¶ Nomad Michelle DeVries
On the website twohappycamperscom . It says we believe the less you own , the less that owns you . A healthy life is a happy life . Time spent in nature is time well spent . When you stay inside your comfort zone , it shrinks . Gratitude turns what you have into enough Time is your greatest asset . And , finally , conformity is optional .
I had the chance to speak with the creator of TwoHappyCamperscom , michelle DeVries . Michelle and her husband , mark , are overland travelers who find true joy and adventure on the road . Get ready to get outside and travel by camper truck and RV with Michelle DeVries . Welcome to Journey with Jake .
This is a podcast about adventure and how , through our adventures , we can overcome the challenges of life that come our way . While I expect you will learn some things about different adventures , this show will entertain you . Each episode will feature a different guest or guests as they share experiences and stories from the different adventures they have been on .
Not only will you be entertained , but you will also hear the failures and trials each guest faces and what they have done or are doing to overcome the hardships that come their way . My goal is to take each of us on a journey through the experiences of my guests , with the hope that you'll be entertained and inspired to overcome your day-to-day challenges .
After all , it's not all about the destination as it is about the journey . Welcome back to another episode . My name is Jake Bushman and I'm the host of Journey with Jake . Each week , we go on a journey and an adventure with my guests , and this week I spoke with overland traveler Michelle DeVries .
Michelle is a photographer , blogger and author and shares her love of slow traveling in her RV and camper truck . This episode was a lot of fun . Before we get to my conversation with Michelle , I want you all to be part of the Journey with Jake community .
The way you can do this is by subscribing to the podcast and sharing Journey with Jake with all your family and friends . Another great way is to follow me on Instagram . This is the place that I share some clips from some of the past shows and gives you a sneak peek of upcoming Journey with Jake shows .
It's a great way to see what my guests are like and is a great way to get to know me personally as well . My Instagram account is at journeywithjakepodcast . Finally , journey with Jake is on YouTube . If you prefer to watch the episodes , just search Journey with Jake podcast on YouTube and you can find me there as well .
As I mentioned , michelle DeVries has found a love of slow traveling in her camper truck and RV . Doing this was not comfortable for Michelle at first , but she now has such a strong love for this way of life and it has strengthened and stretched her . If you like this episode , you will also enjoy episode 63 about navigating van life with Jake and Haley .
Okay , let's get to my conversation with Michelle DeVries , all right . Well , I'm excited today I have Michelle DeVries on the call with me today . Michelle , welcome to Journey with Jake .
Thank you so much for having me . I'm really excited to be here .
Yeah , this is exciting for me . I love getting these . What do you call yourselves ? Overlanders , rvers , travelers , all kinds of names ? Right , I love having you on the show because you're adventurous and it's fun .
Thank you . I I'm not great with labels because I feel like you know , then I feel like I have to be a certain thing , but I go with full-time , full-time traveler , full-time nomad .
Full-time traveler full-time nomad Perfect . That's a good way , good way to look at it . Time traveler full-time nomad Perfect . That's a good way to look at it . Before we dive into all of that , what you got going on with your travels and your adventures , tell us a little bit about Michelle , where you're from . All that good stuff , if you don't mind .
Yeah , so I grew up in Arizona . I'll back up and say I was born in Southern California and drugged to Arizona against my will when I was 11 and was not very happy about it . In hindsight it was a great place to grow up in Lake Havasu City , arizona . I grew up on the lake . It was wonderful . As a teenager I vowed to leave as soon as I could .
On my 19th birthday , hopped in my truck with my boyfriend and we moved to the Colorado Rockies . Now that I am 43 , I consider myself way more a Coloradan than I ever was a californian
¶ Roadtripping Before Van Life Trend
or arizona . We , my husband and I , met in denver when we were going to college and started a photography business right after we graduated .
That was 20 years ago this summer can I back you up real quick though ? So this , this boyfriend you left with to go to colorado , that's not your husband no . No , okay , all right , I was just once you said I do Wherever he is .
I owe him a great deal of gratitude for asking me if I wanted to move to Colorado .
He got you to Colorado he got me to Colorado .
