How we got to this point...

Hello and welcome to the first article on our website!

I’ll get right to the point, since we didn’t explain much on our Happy 2021 cards.

Matthew and I are moving out of our apartment in Chicago and buying a Tesla Model Y (the modern horse) and a Taxa Cricket trailer (the modern covered wagon) - hence the name of our website. Yes, we’re going to live in a trailer on the road. We want to expand our living space beyond our one-bedroom apartment but more importantly we want to expand our minds.

I know this may sound sudden to all of you dear readers, so let me break down how we slowly came to this decision.

Matthew and I both enjoy living small in our one-bedroom apartment. Don’t get me wrong, our gorgeous one-bedroom is spacious and filled with light so we didn’t struggle to find enough room for our possessions and plants. It’s one of the many reasons we’ve stayed for so long (Matthew for 12 years and I for close to 9 years). This apartment has been such a wonderful home for us to embrace adulthood and each other. We’ve never found another apartment or condo that has a room of requirement like this apartment does. Our dining room has transformed into the following rooms: office, yoga studio, dance floor, dining room, music hall, library and more. It’s been hard to think of leaving this space; so much of ourselves have happened between these walls.

By the end of 2019 we felt ready to move on with our lives and buy a home. We were going to buy a condo with all the cool amenities (like a rooftop deck, proximity to the lake, and in unit laundry - oh the luxury!) we don’t have in our current apartment. However it turns out that we were wrong. Once the realities of the pandemic hit (for us that was around end of May 2020), we knew that buying a condo just wasn’t in the cards for us. We didn’t want to buy into a small condo with a lot of shared spaces (now closed due to the pandemic) which was the original plan to keep our costs down. It also didn’t seem worth it to give up a great apartment that we love now since stay at home orders were in place.

We were sad that our condo plans were thwarted but we were still ready to move out and on so we went to the next item on our life plan - buying a mobile vacation vehicle. We were inspired by our 2018 trip to Iceland where we rented a VW California sleeper van to use as transportation as well as lodging. We loved the freedom we felt on the road knowing we had lodging wherever we stopped that night because we brought it with us.

Although there are so many options for mobile living (including adventure vans, RVs and travel trailers), we limited our choices to electric cars and the trailers those cars can tow. Tesla has the best charging network across the country and was the best choice for us. We chose the Taxa Cricket because it’s very lightweight and so compact it can fit in a standard garage.

We feel ready for the road! We don’t have a specific destination because being on the road is the point. We want to see the country and speak with other Americans. I feel culturally distanced from my own country and I want to remove that distance physically as well as mentally.

Now this is where you come in dear reader. We’d love to come visit you no matter where you are in the country. We’d also love company along our travels. If you have a dream destination and want some company please let us know! Please send us an email at ecoveredwagon@gmail.com with your address or dream destination.

We’re looking forward to seeing you along our journey and sharing our travelogues with all of you dear readers!