After 1,318 days of living on the road, I have signed a lease for an apartment!  No more mornings spent packing up my backpack before checkout time.  No more afternoons spent wondering where I would sleep later that evening.  I have a home, for now.

For the last 4 years, without the daily responsibility of a job or the fiscal obligation of rent, I’ve been free to embark on some amazing adventures – sailing across the South Pacific Ocean, volunteering in Chile and Thailand, and exploring various coffee shops, public libraries, and friends’ living rooms in search of free WiFi.  

I’ve also been free to invest the time required to launch a new career as a Sailing Instructor, Yacht Deliverer, and Charter Skipper.   

As you recall, in 2015 I set out to “chart a new course.” Since then, things have worked out quite well, perhaps even better than I expected.   

Looking ahead in 2019, with no extended travel in the foreseeable future and with steady work at OCSC Sailing School, I will be in the San Francisco Bay Area for an indefinite amount of time.   

With the scales of international travel versus domestic living tipping back in favor of domestic living, it makes more sense to have a home base for the near term. (Previously, with a much higher percentage of my time spent abroad, living rent-free made the most economic sense.)

So, I found and leased a little apartment in San Carlos, the City of Good Living, for 2019. It’s walking distance to downtown and just a mile from my house (which remains rented). 

After living out of a backpack, a laptop bag, and a gear bag for four years (~5 cubic feet), I had mixed feelings as the contents of my 10x20 storage unit (~1,200 cubic feet) burst into the closets and corners of the 1-bedroom apartment.  It was great to spread out … but, my oh my, where did I get all this STUFF?

Marie Kondo, please save me!  Spring cleaning is ahead, and will certainly continue into the summer, as I try to purge a lot of what I have easily lived without (and not even really thought about) for 1,318 days.

That said, I’m already enjoying the quiet space that I can call home, the same home, every night. My familiar couch.  A home-cooked meal.  No check-out time.

Apart from purging, I did make one other promise to myself:  Dannyboy still travels…   (I just may not be gone for months at a time, at least not in 2019.)