He left and I did not . I have Perfect , yes , yeah . So when I met my husband , who is from Iowa , we shared the fact that the mountains just kind of seeped into our bones from the moment we got to Colorado .
Very nice .
Yeah , but now we come and go . This is the summer . These months , during the summer months , are the only time that we need to be location dependent for our business , and then we are free to roam the rest of the year .
All right and tell us the business again .
Sorry , maybe you said it no , we photograph destination weddings primarily at Colorado ski resorts .
Perfect , okay . So that's why , yeah , so in the summer you kind of got to be there . But hey , colorado in the summer is not a bad place to be .
It is not . But honestly , if I could probably like , this is where I would choose . No matter what , it's pretty ideal .
Very good . So you got that business kind of going , keeping you afloat because otherwise you're out on the road .
Yeah .
How did that come about ? Like what led you to say , hey , let's live on the road . How did this come about ?
You know that's a fun story and I'll I'll preface the story by saying when my husband and I bought our first house , we just had this deep sense of discontentment . We were checking the boxes of like we you know our business was starting to do well .
We bought the house , we were kind of moving down that trajectory of what's expected and we just it didn't feel right , like we weren't , something was off and none of us like both of us just didn't love the idea of just settling and being in the same place forever . And so the year after we bought our house , we went on our first ever international trip .
We went to Ireland . And that was kind of part of checking the boxes . We were like , okay , the business is starting to do well , we can start doing our like an annual overseas vacation , cause that's that's what you do right . If you're doing well , you go on a vacation . We go to Ireland .
We had an amazing trip but it costs so much money and it was like eight days long and because we run our own business and we have the beauty of more time than just a week's vacation , we were really in our heads the last day of that trip we were in the hotel going . How can we get more vacation for less money ?
We were like we are neighbors , we're in Colorado , we're neighbors with what we've heard is one of the most amazing states in the country , which is Utah , and we drive through it every year to go to Arizona and we don't even stop .
Why don't we figure out a way to get some kind of truck , rig , van , whatever , and start enjoying more of what our country has to offer and maybe have more time to travel and not spend so much money ?
That was a game changer for us , because we ended up buying a truck camper and it was like we would go out any chance we could get and then the trips just got longer and longer and we were like how can we do this and not have to go back to a house ?
Longer and longer , but also , like , less expensive than your eight day trip to Ireland .
Oh my gosh . For the first like 800 nights , I kept a journal . I would write every night and I would put a photo with it and I would keep a tally of the number of nights because I would divide that by how much we spent on the truck camper and compare it to a hotel room .
And I thought you can't even compare the cost of flight , hotel , car rental and all that to getting an afford I will say RVs , truck campers , vans . You can spend a lot of money on them , these days . We were pretty frugal with our purchase and we have made that money go a long ways in the amount of travel it has afforded us .
And I feel like maybe I'm wrong here , but this was happening before the whole 2020 , before you know . I feel like it became a thing and it's probably gotten more expensive because it's become a thing , but you were kind of doing this before the whole COVID thing happened , right ?
Oh my gosh , van life wasn't even a term . Instagram had just been born . It was a totally different world .
I like how you said you were . You were kind of just going through life checking boxes get married , get a house , have a career , let's take our one trip per year . I think that's kind of what . Like you said , that's what people think this is what you do . You just you know you take your one fancy vacation a year , but it doesn't sound like that was .
It definitely wasn't fulfilling enough for you , obviously . So you started hitting the road . I love it .
Yeah , you know , around that same timeframe we came across a website called bumfuzzlecom . They didn't have any social media they still don't this was back in 2011 , but they had a blog that they posted to religiously .
And this was a couple who ditched their nine to five jobs in their mid 20s , bought a sailboat without sailing experience and sailed around the world . The second I saw that I was like glued to their website . I read it top to bottom and that was when I discovered the Pan American Highway . I literally had no idea that was a thing I didn't know .
People drove a vehicle to South America and my mind was just blown wide open . That was when I just it totally changed my outlook on what travel is Like . I realized I had a very narrow idea of what it means to travel .
