How We Designed a Life We Love for February

Today we share how we designed a life we love for February!

There is a lot of talk in the FIRE community about life design. Life design is essentially taking control of your life and making intentional choices to pursue the life you want to lead. If you want to learn more, we highly recommend the book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life.

In the spirit of life design, last fall he said something to the effect of, “Wouldn’t it be nice to escape winter for a month and go someplace warmer?” We were already dreading the approach of winter as the daylight hours shortened.

That comment was all the catalyst we needed to clear our February (one of the worst winter months) calendar to head to warmer locations.

Our Itinerary

Two weeks ago we said “goodbye” to freezing Cincinnati and headed south with our RV.

Our first stop was Jekyll Island in Georgia, where we stayed at Jekyll Island Campground for 6-nights. Jekyll welcomed us with sunshine and 60-degree temperatures. Yes, please!

After our time on Jekyll Island, we headed further south to Oak Hill, Florida to stay right on the Indian River. The day we arrived it was 80+ degrees, sunny, and breezy. As I write today, I’m literally *hot* watching dolphins, pelicans, and manatees frolic in the river. It’s incredible.

After nearly two weeks in Oak Hill, we will travel back north to Pine Mountain, Georgia to enjoy a state park and hiking before we head home.

How Can We Do This?

You may be wondering how we can do this, travel in our RV for four weeks. Who does that?!

If you’ve read our post on bold moves, you know we spent four weeks on the road last year in our RV to visit many national parks out west while I was on a leave of absence from work. Our time on the road last year was so successful and amazing, we wanted to incorporate more extended RV travel in our lives.

While it requires a lot of planning and coordination, we want to make these longer RV trips a priority. When the opportunity arises we try to take it, which is exactly how we incorporated life design for February. He hates the cold dreariness winter brings, and I’m always happy to be outside. Plus, hopefully winter won’t feel so long if we’re gone for a month. It’s a win-win.

We’re Working

You may think this month is just a long vacation for us.

That is not the case! We’re actually working quite a bit. The goal of this time was not to take a month off, but instead change locations to find weather conducive to being outside and supportive of our well-being while we (mostly) continue our day-to-days routines. We’re still working, moving our bodies, cooking meals, and enjoying time together.

The amazing part about our RV lifestyle is we have the ability to work comfortably while we travel. It’s actually one of the things we love most about the RV lifestyle. All we need is power, our laptops, decent internet service, and the willpower to work while dolphins and manatees frolic in front of us!

Some Fun, Too

Lest you think we’re only working, we are having some fun too!

We had a great time cruising around Jekyll Island riding our ECOTRIC electric bikes. The island has miles of paved, mostly flat bike trails. You can literally ride through and around the entire island on your bike. And it’s not boring scenery. You are literally riding along the beaches, marshes, and through the beautiful oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. The scenery is stunning! The cover photo was taken along the bike trail.

In addition to the bike trails, we enjoyed daily walks to the fishing pier and Driftwood Beach from our campground. Driftwood Beach is a vibe, especially at sunrise or sunset. The stark grayish-white wood against the colors of the water and sky make for a photographer’s dream. I would have stayed on Jekyll another week! The island is very casual and laid back, perfect for us.

From our location on the Indian River in Florida we drove down to see a rocket launch at 12:10a on February 12th from Space View Park in Titusville. Viewing the launch was on my husband’s bucket list, and it was a very cool experience. We were surprised the rocket wasn’t louder, but we won’t forget this memory.

We also drove the Black Point Wildlife Drive on Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. If you love seeing wildlife, especially birds, I highly recommend this 7-mile drive. We saw so many types of bird, turtles, armadillos, and alligators! Big and small alligators. We even saw a large alligator crossing the road after the scenic drive, which was unbelievably wild!

We couldn’t pass up an opportunity to check off another NPS location, and made a stop at Cape Canaveral National Seashore. Yup, we’re still making good use of our America the Beautiful pass and you know we stopped at the Visitor Center so I could stamp my passport book! Side note: did you know CCNS has a nude beach? We were very surprised by this (and did not partake)!

Living the Good Life

As of today our time in Florida is nearing an end. We’ll leave in the next few days to head to Pine Mountain, Georgia before we make our way home.

For us historically travel has been a time to completely (well, try to) disconnect from work. However, as we continue to design a life we love, we’ve learned we can travel more if we work while we travel. We have embraced this for February and are enjoying the good life!

For those intrigued by life design, I hope our story of how we designed a life we love for February inspires you to examine what’s important to you. After you figure out what’s important, try to take small steps to incorporate more of that into your day-to-day. You will have to make tradeoffs, which is why it’s so crucial to understand what’s important to you.

I’m curious to hear from you… Have you used life design to enhance your life? What changes or adjustments had the biggest impact on your life?

Tell me in the comments below!

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