S P R I N G 2 0 2 2 | 1 5 tools. It wasn’t straightforward. For the buildout, the Hodsdons made sure their vacation home had the same amenities as a normal house, such as plumbing, electricity, a washer, dryer and full kitchen, but in a tiny space that has to stand up to hours of shaking and “hurricane force winds” while driving down the highway, Mike says. Other considerations included how they would use the space. “Do we want to be able to have guests over?” Katherine says. “We would need to design a table for four people, so we designed one that pulls out of the wall and has ottomans to sit on, and those ottomans become part of the pull-out bed for our guests.” It took two years to build the house in the backyard of their Boston home. Katherine and Mike say they recruited friends by promising them free beer and smoked meat. The trip itself is a “giant counterclockwise loop” around the country, Katherine says. Their strategy involved hitting northern locations during the summer months so the house wouldn’t get stuck in snow. They started off rolling through New Hampshire and Maine, making a stop at Lake Champlain in New York and the sand dunes around Silver Lake in Michigan before heading to the Dakotas. They spent most of the fall in the Southwest. During the winter they slowly started making their way through the southern part of the country, including Texas and Florida, before heading back to Boston in mid-March. Luckily the trip has been relatively smooth. There was one hangup when the couple blew a tire while on a mountain pass near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. When they started on the trip, things that went wrong seemed like a much bigger deal than they actually were, Mike explained, but with their experience on the road it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. “One of the goals for me was to get out into the country, but also invest time in our relationship and get to know each other really well,” Mike says. “It’s been really cool to see that growth. Now if something goes wrong, it’s like, ‘Ok, cool. How do we fix it?” Katherine agrees that the experience of building the house and the trip itself has renewed her confidence in her ability to tackle problems when they arise. “I can figure it out. I can get there even if I don’t initially know what tool I need or how it works. The next thing that comes into our life, we will figure it out and get through it,” she says. The Hodsdons plan to eventually buy a plot of land in Maine where they can permanently park the house and use it as a stationary getaway. “We hope our story will get people to think about living their lives on their own terms, whatever that means for them,” Mike says, “because leaving our careers, building a house and going on the open road was crazy scary for us, but totally worth it.” —Christina Tatu Above: The Hodsdons pose next to the “world’s largest buffalo,” a roadside attraction in North Dakota; Mike Hodsdon stands under a tree in Olympic National Park in Washington. C U L T U R E Above: The Hodsdons at Delicate Arch during a sunrise visit to Arches National Park in Utah; left: The interior of the Hodsdons’ 240-squarefoot vacation home on wheels. Above: A map outlining the itinerary for the Hodsdons’ journey, which is taking them on a counter- clockwise loop of the country. TAP TO VIEW THE HODSDONS INSTAGRAM PAGE
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