We are Moving BACK on to our 34ft Fixer Upper Sailboat Today!!

Today, our winter Airbnb experiment ends, and we move back onto our 34 foot fixer-upper sailboat Oasis to live there full-time. Here are some things that surprised me during our winter experiment, though they probably should not have!

In three months we brought so much stuff into this Airbnb that it felt like actually moving when we moved out.

I run a business from home, which needless to say has been rather challenging during the last few years when we have moved three times. I now have a storage unit a couple of miles up the road from the marina where we keep our boat, and I am working on making that my shop. Unfortunately, I still have various areas near Boston where I have things stored that need to be dealt with, i.e. either thrown away, listed to sell or donated. The Airbnb had become a bit of a storage spot for me, while I was going through the process of sifting through belongings. Also I had done a number of thrifting trips because the thrifting here is fabulous. I was storing some things in the apartment so that I wouldn’t have to go up to the storage unit every time I had a sale. Looking back, that was probably a mistake. I should have focused on getting the storage unit up to snuff and not use the apartment as a waystation. Lesson learned.

You can furnish a living space through Thrifting and when you are done just donate it back to the thrift store. It’s a win-win!

For those of us who are looking to pursue this nomadic lifestyle, this is a good tip. If you are living in short term rental properties, like Airbnb or other apartments, you will sometimes find that you need items that are not provided in your Airbnb. I discovered that if I went to the local thrift shop, I could get what I needed for the apartment and when it was time to move out I could just donate it back. I paid pennies for some items that were important like- dish towels and comforters to make things cozy. A Pyrex baking dish so that I could bake brownies on snowy days; candles and Christmas lights to add some warmth (we ARE in New England after all….), a pretty vase so that I could bring in fresh flowers from the grocery store, those types of little extras that make things a home. Now that is time to leave, I can either choose to keep those items or if I don’t want to bring them with me I can just donate…