My Road Trip Across the Country: What They Don’t Tell You About Trusting Your Intuition

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Seriously, I never expected this. One minute I was planning a trip to San Diego for my friend’s birthday, and the next minute I was paying for new tires and arranging my schedule to accommodate a 3,000-mile road trip across America. A bit aggressive, I know. But if you know me, you know I wouldn’t do this any other way.

Intuition comes in a flash.

On the first night of my road trip, I drove to Reno, Nevada. I left at 9 PM. The drive was awful. My entire body was in a panic state. The red alarms were sounding in my head. I could feel uneasiness in my tummy and tears welling up in my eyes. What the hell are you doing? What are you trying to prove? It felt ridiculous, and I immediately began to regret my decision to drive across America.

When I arrived in Reno at 1 AM, I was mortified. Reno is just not the place you want to be in the middle of the night, by yourself, in a pandemic. I checked into a sketchy casino about five minutes away from the main strip and cried. This was a mistake I thought. I resolved to go home the next morning. “Who cares that I already told everyone I was driving across America. My happiness and peace are more important than what social media thinks of me.” I reasoned and justified my way through the complexities of this decision.

The next morning I called my mom and told her I was coming home.

I told her I wanted to do the “responsible” thing and turn around. I thought she would agree with me, but to my surprise, she paused and said instead, “Anna, you know that you can always come home, but I don’t think that’s what you want. There’s a reason you left Oakland, and there’s a reason you set out to embark on this trip. There’s a bigger question to answer here, which is, where do you want to belong?”

My heart sank. She was right, as moms often are. I could turn around... but to what? For what? I had ended my lease in Oakland and put my whole life in storage, there was no “home” to return to.

I hung up the phone with swollen eyes and a heavy heart. I knew what I had to do.

It wasn’t the easy thing, but neither was turning around. So I packed up my things and got the hell out of Reno (I really despise Reno if you couldn’t tell LOL). I merged onto 80 East with a quiet confidence. And after a few hours had passed, I knew I had made the right decision to keep driving.

What they don’t tell you about following your intuition is that it takes time for your mind and body to catch up with your soul. We’re wired to do the “responsible” thing. We’re conditioned to believe our lives should unfold in the way that society tells us they should. When your intuition leads you to go against the grain, alarms go off. When security and stability have been uprooted, it feels unfamiliar and unsettling, like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you.

Acting on intuition requires immense courage: it doesn’t always feel “good.” It feels hard and messy and alarming. My lesson this week was to learn how to settle into those feelings, to squirm a little bit, to reconcile with the path my intuition has led me down. It’s been a full week since I left California and I couldn’t be more certain that this was the right decision for me (no matter how “crazy” or “irresponsible” I initially told myself it was). For me, this trip is about answering a bigger question: Where do I want to belong?

I’m not sure yet, but I have a hunch this road trip will show me with the answers I am looking for.

I plan on sharing all of the revelations I have along the way, be sure to follow along on Instagram and TikTok. Is there a city you think I should visit? Tell me in the comments section below.