And the end of another year is upon us! 2025 wraps up 19 years on the road for us together! We brought in the new year in Austin, TX and end is in Sante Fe, NM – with many adventures in between. Y-Not (boat): 976.2 nautical miles – 218 nights Blooper (van): 8565 miles – 110 [… … | Continue reading
Our 2025 cruising season was dedicated to just the Chesapeake Bay. We departed Chesapeake, VA on the southern end on April 25, 2025 and had our final stop in the northern end in Havre de Grace, MD six months later. Great Loopers following a more traditional 1 year journey might o … | Continue reading
After Labor Day weekend was over (affectionally also known as ‘Nomad Liberation Day’) – we left the Chester River, re-entering the Chesapeake Bay. After a few weeks of poking around quaint small towns on the Eastern Shore of the upper bay, we decided we were ready for some bigger … | Continue reading
We had explored just about all we could along the Choptank River on the Upper Chesapeake’s Eastern Shore, so it was time to transit to the next bay north. After some weather moved through, we ventured back out from Oxford (with a couple quarts of ice cream, of course) and passed … | Continue reading
After our highly social visit to Solomon’s Island after cruising back down the Potomac River concluding our adventure packed 40-nights in DC – we were now officially in the Upper Chesapeake Bay. And we had a choice. We could either continue up the Chesapeake Bay to explore Annapo … | Continue reading
We get a lot of questions about why we choose to anchor out so much, and what criteria we use when we do choose to stay at a marina. It may come as a surprise – but anchoring out is not always about saving money. We anchor out not because it’s free, but because it’s […] The post … | Continue reading
After our abundant 40-night stay in downtown DC, it was time to drop the lines, and start our cruise back down the Potomac River. As we had saved some other popular stops during our transit up for this return trip, so we were excited to explore some new-to-us areas as we made our … | Continue reading
Our sojourn up the Potomac River had a destination at the terminus – Washington, DC. DC is quite the side trip off the official Great Loop route, but it has been a bucket list level visit for us. We’ve visited a few times in past by RV and train, but for just a couple days […] Th … | Continue reading
There has been an explosion of interest in the Great Loop lately – in large part due to legendary “Jon Boat Guy” Robert Yuouens becoming a viral sensation for racing around the Loop in just 19 days, 13 hours. Solo. In a ridiculously small jon boat. His epic adventure has sparked … | Continue reading
After a couple months of cruising around the lower Chesapeake Bay and being in smaller quaint towns, we felt we were ready to start our transit up the Potomac River. For we knew at the navigable terminus, Washington, DC was awaiting us – and we’d be sucked into an extended stay. … | Continue reading
We have been doing mobile internet for nearly two decades now. Back when 3G was just emerging and satellite internet was a pain in the rear to use. While technology has rapidly advanced over the years making internet on the go substantially faster and easier – it still takes some … | Continue reading
Continuing our lower Chesapeake Bay cruising, we had just explored the Northern Neck and crossed the bay routing through Tangier Island. The goal was to spend some time poking around the Eastern Shore along the Delmarva Penisula. These adventures cover May 20 – June 8, picking up … | Continue reading
When last we left you, we had just left the Rappahannock River and made a last minute decision to anchor in Little Bay – instead of making a longer cruising day towards Reedville. This proved to be quite serendipitous, and lined up some stops we wouldn’t have considered otherwise … | Continue reading
It’s almost hysterical to look back on our content from eight years ago – back when we set out on the American Great Loop intending to split it over multiple years. Probably .. just.. 2-3 years? And here we are, eight years later and we’ve not even completed a 1/3 of it. So we th … | Continue reading
Are you ready for some cruising content!? Good, because our 2025 return to the Great Loop is well underway, and we have a lot of adventures to catch you up on. We’ve come to say that boating is mostly awesome serene passages & anchorages, some fixing of things in exotic places mi … | Continue reading
And just like that, after 6 weeks of non-stop boat projects at Atlantic Yacht Basin – we have cruised away and resumed our Great Loop! If you prefer a video format, we also have this post filmed for you too: Boatyard Wrap-Up We tackled a lot of projects during our time at Atlanti … | Continue reading
