NOMAD
Year
Our search for a place that feels livable again.
7,500 Miles of Travel
45 Campsites Booked
304 Travel Days Planed
Our Search for Home
After years of living with increasingly difficult — and at times nearly impossible to manage — MCAS symptoms, our family made the decision to travel the United States in search of a place where life feels more manageable again.
Over the past several years, I’ve spent hundreds of hours researching environmental triggers, climate patterns, air quality, mold risk, pollen seasons, healthcare access, and the many other factors that can influence MCAS symptoms. At the same time, we also needed to consider something equally important: finding places that support the kind of life we want for our family and the care our children need.
This route is the result of trying to balance both.
Some readers familiar with “MCAS-friendly” locations may notice a few notable places missing from our map — including areas like Colorado and Nevada. Using the ChatGPT-based MCAS prediction model I built (which you can read about here: How to Build a ChatGPT Model for MCAS), we narrowed our search to locations that seemed most compatible with my specific trigger patterns while still providing access to schools, healthcare, community, and long-term stability for our family.
One of the most important things I’ve learned through this process is that MCAS is incredibly individual. A place that dramatically improves one person’s symptoms may do very little for someone else. This trip isn’t about finding the perfect place — it’s about carefully testing possibilities, learning from real-world experience, and hopefully finding somewhere that feels sustainable for our family long term.
symptom tracking
As we travel, I will continue tracking both my symptoms and a wide range of environmental factors so we can better understand how each location affects my health over time.
To give the data a statistically meaningful sample size, we plan to spend at least two weeks in each candidate location. Previous travel has shown that when I am in a healthier environment, I can often begin noticing meaningful symptom improvement within about a week.
Even before leaving Michigan, some clear patterns have already started to emerge in the data. Increases in pollen levels, storm systems, humidity swings, and seasonal changes all appear to correlate with worsening symptoms for me personally. Over time, tracking these patterns has helped me move away from guessing and toward a more evidence-based understanding of my triggers.
Of course, no spreadsheet or prediction model can fully capture the complexity of living with MCAS. But having structured data has helped me identify trends I never would have noticed otherwise — and has made it easier to separate temporary fluctuations from meaningful environmental changes.
Below is a high-level look at some of the tracking data we are using during our journey. If you would like a deeper look into the methods, metrics, and models behind this process, you can explore the full Symptom Tracking page here.
Notes From the Road
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