I always thought plane , hotel , rental , car , paid guided trips or excursions , and after I read their blog I went okay , there's a whole other way to see the world . I feel like we've been kind of pursuing that different path ever since when you first got that . What is it ? What ?
do you call it Truck camper , camper truck ? A truck camper , yeah , a truck , that , what is it ? What do you call it ? Truck camper , camper truck ? A truck camper , yeah A truck camper , which is basically a truck with , like a camper shell on it , right , that's kind of what those are . I'm trying to picture .
It's like a box that slides into the bed and ours has a pop-up top , so like it has canvas walls on it , so when you drive it's lower profile .
Essentially , ours is called a four-wheel camper , which means it's built for off-roading , because we love getting off the beaten path and getting deep into the backcountry so it can go just about anywhere , and that's what we love about it .
Okay , so you got that initially and started hitting the road . Do you remember some of those first few trips that you took with that and what it was like ?
Oh yeah , we headed to Utah . Of course we were like kids in a candy store . It was just like where do we even start ? This is when we learned that you don't check things off the list . The more you see , the more you add to the list . You open the door to what's out there and you go .
There's so much more than I realized and we loved that we could choose a time when our business was slow and we could choose two , three weeks , head west into Utah , and this is when we really started to learn that we thrive on traveling without any kind of plan .
We love pointing a direction and just bopping along and going Ooh , that road looks really cool , let's see where it goes . I think one of our first memories that will always stick with me is that Mark , my husband , ended up we needed a new battery , I think , in our truck or something .
He ended up doing a repair in the O'Reilly's parking lot in , I don't know , glenwood Springs , colorado , on our way to Utah , and so we were set back from our first night out trying to find a place to camp and there was no . There was no social media , there were no apps , nothing to like find spots , like .
It was just about following your curiosity and like having a paper map in your lap , and so we picked this road to go down . We just randomly got off the interstate and just picked a direction and started heading south . And the sun is setting on us . We're so green , we have no idea what we're doing . We're just hoping to find a place to park .
We're kind of going through these rolling hills and the next thing we know we crest this hill . It's right at sunset . This road ends on a cliff edge , overlooking the Colorado River , with just those huge red sandstone cliffs and just this most like idyllic campsite , just , and no one around .
It's free , and we get out , we pop our , our home is ready to go , like it takes 30 seconds to set up and we're just standing there looking at each other going . We can just stay here for free .
Those first few weeks we just kept having experiences like that and we were just absolutely over the moon about what that meant for us , because that's the kind of travel we didn't know , that's the travel we wanted to do Until then .
We were like like this is what we want yeah , when I hear you talk about that , because I'm I'm a planner type and so for me it's , it's seems hard to let go and let that happen . Were you that way at all too , or was it just once those magic moments happened ?
it's like ah , this is it yeah , this is why travel this way has been really good for my personality type , because I am an obsessive planner and with our job , with wedding photography , I plan our the wedding day like down to the minute of what we're doing and I rehearse it in my head so we can give our couples the best experience possible , and I thrive in
that situation . But it also brings me stress that I don't really realize . This way of travel has shown me that you cannot plan or predict some of the best experiences you might have while traveling .
The things that have happened to us that I will never forget are things we never , ever , could have planned for , and it's the things that happen very spontaneously that lead to these really amazing experiences . And you can only be experienced , you can only be spontaneous If you have the room in your day to say yes to things rather than going .
Well , we can't do that because we have to be here at this time or we have to check into this place at this time , and it's kind of made my I would say somewhat uptight self be way better at going with the flow and just being very open to seeing what happens .
And what about your , your husband , mark ? How personality wise is he all for this ? Or was he a little bit of a planner too ? What was it like with him ?
Not a planner very laid back , and I think he very much appreciates how this way of travel has gotten me to be more laid back as well .
So when you get to the spot , you know and you pull up and hey , we're just going to camp here and it's this idyllic setting . What does that do for you ? Mentally Like , what does that do for you ?
Living this way and traveling when we're traveling in the truck camper and I will say that our life has evolved and we can get into this later but we now have an RV and a truck camper .
