Our departure date is approaching fast! That means I only have a few days to tell you, Reader, what our plans and goals are so that you can hold us to them!

As I mentioned in my inaugural post, we have some pretty serious travel planned for the spring. Just before the holidays last year, we were taking stock of the world and our place in it and wondering if there was anything else we could be doing to capitalize on the unique situation the pandemic has forced upon us. We had attempted to sew our own masks, participated in drive-by baby showers and birthday parades, tried at-home hair cuts, did a home renovation, and started fostering puppies – besides getting weirdly into baking bread (which is still on our to-do list, don’t worry), we were feeling pretty good about our pandemic bingo cards. The only thing we could think of that was left to do was to physically be somewhere else. 

We had both been working from home nearly 100% of the time, and figured from that point we had maybe 5 months until vaccines were widely available and we might get called back to our offices. That gave us a 5 month window to do something fun and have our big COVID adventure. Wisconsin is actually awesome in the summer and even some days in later spring, so we knew we wanted to be back in time for that turn in the seasons. So we tentatively landed on the month of March for our digital nomad residency in another state. 

After we had that sketched in, the next item on the list was to pick a destination. Our criteria for  a location were: 

• Warmer climes – One of the things that has made the pandemic such a buzzkill this winter is that it is freezing cold where we live. During the summer we could at least make do with outdoor dining, activities, and hang outs with a few friends. During the winter though, that is very rarely an option. We don’t plan on eating out every night, or throwing parties or anything, but having the option to safely gather outdoors would lend a sense of normalcy to the whole arrangement, and normalcy is something we are desperately craving.
• Proximity to outdoor adventures – We were originally thinking that it would be super nice to just go somewhere warm with access to a beach and relax there for a month or two. But after noodling on it for a bit, we decided that a beach retreat wouldn’t actually add too much to our daily routine. We would be doing everything we’re doing now, but be able to walk on a beach after work. We decided the location must be a good jumping off point for things we’ve never done or seen before, and we’ve actually spent a fair bit of time at the beach.
• Access to wifi – Tragically, this trip will not be a vacation in the traditional sense. We are going to continue to work our day jobs and for that we will need continuous access to reliable wifi. This means no camping or van living. 
• Dog must be welcome – Listen, Dog is objectively the best dog in the entire world, so there was no shortage of people who volunteered to take him while we trekked, but honestly, the thought of spending that much time away from him totally wrecked us. Plus, we’re thinking that most adventures are going to be parks-based and Dog loves parks. So he’s coming with!
• Can’t break the bank – We’re not millionaires. We’ve got a mortgage and bills back home for a house that will be sitting empty and accounts that we won’t be using for at least one month, maybe longer. That said, we have been saving more money than expected due to the pandemic. Thousands of dollars in would-be season tickets, restaurant bills, concerts, league fees, and flights that were cancelled and refunded are now sitting in the bank. We did allocate a fair chunk of that extra savings to our home renovation project over the summer, but figured we could swing this whole live-from-one-place-work-from-another situation for a few months at the right price. 

With all of those considerations in mind, we landed on a month-long Airbnb rental in northern Arizona. It worked out pretty perfectly actually. We had been looking forward to a week-long AZ adventure in the spring of 2020 to celebrate a friend’s wedding and do some hiking, but that was one of the first personal casualties for us when the lockdowns went into place. So we had already scoped out a couple of awesome days there that were pretty easy to pick back up and fit into a month-long trip. Add in a quick google search for “fun things to do in AZ” and it seems like we could probably fill up a whole year with experiences in Sedona, Flagstaff, Prescott, and the surrounding parks. The town where we’ll be staying does experience snow with some regularity, but average high temps for March tend to be around 50-65 – positively balmy compared to where we’re coming from. So that takes care of the first two items on our list which were more location-based. The next three items had more to do with the dwelling and booking service we selected. We were in a bit of a pickle with this one. We knew we couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel for a month – they have high base rates and usually charge by the night for a dog, plus they don’t have full kitchens so we would be eating out for almost every meal. We do have some friends and relatives that live in and around Phoenix, but imposing on someone like that for a week, let alone a month didn’t sound great either. I opened up Airbnb to see what was out there but wasn’t optimistic. In our experience, Airbnbs are cooler stays than hotels, but can be just as pricey, if not pricier, on a per night basis. The first thing the Airbnb app asked me when I opened it up was something like, “Are you looking for an extended stay (month or longer)?” which seemed pretty serendipitous. It turns out LOADS of places on Airbnb offer discounts (like between 40-60%) for month-long stays! We only had a rough idea of the location we wanted and could set the date range to be flexible, so we had tons of awesome options in a few different cities. The only thing we were strict on was the dog policy (a lot of Airbnbs list as pet-friendly, but then outline distinctly unfriendly policies in their house rules). We ended up finding a place, chatting with the hosts, and booking the full month of March on the day after Christmas. All in, the price for the month was just over $2,100. 

Up next we’ll do a post on how we’re getting to northern AZ (spoiler: we’re driving) and all the stops we plan to make on the way.