We’ve now been back to Y-Not at Atlantic Yacht Basin in Chesapeake, VA for just about a month now. It’s been a chaotic month with a lot of boat projects, which should soon be wrapping up. Last week, we were hauled out to attend to the jobs that can only happen out of the water [… … | Continue reading
With winter showing signs of breaking and turning to spring, it was time to start a slow roll back east towards boat life. But of course, not without some adventures along the way! Here’s the route we took back after our time in the Rio Grande Valley: Stop 1: Needville, TX – Braz … | Continue reading
Today marks NINETEEN years since I first set off on the road, trading a San Francisco high rise apartment and a Silicon Valley career for a life of adventure and exploration. If I could travel back in time to give my pre-nomadic past self a glimpse of the future, I am not sure wh … | Continue reading
We first participated in the Space Coast Marathon in Florida back in 2011 – that time, Chris ran the 1/2 and I walked the 1/2. We were only vaguely trained up for it. It would be over a decade until we entered our next running event. Life, travel, businesses had us put less focus … | Continue reading
Oh wow. I thought I’d come update the blog about our Texas adventures these past few weeks and realized that I haven’t yet even documented getting to Texas! I guess my brief mention in our 2024 Travel Route & Year in Review post mentally checked those adventures off my list. So, … | Continue reading
Oh wow. I thought I’d come update the blog about our Texas adventures these past few weeks and realized that I haven’t yet even documented getting to Texas! I guess my brief mention in our 2024 Travel Route & Year in Review post mentally checked those adventures off my list. So, … | Continue reading
And just like that.. it’s time for our annual travel wrap up! Where has the time gone? Oh right.. adventures! And lots of them. 2024 wraps up 18 years on the road for us together! This year started with Zephyr going right into storage back in our lot in Benson, AZ and setting off … | Continue reading
Oh boy.. didn’t I say in my last post that I shouldn’t let a month go by in-between blog posts? Yeah, I obviously have missed that goal! Well, suffice it to say, we are solidly back to van life since leaving Y-Not safely behind in her winter storage location in southern Virginia. … | Continue reading
After a delightful stay in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, we had time for one last adventure this cruising season before winter arrives. We decided on a relatively rarely done side trip up the James River to check out Richmond, VA – or RVA as commonly called. The river is na … | Continue reading
After an exciting crossing of the Albemarle Sound, we enjoyed a couple days just swinging on the hook off of Goat Island – at the entrance of the Dismal Swamp. It was delightful, and just what we needed to recharge. With some weather developing off of Carolina coast that might im … | Continue reading
We rode out the Labor Day holiday weekend in New Bern, NC – a side trip off the Intracoastal Waterway up the Neuse River. We ended up extending our stay by a day, as windy conditions had small craft advisories on the Neuse River for our journey back down river. As the Neuse opens … | Continue reading
We left Wilmington after a delightful month full of new friends, great food, entertainment and just immersing ourselves in an enchanting city. But we left with a little bit of concern for Kiki and her starting to not finish her meals – a fairly normal sometimes behavior. After cr … | Continue reading
First of all, a big huge thank you for all of the supporting and loving comments to the passing of our Admiral Kiki. It’s been a tough few weeks, but it’s time to resume the blog. This entry takes us back to the before times, when Kiki was still healthy and everything in our worl … | Continue reading
It is with deep sadness in our hearts that we share that our beloved Kiki passed away last week (Monday, July 29th) after nearly 16 years of full time nomadic adventures with us. The boat feels so empty without her. Kiki conquered our hearts back in November 2008. We had stopped … | Continue reading
After leaving Charleston in our wake, we took a turn to the north and were officially resuming our Great Loop. It was a windy day with some sporty chop on the harbor, but once we turned into the protected waters of Isles of Palms, things smoothed out considerably. But now we had … | Continue reading
A few weeks ago, we left Charleston in our wake and officially picked up where we left off on our Great Loop back in 2019. We thought this would be a good time to recap what the Great Loop is, our history with it, why we went on an extended pause and what our intentions […] The p … | Continue reading