When we're in just the truck camper , which is about 40 square feet , we have water out of jugs , we have no water system , no sink , we just have a couple of basic appliances . Life is broken down to such simple terms . It really is keep yourself warm or keep yourself cool , find a place to sleep and enjoy the setting of where you are .
And there's something about that distilling down life into those , like your basic necessities that that has really brought a form of contentedness to me that I've never experienced before .
Once we find that place to park and stay for the night and we get our chairs out and we , you know , get all our kitchen out and we cook dinner and we sit down and we watch the sunset and we , you know , watch the birds
¶ Life on the Road
flying overhead or whatever is happening in nature , in that moment is like I feel a connectedness to the natural world that I never got inside of a house . That has brought me just like so much peace , and I never have found that living inside a traditional , you know home and I constantly get it .
That never goes away for me over all these years and it's why I'm totally addicted to this way of living .
It's who you are now . I love it .
Oh yeah .
So yeah , let's talk about that evolution a little bit , because , yeah , you said you have an RV . Now what kind of led to go from just the truck camper to splurging a little bit , getting a little , get some more square footage with the RV what kind of led to ?
that . Yeah , yes , the truck camper small as , like I said , you can't do more than one thing at a time . So like if . If Mark is cooking , that's what we're doing , if I'm working , that's what's happening . There's no using the space for multiple things at a time .
We knew that in order to keep running our business and live on the road full time , we needed more space so that we could you know one stay sane with each other , without our marriage , and run our business efficiently . We needed that space and we really wanted to make this lifestyle sustainable for us .
As our truck camper trips got longer , we knew that we did need a few more comforts if we wanted to do this for the long term . We bought a travel trailer that's whopping like 150 square feet , which , I will tell you , feels like all the square footage I could possibly need , and we live in this for about two thirds of the year and enjoy all the comforts .
It can't go as many places , we can't be as spontaneous , we have to plan a little bit more . Because it is bigger , it's harder to maneuver , it requires more space to turn around , so we get pretty excited come the winter .
We put the travel trailer in storage , we hop in the truck camper , we head south and it feels like we're able to have that spontaneous , adventurous spirit for that third of the year when we're living out of that .
You say you head south . I think I saw a blog or post or something , baja , is that where you're heading when you say you head south ?
Yeah , it used to be Arizona . For a long time we had Baja on our radar . We really wanted to go . We'd been talking about it for a long time . We finally made that happen . In 2022 . We went for five weeks and , just like when Mark and I moved to Colorado , baja has made quite an impression on us .
In 2023 , we went for three months and then this year we went for another three months and then we have five to six months set aside this winter to do Baja , plus , hopefully , a lot of mainland Mexico .
Very nice . What is it about Baja that you love ?
Let's see . I would say , if I had to really define it , it is the slower pace . Really define it , it is the slower pace . Mark and I are very . We move through life at a pretty slow , methodical , mindful pace . We do not like to hustle , we don't like to rush .
That's a large part of our enjoyment of life is never being in a rush , never feeling like we got to hustle . And yet there's kind of this energy in the air in the States of everyone is just in a hurry . And when we cross the border there's just this laid back pace among the Mexican culture that we just immediately feel like we are better suited .
Time moves down there . It's really wonderful . So we really enjoy the pace . We really enjoy the pace . The landscapes , the sea and the desert combination is really phenomenal . There's about , I think , somewhere between 1,800 miles , 200 , 2,000 miles of coastline . A lot of it is uninhabited , which is just endless camping opportunities , just endless camping opportunities .
You just pull up literally on the water's edge and park and can camp as long as you want , which is not really sure where else you can do that with such ease and for free and be alone . If you want the food , of course , that's an obvious one , I think . And the people .
The Mexican hospitality is second to none the way they welcome us tourists and gringos is just amazing and the fellow travelers . There are people from all over the world that have shipped vehicles just to travel around Mexico , and so this way of life can feel a little bit isolating in the States because it's not super common .
We have to definitely go out of our way to meet people that live like this , but when we're down there we meet a lot of people that live on the road full time and we really enjoy getting to have that common bond with other travelers .
