When Daniel Walsh left a 20-year career as an English teacher and administrator for the New York Education Department, he was looking for the same thing many people are: a little excitement.
“I knew I wanted to do some travel, and a life on the road in the U.S. full-time was an option,” said Dr. Walsh, 55. “But doing something abroad was also an avenue.”
Before he left New York in 2021, he began researching the first option: a nomadic life traveling around the continental United States in a travel trailer.
“I looked at dozens, if not hundreds, of travel trailers, and they tend to have a hotel-slash-diner feel to them,” he said. “I definitely wanted something that was warmer and more personalized than that.”
When he stumbled upon the work of Perpetually Devastated, a small company in Coquille, Ore., that customizes vintage Airstream trailers — in the process, making them look more like chic country houses or cabins — he was impressed. So he contacted the company’s founders, Parker Bolden and Bethany Williams, and commissioned a bespoke trailer of his own.
The couple found a 22-foot-long Airstream Safari built in 1965 and began working with Dr. Walsh to develop a vision for an overhaul. “He gave us a basic color palette,” Mr. Bolden said. “And then we transformed it into modern Moroccan, which was very fun.”
They spent months trading ideas as plans for the renovation took shape. Ultimately, they arrived at a design that plays up colors like honey-orange, sage-green and aqua-blue, and materials like textured copper and handmade ceramic tile. Mr. Bolden and Ms. Williams installed a cork-tile floor and added distinctive details: perforated Moroccan sconces, textured zellige tile in the shower, a hammered copper sink in the kitchen.
To amp up the cozy factor, they found a pint-size cast-iron wood stove at Navigator Stove Works, which makes products for boats. In the Airstream, the designers mounted it on a hearth finished in hand-painted Moroccan tile.
There were functional considerations as well: The trailer is equipped with an under-counter stainless steel refrigerator, a compact propane range, an incinerating toilet and movable solar panels (in case Dr. Walsh wants to spend time off the grid rather than connecting to services at campgrounds).
The transformation took nearly two years — substantially longer than the company’s typical turnaround time of about seven months, Mr. Bolden said, because of design changes and pandemic-related supply-chain slowdowns. But by the summer of 2023, Dr. Walsh’s trailer was ready, at a total cost of about $75,000.
While his Airstream was being built, Dr. Walsh also began exploring options for living abroad. He applied for, and was awarded, a fellowship from the State Department to work with English teachers in Peru. The program began with a one-year placement in 2022, and he renewed the arrangement so he could stay for a second year.
The idea of a living a nomadic life in the United States was temporarily postponed, but Dr. Walsh was still excited to have a trailer. After his first year in Peru, he returned with his dog, Dakota, to pick up the Airstream and spent the summer camping all over the country.
“We did about 9,000 miles,” he said. Their many destinations included stops along the Pacific Coast Highway, in California; in Yellowstone National Park; and in Bayfield, Wis., on Lake Superior. Their journey finally ended in Island Park, N.Y., where Dr. Walsh parked the Airstream in his brother-in-law’s driveway before returning to Peru.
By the time he finished his work abroad, Dr. Walsh had made more plans: He had accepted a position as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
This summer, Dr. Walsh and Dakota went camping again — taking along a folding kayak and inflatable stand-up paddle board — as they towed the Airstream to their new home in La Crosse, stopping in Watkins Glen, N.Y.; Sandusky, Ohio; and Whitewater, Wis.
Dr. Walsh is now settling into a more rooted academic life, but he still considers the Airstream a great investment. In the months ahead, he plans to use it to explore parks closer to home. “Just between Wisconsin and Minnesota, there are plenty of places to go,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the nature, physical activity and feeling more connected to place.”
Where he travels from there is an open question. But for now, he seems happy to go with the flow.
“The past years have taken lots of bends and twists that I really didn’t know were going to happen, so my original plan has been altered,” he said. “But in my mind, that doesn’t diminish the project at all. It’s just about making adjustments, as we all do, when we’re thrown different opportunities.”
And when you’re not sure what come next, a vacation house on wheels is surely one of the best kinds of homes to own.
Living Small is a biweekly column exploring what it takes to lead a simpler, more sustainable or more compact life.
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