Working the dream life for 17+ years.
Living the dream full-time RVing nomadic lifestyle working as location independent entrepreneurs.
Save on Driving Atlas and Travel Planning Maps with July Coupon Codes from Maps.com!
Bookmark this post and set aside time to watch this entire End of Suburbia program about peak oil with people close to you. Pending or not, crisis or melarkey, what’s most important is to listen to and realize who is saying the enlightening if not disturbing things in this documentary. Read Matthew Simmons’ Twilight in the Desert
Click the bottom middle icon at the bottom right of the YouTube player to view at full screen. Better yet, get the End of Suburbia DVD
Jim extols the virtues of his super quiet Honda portable RV generator and reminisces about Cohab Canyon with a video panorama.
The idea of taking a long break first occurred to us in 2006, when some mindless channel surfing led us to the TV show, Radical Sabbatical. Each 30 minute segment would tell the story of someone who had suddenly woken up to realize they hated their career, life was passing them by, and they needed a change, fast.
While reality shows are generally crap, watching how these people worked to make their dreams happen provided much of the inspiration we needed to get moving on our own dreams (well, that, and Jerry’s illness).
Neither Jim nor I had ever taken an extended break. In my 20s, my friends went backpacking around Europe after college, but I had student loans to pay, so I took the first dumb job that I could get. By the mid 90s, I was handing over my paycheck to student loans and credit card debt. And as for Jim, well, he’s always been too responsible to slack off.
Now that we had paid some dues in life, we became giddy at the thought of reverting to slackerdom. But the more we thought about it, we knew we couldn’t just split without some kind of goal in mind.
Jim presents his state of the blog address on the one year anniversary of launching their full time RVing sabbatical road trip blog tribute with analysis.
I’d like to share a list that was recently emailed to me by fellow RV traveler, Kim She kindly sent it from somewhere in the Yukon territory of Canada last week.
She and her husband Sam left their home in Louisiana last June, and have been touring around the U.S., criss-crossing much of the same territory that Jim and I have. Read about their travels on their blog.
Kim and I share a lot of things in common, as you can tell by her list of favorite towns. See how she’s picked many of the same places / regions that we have, for many of the same reasons? But she’s also introduced me to some new ones that I’d like to check out, like Rodeo, New Mexico.
Here is Kim’s list of the best small towns in North America that she’s been to, so far. Thanks Kim.
The Caretaker Gazette lists job opportunities perfect for the mobile RV lifestyle.
This just in: every minute you spend sitting in traffic to get to a job you hate, one more young adult decides to quit the rat race, sell everything, and hit the road.
Ok, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. But the longer we’re on the road, the more we keep meeting crazy kids our age who are also fed up with running on the treadmill of job/home/stuff/debt.
Hitek Homeless Hits the Road
Take for instance, Johnny and Jenn, aka Hitek Homeless. We met this couple online last year, while their escape plans were coming to fruition. They bought a killer Arctic Fox truck bed camper and a diesel dualie, sold their stuff, and finally hit the road a few months ago. Recently, Truck Camper Magazine interviewed them about their decision to fulltime.
Don’t forget to look up the lowest gas and diesel prices before hitting the road this summer! Use these tools and fuel cost estimator to budget for RV travel.
We came across this earthen home near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. It’s under construction. We were so thrilled when we saw see a “For Sale” sign on the property. We thought “Hey, maybe it’s a sign! Is it meant to be?” When we stopped to talk to the closest neighbor, he gave us the scoop. The home is for sale because “Wild Bill” as he’s known …
One year ago this week, we drove away from Humboldt County in a daze. We couldn’t believe that we had really pulled our sabbatical off, and year on the road seemed like an eternity. Little did we know that it would fly by seemingly as quick as a two week vacation. We have so much to say about our epic journey. But for now, let’s start with the hard numbers.
Thanks to the meticulous Quickbooks expense tracking I’ve done over the last several years, and Carol White’s Live Your Road Trip Dream book
If you’d like to see the technical details, a PDF with summarized numbers is here. But if spreadsheets make you snooze, then here’s a quick summary of my numbers for the year, and some ways we saved money:
Jim reflects on their true camping days Cohab Canyon with photos of proposal spot and video of deer on Fremont Trail.
We’ve found ourselves back at the campground in the grove at the trailhead to Cohab Canyon where I proposed to René about a dozen years ago on our legendary motorcyle tour of the southwest.
We are just feet from where we tent camped. We probably would have moved if this big ol’ rig parked next to us at the time.
I also just found the following autobiographical early “web page code” and have hereby salvaged it from becoming internet detritus….
Surprised? I saved the cartoon shown for many years before giving it to the woman I knew would marry.
Enjoy this video tour of the Earthship Institute Biotecture Headquarters near Taos, NM.
As soon as our rig crossed the border into Colorado, my spirit felt as if I had returned home. This land just calls out to me.
From Minnesota to Maine, there are lots of beautiful places in this country that I think I could live in. But none of them feed my soul like Colorado does. I know I’d love living here. But it could be a pipe dream.
Because in Colorado, you’d never know real estate is crashing all over the country. The Rockies are the most beautiful place in the U.S., and property owners know it. They have it made. I’m not seeing reasonable prices on any pieces of land, except for the most isolated patches of non-irrigated ag fields in the plains regions.