Yeah , what is it about that ? Because I know I've heard about , like , the Baja . I've talked to a couple of people who've been there and there is , there's and there's travelers from all over the place is what they've told me that yeah what is it ? Just because you guys have that common thing that you guys bond together so well , or what is it about that ?
what is it about ?
like that , we all seem to end up in baja well , you seem to end up in baja , but you seem to just everyone just seems like loves getting together with the other travelers and that community of travelers I guess I mean don't get me wrong we love our family but like they don't understand why we live this way .
And you know they all have kids . Mark and I knew right off the bat we didn't want to have kids . That set us apart from a lot of our friends and family . That has always made us feel a little bit like outcasts , and then to live like this definitely didn't help .
And so we find that when we meet people that live like this , it's like okay , we right out of the gates before you know anything else about each other .
We know that we've all purposely chosen an unconventional way to go about life , and that always tends to lead into really deep conversations about other things that tend to be just other common factors that we share . And it's just .
It's really refreshing to see that there's other people out there that have made the same choices , when we can feel a little like we're outcasts sometimes .
Have you made lifelong friends , I guess , from this community of travelers ?
Oh my gosh , yes , and I can't express what a beautiful thing that has been , because I have been the kind of person that has struggled to make friends my whole life . Like I am an introvert through and through .
I'm pretty socially awkward trying to meet people , and then we all know how it is once you become an adult , like , and you don't have a school , anything to bring you in around new people , it's like how do you even make friends ?
So I've definitely felt loneliness a lot in my life when I've wanted friends , but I'm like not sure how to find friends and the social connections and the bonds we've made in this lifestyle I never , ever , would have predicted when we set out to live this way .
And now I have these people in my life that are just some of the greatest people I could ever ask to call friends . We had randomly crossed paths with two separate couples last winter when we were down in Baja . We'd only met each of the couples one time for like a couple nights , and they didn't know each other and we all crossed paths at the same time .
I was pretty nervous about Mark and I being the common bond , because I don't love being the common denominator in a group and I'm just not good in a group period and I was apprehensive about it and it turned out we ended up traveling together around Baja for three weeks . It just happened with such ease .
These people were just such good people and we spent Christmas together , which was just such a magical , wonderful , totally unexpected thing . I mean the way that we had no plans to spend Christmas together . Next thing I know we're in the middle of the Mexican desert .
My new friend , heather , brings out a tiny little Christmas tree that was buried under her seat in her tiny truck camper . The other friends bring out a roll of wrapping paper and everyone .
We made ornaments out of shells and like strung twinkle lights up around an old , dead cactus skeleton , and these are the kinds of things you can't sit home and plan for or research on the internet . There's just no way . Yet these magical moments like this seem to happen fairly regularly , regularly on the road .
It just fills me up , unlike anything else something that you mentioned to me before we recorded , because I kind of asked people what you know . Remind me what we're talking about , just like , kind of have it . You said a couple things about this whole way of life . First you said minimizes the cost of living .
So you and we kind of hit on that a little bit . It's definitely cheaper than taking that eight day trip to Ireland or whatever the case may be . You also says it maximizes your freedom and it's made you more compassionate , open-minded and empathetic people . Kind of dive into some of that and how it's done that for you . And what do you mean by that ?
Yeah , I think that when we live in the same house in the same town for a lot of our life , our world kind of closes in on us a little bit . We get very familiar with how things are , we get very expecting of how things should be .
When we especially getting outside of our culture and into another culture and you see how other people live and that they , when we go to Mexico , a lot of the population there has so much less than we have here in the States . Yet generally they seem really happy , very laid back , not stressed .
I mean , no one is ever uppity on the road about anything , no one seems on edge or irritated or anything . And you look around and you're like a lot of these people are living in shambles and yet they seem really happy . You go into the store you can't get , you know , in the States I go into a grocery store .
I've got my list and I expect to find everything on my list . In Mexico I don't make a list because I don't know what I'm going to find . I'm not sure what's available , I'm not sure what's edible , like what they have . So travel just forces you to step outside of what you're used to and look at things a little bit differently .
I would say the compassion piece comes from seeing that everyone in this world is just trying to get by , just trying to get through the day , just trying to figure it out , just trying to do the best they can .
