There is something to be said for staying home and just kicking back.
Having said that, there is something restorative about getting out of Dodge and relaxing outside of your regular environment. One thing I love about the vintage trailer experience is that it allows me both luxuries.
For me, relaxing is nothing to do but read, go for walks or bike rides, journal, explore, and munch. For others it looks different, but one thing vintage travel trailer unwinding offers, is that it can be such a custom experience. You make the adventure, you set the time lines, you control the environment. Tent camping has some of those features. I tent and car camped for 25 years. The one twist, is the tent itself, even a big tent, never seemed cozy or refreshing. Utilitarian and perhaps on the right trip even comfortable, but never cozy.
Not having to worry about outdoor conditions like wet or dry, mud or dust, cold or muggy heat with no wind, can open up your possibilities for relaxing. Not having to stow your gear in a fashion wild animals can’t get at it, and being able to lock the door on your sleeping accommodations offers some sense of security as well. I love, absolutely love a good campfire roast or sing along after dark. Cooking scrambled eggs in the rain and getting coffee started by means of getting a roaring fire going with damp wood, not as fun. Sleeping with rocks underneath me is also less exciting at 50 than it was at 20 something. I am not saying I haven’t loved those adventures, in fact it’s how I chose to spend my honeymoon over 20 years ago, and I am willing to do it again.
Even though I love traditional tent camping, it is so nice to have food inside when it’s preferable, no rocks under my hips when sleeping, no soggy sleeping bags, and coffee or a hot meal at the flick of a gas burner, then stepping outside to enjoy nature until bedtime and locking the door when I go to bed.
The old saying aptly reminds us:
“Travel, the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”
I would agree with this wholeheartedly. Something changes in a person when they get outside of their usual environment. You see yourself and others with fresh eyes. I am not a worldly traveler. I have a passport now because it was a priority on my bucket list. I have not used it once since I have owned it, but it gives me freedom just knowing I have it. My possibilities are enlarged. Having access to a travel trailer that is small, comfortable, and Lo-tech offers me a different kind of passport. It beckons me to come slow down without the trappings or obligations of an address, but gives me the old fashioned sense of a dwelling.
The travel trailers have amenities, but not bells and whistles. They have the basics, but not the instant gratification of satellite tv. You have to slow down and engage. You have to make the coffee on the stovetop, plan a meal, use a rotary can opener, and pull the sofa into a bed. It has the earmarks of slowing life down and enjoying the process more than hotel resorts that do absolutely everything for you, yet leave you by and large unengaged. In the vintage trailers you step outside and you are in nature choosing what comes next, not on a stuffy tour bus. The experience repeatedly reminds you that you have stepped back in time a bit, without the modern push button experiences.
There is some old fashioned waiting for things, but since you are on vacation, you don’t mind. It is centering to get out of the noise of instant, and relax with the quiet, where the whirring you hear is from a cricket, not a game console or microwave fan. It is letting the batch of brownies in the oven baking give you time to set out the outdoor table with a tablecloth and watch the sunset on the landscape overtake the daylight. It is the choice of napping, or reading in the shade, or on the sofa lying on the down comforter. It is opening the window to smell the ocean breeze, or take in the earthy forest outside your door, instead of switching on the air conditioning. It is traveling and resting, all in the same deep breath.
It’s having coffee in bed in the morning.
If you would like to experience traveling in the slow lane, choosing the pace and arriving to a turnkey camping experience, might I suggest contacting us today about renting one of our vintage trailers.
Auntie Mil or Thelma Lou can help you slow down and recharge;
All you will be in charge of, is when to turn out the lights.
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