In 2025 we started to think it might be nice to have a home base — a place to spend three to four months each year. Still in love with the nomadic lifestyle, we fully intend to keep RV’ing and traveling internationally the rest of the year. However, there is something appealing about the idea of engaging more deeply in a community, and it would be great to stop paying $500/month to keep our remaining worldly possessions in a storage unit in Waltham, Massachusetts. 

One of the places we considered was Palm Springs, California (the other was San Diego, which is still a longer term possibility). Surprisingly, Palm Springs checks off a lot of boxes for us in terms of community, arts and culture, food, outdoor activities, and weather (for part of the year — we don’t see ourselves hanging out there in July!). It’s also a short (for us) drive to LA and San Diego — both places we love to visit. 

So we booked six weeks at Coachella Lakes RV Resort, a relatively new property about 20 minutes outside of Palm Springs, and prepared to get to know the area a bit more deeply than we had been able to in previous, shorter visits. 

Not surprisingly, we found a lot to do. January – April is “the season” in Palm Springs. We checked out the yearlong Hitchcock retrospective at the Palm Springs Cultural Center; wandered a Vintage Trailer Show and Modernism Yard Sale as part of Modernism Week; attended two car shows; enjoyed a number of gorgeous desert hikes; visited the fabulous Living Desert Zoo + Gardens; did a ton of thrifting; and enjoyed some amazing Mexican food. There’s more…those are just the highlights of the visit. 

Palm Springs was also the first place where we really got to know a group of people — folks around our age, some working, some retired (and almost all Canadian!). Initially invited by our absolutely wonderful next door neighbors to join them for drinks one evening, we started playing trivia every week (Andrew and I won, twice!), and attending events together on the weekends. 

We also got to know a delightful realtor, a Boston native who has lived in Palm Springs for years. He showed us some really lovely condos in downtown Palm Springs, and helped us refine what we wanted in terms of location, size, amenities, and budget (on the heels of a similar, incredibly helpful process with another delightful realtor in San Diego). 

After reviewing what felt like hundreds of listings (it wasn’t really THAT many), and spending a Saturday physically touring our short list, we came to two important realizations: 

Palm Springs just isn’t the place for us (for the long term). We found so much to love, but one thing we didn’t like was the “resort town” vibe. We also worry that all the stuff we find charming now would become boring after a while. Over the past couple of years, it’s become very clear to us that we really and truly are big city people. We need more than a single downtown, we need neighborhoods, with lots of options for restaurants, performing arts, wandering, etc. 

We are not ready to make an emotional or financial commitment to a home base. Not only is city real estate expensive, but it can be a huge hassle managing the process of living someplace for 3 – 4 months and renting it out the rest of the year. After all, experience has shown us that  we don’t actually need to buy property to spend 3 – 4 months a year in a location. For instance, Andrew did the math and realized that we could stay at our beloved Sun Outdoors San Diego Bay or our new favorite spot Coachella Lakes RV Resort for three months and spend about $5000 in site fees — which is about the same that we might end up paying monthly on a condo mortgage. 

I humbly offer up a few other reflections on the whole “should we have a home base” experience, and suggest that these lessons apply to so many of us finding our way as “empty nesters of a certain age”, whether we are nomads or not. 

First of all, as my mom tried (with little success) to teach me, “patience is a virtue”. We don’t need to jump into any next step, especially one that could have such significant lifestyle and financial impact. 

Second, communicate, communicate, communicate. We kept asking ourselves and each other, what do we really want? How do we want to live this life? What matters to us? What did we like about what we saw? What hesitations/concerns are popping up in our brains? 

Finally, and this is a lesson we use over and over again in our travels — use your network. We met our real estate agents (San Diego and Palm Springs) through an amazing, wise friend who knows us well (and also happens to be the realtor who sold our house in Newton). 

So, we’re not buying a condo. 

And our stuff will continue to languish in Waltham, MA.

However, we have already booked another six weeks in Coachella — same resort, same site number, same fun neighbors!

PHOTOS: Joshua Tree + cactus flowers+ trailer show + zoo