And I think that we tend to get really caught up in our stuff and then we kind of treat other people like you're getting in my way or you know why did you cut me off , kind of thing , and we're really all just in our own heads trying to figure out our own stuff .
And I think being in someone else's town that's not my own town reminds me to show up with respect and that I don't know anything about what's going on here , and to just be a good , respectful traveler . And so that's been a really nice piece . The open mindedness is it's the same thing .
It's like it kind of goes hand in hand , I think , with everything I've just said . We come back
¶ Embracing Challenges, Sharing Adventures
to the States and go , wow , we have so much here and I think that we don't really realize to what level we're so spoiled with the fact that we can walk into any store at any time and get just about anything . We want the fact that we can walk into any store at any time and get just about anything we want .
So living in 40 square feet and going to another country , it really shows me that like , actually you don't need all this stuff and it makes me so appreciative that we have .
We live in a country where we can have such abundance , but I do love learning to live with less and be more mindful of my consumption and just trying to be a better you know steward of the planet .
What would you say are some of the challenges or difficulties you face ?
It's funny we've been doing this for so long that nothing about it really feels hard to me , but I know there are some things that we deal with that are probably , I guess , could be construed as challenges . The probably most obvious one would be that we're always managing our resources .
We have to be very aware of how much water we use , how much electricity we consume . We need to be paying attention to how much solar we're producing to make sure we're not using more than we produce . Mark , my husband , has outfitted us really really well with solar power , which is awesome . Our RV has a ton .
We do pretty good with it , but our truck camper the roof is only so big you can only fit so many panels . So , for instance , we have Starlink , so we have high speed internet everywhere and anywhere , which is amazing , but it does pull a lot of power .
If it's a cloudy day , we make sure we turn the internet off unless we really need it , that kind of thing , and I love that because you're paying more attention to what you're consuming . I think that in a house , you're not thinking about when you flip the switch , that you know that's coming from somewhere . That's not an unlimited , just magical thing .
That's happening . Same with when you turn on your faucet or you take a hot shower . We are always , you know , paying attention to our consumption , our consumption and even our trash . We can't just set out our trash and it doesn't just magically disappear . We have to find a place to take it .
Those are some of the things that I guess could be considered challenges , but I see them as pros to this lifestyle , because I think it's really healthy to be in touch with what you're consuming .
I like that . That's good . I never thought of it that way . That's a good way to look at it .
Yeah .
What would you say is the best part about this whole traveling full-time ? If you had to pick one thing , what's the best ?
part . If I had to pick one thing , I would say my relationship to the outdoors and to the natural world . I really believe that some of life's greatest gifts come from being outside Beauty , wonder , awe , challenge . So many things happen when you are outside , in the wilderness or the backcountry or natural space . It's so healing , it's so relaxing . I love that .
Anywhere I am , I step outside and I'm in the raw , untouched wilderness . I don't have to get in a car and drive anywhere to access that . I can hop on my bike , I can put my shoes on and I can just be in it .
I would much rather be in it and have to drive 45 minutes to a grocery store than be within two minutes of all the stores I could ever want and have to drive 45 minutes to be in the wilderness .
Everywhere else people want the convenience and everything close by . You'll take that outdoors and then get your convenience another way a little bit . Absolutely , absolutely .
Yes , nature is so healing , and I think it , that everyone can benefit from spending more time in nature .
Because of all these travels . You do everything you've been doing . What are you doing with it ? Because I think I know you have a website . I believe you wrote a book . Can you kind of tell me what you're doing ? I think you're blogging just the whole thing .
Yeah , ever since we got our truck camper in 2012 , we started a blog called Two Epic Campers and it was just to document the travels , just to have our own record of what we're doing , and I've dabbled with that for many years . We are very reluctant to share our life online .
We're pretty private people but there's been a shift the last few years and I can attribute that to a few different people who made the decision friends of ours to turn their lives upside down and go live on the road because they were inspired by us . That really affected me to see how us just living our life impacted other people .
There's two different primary friends that did this and it changed their lives in the best way , and to witness that and for them to thank us and they they will acknowledge all the time that they wouldn't have never done it if it wasn't for us . That is why we're really pursuing growing our blog and sharing more and being more open to sharing our life publicly .
