Road Trip Bingo Card

On the first day of our road trip, I got the idea of creating a bingo card that’d be specific to our trip. I thought it would be super fun for us to write down scenarios and activities we both wanted to happen or to do, and see how much of it we can cross off. We spent a few days brainstorming ideas we really liked and for the ‘free spot’, we decided we could only cross it off if we still loved each other at the end of the trip. Luckily for us, we were able to check off the free spot and more boxes than I ever expected to.

As you can see, we managed to do a lot. Some of it was planned and some of it happened unintentionally. A few of our favorites include discovering a hidden gem, hopping in lakes and rivers💦, and making a meal entirely on a campfire. I think one thing these all have in common is that they made us feel excited about living.🤩

It’s not everyday you discover a fantastic new spot that hasn’t been blown up by social media, or do cold plunges in nature, or cook a meal over a heat source you created yourself🔥. These made us feel really connected to our surroundings and have been some of the greatest gifts and memories from our road trip. I honestly wish the kind of adventure we found everyday on the road was our normal life. 

Other things we did like picking and eating fresh produce, getting other hikers to join us to hop in a cold lake, and seeing a national geographic moment unfold before my eyes 📸 have also made life so amazing and worth experiencing. 

I won’t keep rattling on about these amazing moments since I’ve talked about a lot of them throughout my blog posts.  However, I do want to discuss a few things I didn’t previously mention.

Make money through UGC content: A wellness company I got to know from my previous job wanted to work with me to get some UGC (user-generated content) out of our road trip and I was down to make a little money 💵. During the weeks leading up to the trip, the company and I discussed and reached an agreement about the kind of content they wanted and they sent samples of their products for me to bring on the road. From our deliverables (photos and videos), we made $2,100. 

Skinny dip: Skinny dipping was probably one of the most exciting activities we did but never discussed in my other posts. We always played it by ear and tried to do it with as little risk as possible. Our goal was to just do it once so it was pretty awesome that we got to do it 3 times🙊. It’s something I hope everyone gets to try at some point because why not. (I feel like it’s a really natural thing to do.) I’m glad that I can cross this off my 2023 New Year’s Resolutions list too.

Figure out what we’re doing after the road trip: We did this road trip hoping to get some clarity on where we wanted to be and what we wanted to do but honestly, we were almost as clueless at the end of the trip as we were when we started. 🤔 Neither of us were strongly drawn to a place or job, so we’ve just continued working through this slightly confusing stage of life over the last few months while working/job hunting in California. 

I personally think lots of people who are in a similar stage in life as me and Cam, or even slightly older, live sometimes feeling aimless, lost, or restless. It can come from a lot of things but from my experience, I’ve noticed it the most when I feel a lack of community, find little to no joy in the work I’m doing, or feel this desperate need to improve and grow, but not sure in which direction. 

I wanted to talk about this a little in case other people feel similarly and to bust the myth that a magical trip is the answer to gaining the clarity you’ve been searching for. (I mean maybe it may work for some people but for most people, probably not.) 

Anyway, I want to thank you for coming along this journey with me and reading about our road trip. I know revisiting each part of our trip has made me feel like we finished it just last week as opposed to over 2 months ago. If you haven’t read about our time in Grand Teton National Park, Utah, Canada, or even Western CO, be sure to check those out! (There's more too.) I hope you got a taste of our adventures and are hungry for your own. 💕