Our Routine for Drive Days

The drive into Washington state from western Idaho… Because we’re working on the road (we’re not on a perpetual vacation, despite how it might look), we have really specific routines about how and when we drive. I thought some of you might find this interesting, so read on for how we handle drive days. First, we try to only drive once a week, if possible, contained to a Saturday or Sunday.  This allows us to have several “regular” days in a place where we just do normal routine things – working most of the day while the girls entertain one another, then having family time with the kids around lunch and from dinner to bedtime. If we spend 5 or 6 nights in a place there’s less pressure to go out and do things or see sights every day, which ensures we can get work done and still have fun too, and not spend too much money. If we do drive more than once per week, we don’t drive two days in a row simply for sanity’s sake (outside of the first and last weekend of the trip). With the trailer and stopping so the kids can go to the bathroom, it takes us 1.5x the time Google thinks it’ll be to get anywhere. Driving two 6 or 8+ hour days with a 2 year old is not my idea of a good time, so we just don’t do it.  Last year we decided that secondary drive days, when they are necessary, should be Wednesdays and sticking to that has really helped us both from a work standpoint and also developing a routine with the kids. Limiting drives to a Saturday or Sunday and rare Wednesdays does mean that we don’t get to see as much in a summer, but it works pretty well on all other fronts. Are you a digital nomad? How frequently do you move around? Leave me a comment, I’d love to know how it works for other families.