I tend to just look at it as though I'm asking for scrutiny and that freaks me out , but I need to look at the flip side of it , which is us living the way we do , just following our truth . What makes us happy .
It affects people , especially people that could potentially , you know , really thrive living in the same way and maybe never even considered living this way , which was our one friends , claire and Brandon . They had no idea that living was on the road was a thing , and then we met and they were like we have to do that . I love to write . I love photography .
I have been pursuing a daily photo taking habit of my , for this is my fifth year . I don't love super polished , glamorous , staged photos . I really love sharing life as it is . I have a very love-hate relationship with Instagram because I have a bit of a .
It definitely affects my mental health in a not-so-good way when I see things that feel that strike a chord of envy in me , but that just inspires me to be more real and honest about life , which is why I love this daily photo taking habit , because it's just very raw and honest .
My daily photo taking habit and my desire to share very honest stories about how we live has led me to a daily blog . When we go to Mexico , we always have new experiences . No , two days are the same , and so I do a daily blog with photos and a story about what that day was all about .
We have a readership of some long-term readers on our blog that follow along every day and have really been enjoying that , which is really fun to share and inspires me to keep writing and keep putting out that effort to do that , because it's definitely time consuming to make that happen every day .
But the kind of very unexpected thing that happened is I realized last year I was like this would be a pretty cool book to put together and so , yes , I have put together , just finished , our second book of our this year's Baja trip . It's called 82 Days in Mexico .
It is a full color photo book with one photo per day and one story per day of our travels through Baja , and it's a really fun time capsule and way to travel vicariously through us . If you're an armchair traveler , it's a great way to get inspired by what we're doing to do a trip like this . I tend to feel a little self-indulgent living this way .
Sometimes I just feel so lucky to live a way that makes me so happy , and there's something about the sharing and the potential to positively impact other people that makes me feel like it adds more value for me to our travelers if it could potentially bring value to other people .
Do you ever have the fear that you'll get too caught up in the ? I got to get the picture , I got to get the words out for the day that you get caught up in that and not be able to enjoy the moment .
No , luckily , years and years of practice , I have finally arrived at a place where I do not feel that way , and it's been through a lot of trial and error . And I was posting these daily posts on Instagram when I first started three years ago . That removes me from the moment .
There's something about being on my phone that takes me out of the moment and gets me more consumed with how I'm presenting ourselves . I've since , like , really backed off , like I've worked really hard to break my phone addiction habit , because being present and making sure we are enjoying our travels is really , really important to me .
I never want to be the friend that is in this amazing place but is glued to their phone . I don't want to be that wife . I just don't want to be that person in general . So , no , I have my Canon camera , is on me , you know , all the time , but I am pretty good at actually using that as a tool to bring me into the present .
It helps me to stop and go . If I want to take a photo of something , that means it's something I want to pay attention to and be really aware of . So I take the photo and then I set the camera down and then I have a laptop , a dedicated writing laptop , at the end of the night .
It's kind of how I decompress at the end of the day is just by sitting down and recapping everything that happened , but it has . I I'm not going to like sugarcoat this .
It's taken a long time to get there Because the world we live in , it is way too easy to get lost in the documenting of it and and lose sight of being present and enjoying what you're experiencing .
Oh , absolutely . I , you know I dabbling in social media myself . I mean , I know , yeah , it can . All of a sudden , you get caught up and like , wait , what's ? You know this , is it right here ?
This is the part that I love is hearing these stories and not the oh , I got to get out this post about me and Michelle doing this and you know this , is it right here ?
Exactly , I completely agree . Yeah , I think it's really important to be very mindful with our use of technology , because it's too easy to get sucked into it and totally miss out on what's happening right in front of us , whether it's the people in front of us or the environment .
Well , thank you for sharing that . So twohappycamperscom . I think it's amazing .
Do you ever sometimes just sit there and think , wow , these people follow my stories , like they've been following you for a while and like that's gotta be a little bit humbling , like , wow , have some longtime readers that I'm just so appreciative of their loyalty to our site .
