice in the Hawaiian Islands right around the year 1800… different stories for a different day.

We will start SCUBA training this weekend, so that should lend itself to some good stories and pictures.

Aloha!

Just Go With It

I’ve returned to my natural state. Everything I own is in a bag. The rear-end of the car is dragging on the tires from the weight of stuff that will ultimately end up in a storage container. Kate just got home from her last day of work with a bottle of wine. The corkscrew is packed away at the bottom of a box, but at least my camping gear is coming on the trip, so my Swiss Army knife is available. We’re each wearing different white Red Sox shirts as I twist the corkscrew portion of the Swiss Army knife into the cork and pull like hell while hoping not to splash red wine on either of us. Success! It’s going to be a good week off.

Map of lava flow hazard zones for Island of Hawai`i

The USGS’ Lava-flow Hazard Zone Map. I guess we’re supposed consider this when looking for housing? It’s going to be an adventure.

It’s been a wild ride to get this next assignment’s contracts in place. Actually, they aren’t really in place, I’m just going in on blind faith with fingers crossed. Kate got an assignment set in Kona, HI through a recruiter. We thought long and hard about whether Kona was where we wanted to go and what our other options were. When it became apparent that there were some more jobs around Kona and a couple opportunities for independent contracts presented themselves, we committed to Hawaii.

People ask me about independent contracts a lot. Let’s be clear, I am no expert on independent contracts, but I do have a little experience. Whatever I’ve done this time around is not the way independent contracts should be done. I’ve verbally accepted two PRN jobs with no idea what the pay is.

It all started well. I have had two different interviews at places that would like me to work for them. Seems simple enough from there, right? Let’s sign the contracts and get started with work. Unfortunately, neither of the jobs has 40 hours for me, but they both say they have 20-30 hours for me. We have talked pay, but I have no commitment from either job on exactly what the pay will be. I supposedly have a job offer in the mail from the private practice, and the hospital I have spoken with has cautioned me that they are run by the state, so “it can be quite a process to set-up a contract.” I’m antsy to have a contract in hand, but Kate keeps reminding me about “Aloha time.” Aloha time is the Hawaiian equivalent of “Don’t worry, be happy.”

The start of the Ironman Kona swim is right around the corner from my job. The locals call it “The Pier,” and I cannot wait to go get some open water swimming in.

Kate’s right, things are going to go fine, we always land on our feet. I have two places in Kona that want me to work for them and want me to start in under 10 days – that’s a pretty good situation. It’s Hawaii, they’re relaxed, and I should be too. No one else is worried, they expect me to show up on the 19th and start work. Nothing left to do but knock on wood, hop on the plane, and hope someone has scheduled me some patients when I get out there.

Remember, don’t do this. Be more business savvy than I have been. When talking finances of a contract, be clear, be confident. Because I have not been clear or confident when talking about the business parts of my independent contracts, there’s nothing left for me to do but wait and start working on my transition into Aloha time. Patience is a virtue, don’t worry brah.

To Be Continued...

Home is Where

“Where do you live?” It’s a simple question that is likely to be asked at the start of a conversation with any stranger. It’s a question that is easy for most people and that the asker expects a quick answer to.

For any traveling healthcare worker who has been at this for a while, it’s a loaded question. My mind races over a series of responses, “I have an apartment in Maine, but I’m rarely ever there.” “Well, the IRS says I live in…” “I live part of the year in Colorado and keep going back there.” I usually settle on the most simple response, secretly hoping the conversation will change topics, “I live here right now, but I move a lot for work.”

But, NO! They can’t drop the inquisition, it always continues on, “You move a lot? Well where’s your home base? Where are you from? When are you going to settle down? What does your wife do?”

I, again, try to keep the answer simple. Again, hoping the conversation can move along from this complicated topic, “Well my wife is a therapist too, so we move from contract-to-contract together. We’re both from New England, but we’ve been doing this a while now, so we have some fairly scattered roots at this point.” Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “This poor guy was expecting an easy answer. There isn’t one.” Traveling PTs don’t fit most people’s pre-determined mold of what a life, home,and job should look like.

There’s a whole host of issues, social and logistical, that complicate the home question both extrinsically and intrinsically. First is the IRS, travelers live by their rules and we do the best we can to try to maintain a life that fits their rules. Unfortunately, certain states have laws that complicate the picture by having loose standards for what a fulltime resident is and taxing people based on that status. I’m looking at you, Maine! I am certain that there is a traveler out there somewhere who has the perfectly wrong combination of living situations and who is taxed as a permanent resident by multiple states.

Don’t get me going on the system for forwarding mail by the post office. OK, do get me going. Every 3 to 6 months I head to the USPS website and submit my change of address forms. To their credit, the post office usually gets me my mail, but sometimes that mail makes a few stops along the way to reach me. I have attended weddings and received the invitation afterwards. Gad zooks!

The years since starting travel have started to really add up for me. I used to be able to intuitively know how many years ago I was in Hawaii, or how many winters I had spent in Colorado. When I showed up back here 3 weeks ago, I went around telling people it was either my 4th or 5th year coming back, I wasn’t really sure… WRONG! After some counting by figuring out what years I was in which apartment, I have come to the realization that this is winter number 6 (out of the last 7) that I am living out here in Colorado. How can we tell people where we live if we don’t even know!?

On the return, Saturday, 3 weeks ago, Kate and I quickly moved into the same employee apartment building that we have lived 3 years prior. On Sunday, we drove 1.5 hours to the local Costco and stopped by our storage area on the way back. It turns out that in our storage area, with all of our skis, 7 pairs between the two of us, was a ton of stuff that we have accumulated. Kitchen supplies, wedding pictures, snow tires for the car I sold this year, a painting I picked out of the trash at work 4 years ago, a bag of clothes to take to the local consignment store, beer brewing kit, computer printer, and our beloved 18 inch Christmas tree. I hesitate to say we keep a lot of junk here, because most of it has a purpose, but we do have a lot of “stuff” here. By Monday morning at 10, we had our ski passes and we were on the mountain where, by chance, we ran into a group of friends and skied with them all day. On Tuesday, Kate and I returned to work where we were greeted with hugs, a one-hour orientation, and quickly slipped into a seamless afternoon full of patients. Yeah, this is familiar, good friends, the old apartment, great job, and all my… “stuff.” Since the first year here, unlike many other places I’ve lived, people are willing to quickly include me in the small group they call “locals.” It’s tempting to call this “home” or to at least be less committal and admit that I live here, because I do have an established life here.

Back on the ski lift, a familiar conversation ensues, “Where do you live?”

“Here.” “… in the winter. This is my 6th season.”

The quick response, “Where do you go the rest of the time?”

Here we go again. Why doesn’t this conversation get any easier? 🙂

I used the word “inquisition” above, so this video seems pertinent. Until next time, travel safe!