RoamingRushka

December 2025 – January 2026

My company’s Christmas party was set to take place in Newport, CA in mid-December, which meant I had to pack up all of my belongings in New Orleans and depart for California for an extended trip visiting family and spending time in the warm-CA winter. Paloma and I had decided to take full advantage of having our family connections in California, and stay in San Mateo (my hometown where my parents still live), Joshua Tree (where Paloma’s brothers just bought a vacation cabin), and Santa Barbara where Paloma’s parents live. I left New Orleans for a flight to Orange County, CA, and Paloma drove Pebble, her Honda Fit full of our roadtrip belongings from New Orleans to her parents house in Atlanta where we have a safe space to park her for our Holiday excursion month.  

Luckily, my parents still have the extra Volvo wagon in San Mateo, so the plan was to do a road trip in California while we were on winter break from our digital nomad road trip out east. I know, we simply cannot get our fill of road tripping. 

On Christmas day, after spending the morning with her family in Atlanta, Paloma flew to SF to reunite with me and begin our CA winter. We drove the wagon all the way down to Joshua Tree from the Bay Area, which is a surprisingly beautiful drive in the rolling winter-green hills in the remote central valley of CA. It was a long drive, about 8 hours, but I had a blast carving through the curvy hills in my Volvo turbo 5-cyl. When we finally made it to the vacation-cabin in Joshua Tree, we sighed in relief to be back in our happy place. The Starry Eyed Hideaway, Paloma’s Brothers’ desert casita, is a stunning 1-BR home nestled on 5-acres of Joshua Tree desert. 

We spent the week working, taking late afternoon trips to Joshua Tree National Park for some rock climbing and exploring, and hot tubbing under the desert stars. Being in the high desert in winter really does wonders to reset your headspace. 

After our week in the desert, we took the three-hour drive to Santa Barbara, to enjoy another week in the warm winter weather with Paloma’s mom and step dad. Santa Barabara is one of the most beautiful utopic cities in the entirety of the state, in my humble opinion. The weather during our stay was in the low to mid-seventies, so our work week started with walks to the local coffee shop for cortados and breakfast burritos, meetings and admin work in the beautifully landscaped backyard, and either a hike or a cool-evening stroll to State street where all the cute shops and restaurants are. 

In the third week of January, we headed back to the Bay Area to catch a flight out of SFO back to Atlanta to reunite with Pebble and resume our Digital Nomad exploration of the rest of the country. Rather than take the same route back, we decided to take the longer, more scenic route up the coast from Santa Barbara to San Mateo. We soaked in all of the beautiful ocean views, sat in Big Sur traffic, and eventually made it back home to reunite with my family before our flight. 

It was a great trip to CA. My only regret is not being able to see all of the friends that we have missed since beginning this roadtrip. With the end of our road trip approaching at the end of 2026, each of these liberating moments without the ball-and-chain of a long-term house lease or mortgage seem more and more special. 

—RoamingRushka