We have had lots of people asking how we packed for a year-long trip to Europe. The short answer is: we each took one pack and one smaller bag, and we did lots of research on what to put in them. The long answer… well, I could talk for about five minutes just on how we arranged our bags. Which I did. In this video.
And… we’re here! (London, that is.) After several weeks of constant travel–which you can always follow along real-time via Instagram and Snapchat!–we are semi-settled in one place and back to blogging. We have lots of stories to share and are working on new ways to share them. This week we’ll be trying to play catch up so we’re dumping a lot of posts at once. And you’re even getting the pleasure of multiple videos :) Hope you don’t mind! We’re always working on improving those random videos, but as Tyler has been pushing me.. “finished is more important than perfect!” This video is a condensed look at our flight(s) to Europe. The trip was relatively uneventful, even with a couple delays thrown in there. We were caught in the middle of being immensely excited and in a surreal fog. The departure from Philadelphia was a rush of goodbyes and catching trains and realizing we had to check the bags we’d planned to carry on. We didn’t end up loving our experience with Iceland Air, and probably won’t fly …
So here’s our second half of the trip! If you want to see the first half– Anchorage to Seattle– check it out here! No one can deny the beauty of the mountains as you come down through Alaska, the Yukon, and British Columbia. However, as the blanket of terrain smoothed out and the mountains were pushed down to hills and then plains, we began to remember the love we had for the Midwest and corn fields and grasslands. We say it all the time, but it’s true– we leave a piece of our hearts every place we’ve lived. But for now.. across to Detroit! Missoula, Montana sleep– this hotel is exactly what you’d picture for montana– a huge wooden lodge// we see this place every time we drive through and haven’t stayed but admire it from afar// i did some research for you all and it turns out this hotel is as fun inside as out! hot tubs and trees. need i say more. eat– this locally famous ice cream shop is located at the edge of a neighborhood and looks …
It took us just three and a half days to drive between these two cities. We had everything we owed– plus three adults!– in the car and trailer pictured above. It was a tight fit and long, long days of constant driving. Would we recommend a slower pace, allowing for leisurely sight-seeing? Yes. Yes, we would. Either way though, you have to stop and sleep, eat, and maybe even shop somewhere! Here are some of the bigger cities on the first half of our trip, and our top recommendations for places you should sleep, eat, and shop!
So you can keep up with us in spirit, here is the route we’re currently driving. We have budgeted about ten days for the trip, which is shaving off a good four or five days from our trip up last summer! The drive down the Alcan (the Alaska Canada Highway) is gorgeous and remote. It’s a popular road trip route for those who are looking for pristine nature views… and a little bit of roughing it. There are very few places to stop and eat/sleep/refuel, but you get to see plenty of wildlife and enjoy the simplicity of a two lane highway under constant re-construction ;) We saw mostly semi trucks and RVs last year, and we expect similar vehicles to share the road this summer. After heading straight down on the Alcan, we’ll hang a sharp left and start across the mighty West and cross off more nearly-empty states. This land lies in stark contrast to the mountainous Canadian portion of our road trip. While we found that Montana does rival Alaska in some of …
Long time no see, friends! It has been awhile since we’ve posted.. we’ve been in the throes of moving. Packing all our things, selling belongings, moving out of our apartment, temporary residence in our friends’ home, #allthecrazy! But now.. we are already on the road and out of Alaska. How has this time arrived already?! Year one of travel. Done. We said from the beginning– and had to convince many an Alaskan doubter– that we would not allow the Last Frontier to entice us to settle down. We accomplished the feat, but not without doubts of our own and a part of our hearts permanently stamped with a longing for the wild north. But now it’s time for the next season of our adventure! Since we’ve been getting lots of questions from friends and family that we’ve seen in person– and we assume there would be questions from other distant connections if you even realized this time had arrived– we decided it was about the right moment to announce our plans for the next year. …
Seattle has always been a city where I wanted to live someday. During one of my “life sciences” classes in high school, we had to create an imaginary budget for our future life in a future city. I picked Seattle. Unlike most people, I have always loved rain and don’t really mind the cold. So, the varied and vast range of food, beer, and culture has always been my main draw to the Emerald City. However, enter Linda. My beautiful wife grew up in the warm and sunny South and tends to avoid things like rain and cold like the plague. So, with our wonderful union, my hopes, dreams, and imaginary budget for Seattle were washed away. But all is not lost! For we had a chance to visit Seattle on our way to Anchorage! And guess what? It was warm AND sunny. I spent most of the day trying to convince Linda that it was like this year round. Did she buy it? Absolutely not. But at least we stayed dry the entire day and a …
A week ago we had three new members arrive to our house from Indiana. Hobbes flew in– spoiled thing– and my friend and her boyfriend made the drive up. It was a little chaotic to have our household more than double in size within a couple days, but it was so fun to have some of our favorites all in one place! Hearing about our friends’ trip brought back lots of memories from our own drive, which had been completed exactly a month prior. We decided the occasion called for a little reminiscing on the blog, and we finally put together our footage from our trip. (About time, right?!) We managed to cut down literally hours of short clips into three manageable sections, the first being our trip from Marion to Seattle. We hope you enjoy getting a look at our week of traveling the American West! I present to you: The Murphmans Drive to Alaska: Part One OR Life Through Our Side View Mirror OR We Thumbs Up Everyone, Everywhere Sometimes it hits us how …
One thing that I love about budgeting is its predictability. Every month in Indiana, I knew what we would make and what we would spend. I could predict the fixed monthly costs (mortgage, utilities, insurance, etc.) and set aside the rest for more fluid costs (groceries, restaurants, entertainment, etc.) I find an odd comfort in that system and order. Now, imagine taking all that order and predictability and throwing it out the window… because we decided to move to Alaska. I’d planned for day trips, weeklong trips, and even month long trips. But I’d never planned to move my entire life and live somewhere new for an whole year. That took a new type of plan. Sometimes planning is synonymous with saving, and so that is what we did. As soon as we decided to move, we decided to start saving…..big time. Anytime we were under budget at the end of a month, we would put every penny in our “Alaska Fund”. Anything we sold would go into our Alaska Fund. Found some loose change on the ground? Alaska Fund. I honestly didn’t …
This is our Good Eats: Roadtrip Edition. We did some meal planning even for our trip! It was a much looser schedule, but since we were on a budget we wanted to think through things in advance. Haste and spontaneity are the enemies of budgets. (Sorry all you free birds out there… but you can always budget spontaneous splurges into the budget!) I started brainstorming (and pinterest researching) early on, but was disappointed to see that all the resources I found online were geared towards one-day-long — at the most– road trips with kids. Not helpful when I was planning for two weeks of driving without the guarantee of refrigeration. So I came up with my own list of possibilities:
the murphmans 