It's been just amazing to have these people along , that love , following our journey , and we've even had people come up to us on the beach at Baja , completely out of nowhere , that recognize us , which is like a little startling and very flattering .
Kind of a mix of both right .
A mix of both ?
yes , so what does the future look like ? What do you think , what do you kind of want to do moving forward ?
So we have big plans . We're really excited . Baja we now refer to as a gateway drug to overland travel . Like I said , years ago I read about the Pan American Highway for the first time and for up until last year I thought that's a really cool thing that other people do . Never saw Mark and I being the type of people to do something like that .
We start going to Baja and we both agree we're like , okay , we've , we are the kind of people that would tackle such a thing . How can we make this work ? We continue to write it off , thinking that there's no way that we could , you know , afford to step away from our business for the two whole years we would want to take to do that .
We wholly subscribe to slow travel . We know people that have done the Pan American Highway in a year or less and it's pretty much driving every day and we're not looking for that pace of travel .
If we're going to set out on a journey like that , we want to really be able to savor what it is and really experience the culture and everything we're getting to see , and not want to kill each other at the end of it . So we're continuing to learn ways in which we could make that happen in a unique way that suits us and can be done slowly .
That's why we're starting this year with venturing into mainland Mexico , possibly also Guatemala and Belize , but taking the entire winter to do so . Turn around and come back to the states and then figure out when and how we can go about biting off another big chunk .
We are finding ways to extend our periods of travel and not needing to be in Colorado quite as long , and so we're pretty excited that making our way all the way to the tip of South America in our truck camper seems more and more like a thing that we're actually going to make happen , fingers crossed .
That's exciting , and I can't wait to see the picture of that when you hit that tip that's going to be awesome . That is exciting .
Yeah , it's very exciting and it's not like a goalpost for us . It's like I think a lot of people it's like you know Ushuaia is the town in the southernmost part of South America Like that's the goal get to Ushuaia .
For us it's like Then let's go , start spending our winters there , or something Like it's just about really pursuing the unknown and getting outside our comfort zone and discovering what we're capable along the way and enjoying the journey as we go .
Enjoying the journey . I love that . Yeah , I love saying that that's fantastic , this has been awesome . I'm really impressed with what you're doing . I love the fact that you're doing it for yourself and for your husband and you're finding things about who you are and other people , and it just it's .
This is why I love doing this , Cause it just it builds me up by by hearing these , these stories and these experiences of others . One last question before we call it a day for you , what does it , what does adventure mean to you ?
Oh my gosh , that's a great question . Adventure means for me , getting uncomfortable . I think we miss out on a lot in this life because we love our comforts and anytime I'm living in my truck camper and I've given up a hot shower and a flushing toilet and you know all the things that a lot of people think they could never , ever live without .
I get to see what we exchange when we give
¶ Slow Overland Travel and Growth
up those things , what we get in return , and they're things you could never imagine until you set out to discover them and be open to new things . And when you get outside your comfort zone and you do things you never would have met , have imagined doing , you are empowered .
You you see like , oh my gosh , I'm capable of so much more than I realized , and that just opens up your world to a whole new possibilities , and so I would say that that's probably what adventure means to me .
I love it . Michelle , thank you so much for coming on Journey with Jake .
Thank you so much for having me . I could have these conversations all day , so I really appreciate you having me .
Thank you so much to my guest , michelle DeVries , for coming on the show and sharing her love of slow overland travel . I appreciate her honesty about getting out of her comfort zone and what that has done for her . Be sure and check her out by visiting two happy camperscom . She is also on Instagram at two happy campers underscore .
Thanks to all of you for tuning in and listening to the show each and every week . That means so much to me . I love doing this and I've grown so much over the last few years as I have grown the show . I would love to hear from you . Send me a message on Instagram at journey with Jake podcast , or email me Jake at journey with jakenet .
We have another great episode coming your way . Next week I had the chance to speak with Katie McKee and her journey about becoming a pilot and why she loves it so much and how she found a way to pay for the training . This is another great episode you won't want to miss . Just remember it's not always about the destination as it is about the journey .
Take care everybody .