After a marvelous couple of days in downtown Savannah, we were excited to continue northbound up the ICW. We thought we were getting back into our cruising grove, and enjoying the variety that life on the water can bring. Time with friends, time in remote gorgeous anchorages and … | Continue reading
Though we have two built in Garmin MFDs (multi-function displays which show sonar, radar, and charts) on our boat Y-Not – we have always relied on iPads as our primary chart plotters for navigation. The iPads offer a huge variety of marine apps – and these apps feature MUCH bette … | Continue reading
It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few weeks since we left Sanford in our wake, resuming our active cruising lifestyle. I originally thought I’d do one post wrapping up our segment up to Charleston, our turn around point of our first attempt at the Great Loop. But we were alre … | Continue reading
It’s hard to believe 4 years have flown by since we pulled into Sanford, FL as our pandemic shelter in place location. We knew that COVID wasn’t going away anytime soon, and Sanford felt like the right place to hunker down to ride it out. We’d be near family, friends and have dec … | Continue reading
First of all… a HUGE thank you to everyone who left a comment on Chris’ 18th Nomadiversary / April Fools Day post. This post generated more comments than any other in ages, and it absolutely warms our hearts that so many are still following along after all these years. The post a … | Continue reading
Today marks EIGHTEEN years since I first set off on the road, trading a San Francisco apartment and a Silicon Valley career for a life of adventure and exploration. So how has it been going? Time to settle down? Mission accomplished yet? Hardly. If anything – it feels as if I’ve … | Continue reading
We enjoyed a delightful couple of months finishing out 2023 at our RV lot at SKP Saguaro in Benson, Arizona – living aboard Zephyr again, exploring the area and surrounded by amazing friendships. But it was time to pack Blooper back up, get Zephyr back in the storage lot and make … | Continue reading
Last year we went out on a van adventure, starting in Florida to Oregon, Arizona and back again. And we recorded what RV mobile internet options we used at each stop. We’ve shared the travelogues from each segment on this blog if you want to dive into the trip details. We thought … | Continue reading
One of the many reasons we picked SKP Saguaro Co-Op RV Park as our nomadic port to store Zephyr and return to in winters – is the location in Benson, AZ is convenient to so much to explore. It’s about an hour from Tucson. In the past we’ve explored nearby Kartchner Caverns, Patag … | Continue reading
We just wrapped up our 2023/2024 winter season at our co-op lot in Benson, Arizona at SKP Saguaro. We became lifetime leaseholders at this Escapees park back in 2018, intending it to be our winter nomadic port. Since we got our lot, Benson is now where our vintage bus Zephyr live … | Continue reading
It’s the end of another year, and a time to reflect back before moving on. This tradition of annual wrap-up posts has become part of the fun of sharing for us. 2023 wraps up 17 years on the road for us together! We had a nicely split year between our 3 nomadic vessels: Y-Not (boa … | Continue reading
Over the past many months, we’ve gotten so many compliments on how we’re looking these days. If that includes you, thank you so much! Yes indeed, we’ve both lost a good deal of weight since our highs at the start of the pandemic. It’s been a slow gradual process over the past thr … | Continue reading
After we said our ‘until next times’ to dear friends at EclipseFest23, it was time turn the wheels towards Arizona and wrap up this segment of our van travels. Although we do wish we had a few more weeks to play with, as we have so many friends in Oregon we would have loved to [… … | Continue reading
Grand Junction, CO was sort of our bail out point if we decided we didn’t want to proceed to EclipseFest23 in Oregon. We could have easily turned south and headed straight to Zephyr in Benson, AZ instead. By the time we reached it, our excitement was mounting – especially knowing … | Continue reading
Oh boy, have I fallen behind on keeping the blog updated with our cross country van trip towards EclipseFest23 in Oregon. Last we left you, we had just settled into St. Louis for some time with family after our drive from Florida. That seems like a lifetime ago at this point! I s … | Continue reading
With the heat index staying in triple digits numbers in Florida, we decided to move up our departure from Sanford a bit and start heading north sooner rather than later. So on August 24th, after a week of prepping the van for a big road trip across country, and getting Y-Not secu … | Continue reading