Welcome to the new Lindstroms on the Road! We started this blog nearly three years ago to share our preparations for, and eventually the details of, our three-month road trip around the United States with our two young children. Though the trip is over and our travels have been chronicled, the blog remains and we’ve even put some effort into redesigning and relaunching it. Why? Because the lessons and experiences of that trip changed our perspective on life and redirected our plans for the future. Because in so many ways we are still “on the road”.
I read somewhere once that if at least three different people ask you the same question, there’s a niche for you to write about that topic. It’s something that has stuck with me and that I’ve thought about a lot. I love to write. I always have. Yet most of my writing has been confined to journals and hidden files on my computer because the idea of blogging always seemed somewhat narcissistic to me. Why would I assume anyone wants to read any of these words that I’ve written? But I read and follow blogs that entertain, educate and challenge me and most of those writers don’t seem to be narcissists.
In fact, many of those writers have been companions for me on my journey. They have exposed me to new perspectives, challenged me to rethink my assumptions, helped me laugh at my own mistakes, and reminded me that I’m not alone. There is a lot of garbage in the blogosphere, but a lot of great things too.
Our little family has made a lot of choices along the way that many have considered unusual. We’re those people at the party that never have short, neat answers for your polite questions. We’re difficult to categorize or label, and we find ourselves being asked the same questions repeatedly, especially about our choices to simplify our lifestyle, our travels in the past and travel plans for the future, and our family life and how we choose to raise and educate our children. These also happen to be areas of our life about which we are passionate, informed, and happy to discuss. It feels like we found our niche.
We do not claim to be experts on any of these things. We are, ourselves, on a journey in each of these areas. But we have been so encouraged by reading what others have shared, and maybe something that we share about our journey can help another family along theirs.
We’ve clarified our family’s priorities into three verbs: simplify, explore, and learn. And just as important is that we do these things together. That is the focus of our family’s life, and that will be the focus of what we write about here at Lindströms on the Road. We’re “on the road” because we love to travel and explore the world, and we’re “on the road” because simplicity and learning are always a journey and we don’t expect to ever really “arrive”. It may be a road less traveled, but we invite you to join us on it.
Simplify
Explore
Learn
Some practical things about the launch of our new site:
If you’ve been following us…
We hope you’ll continue! If you’ve followed us in WordPress, please consider adding us to your RSS feed or becoming email followers in order to receive notifications. New posts should still appear in your Reader feed as usual. If you’ve followed us by email, you should continue to receive emails as usual. Please let us know if you don’t! If you’ve followed us via RSS feed, you will need to update your RSS reader. You can use the “Follow us” link at the top of the page to help you do that.
If you haven’t followed us before…
We hope you will! Just click on “Follow us” at the top of the screen for email and RSS options.
A website also something that is always in progress and never truly “finished”. If there’s something you’d like to see here that you don’t, something you find confusing, or a feature that isn’t working properly, please leave a comment and let us know!
