Working the dream life for 17+ years.
Simple living tips for eco-troubadors living in RVs and trailers.
One fulltime RV family discusses how they are traveling North America, debt free.
Since June, we’ve been searching for the ideal place to live and start a business. We are talking to locals in towns across America, interviewing and taking notes, trying to get a feel for places that might come close to what we consider “perfect.”
But is all this work just a waste of energy? Are we searching for a utopia that doesn’t exist?
Tell us: What factors make up your ideal community?
As we tack on the miles, we keep seeking these answers.
Our RV road trip sabbatical budget and expense report for November 2007, just prior to Workamping gig in Florida for winter.
Looking for young travelers and RVers under age 50 in the U.S. Where are they, and who are they?
One of the best parts about this trip has been getting to know people, and hearing their unique stories. Sometimes, we meet people who have overcome so much adversity in life, it makes us ashamed to have ever felt an ounce of self-pity over our own trivial challenges.
Last weekend, we met such a person. Well, a family really. While staying at the McDowell Nature Reserve outside of Charlotte, we met Annette Protani and five of her six kids who were camped out next to us. Annette and her kids started calling their RV home when they left Houston back in August, in search of a new town in which to lay down some roots.
When we first decided to live in an RV, one of my first thoughts was: how the heck will I maintain my hair color? Not that I’m a high maintenance brunette, but I’m too vain to let those pesky gray roots show through yet, so I zap ’em with hair dye once a month.
I’ve always done my color. But, since going on the road, I’ve gone to hair salons. But each time, the stylist left me with hair that was too light, or too dark.
I kept getting irritated that the hair colorists couldn’t get it right. So recently, I surrendered and decided to do it myself.
For over 10 years, Jim and I have lived and worked out of a home office. Our last place was a 100-year old Victorian in Eureka, CA, with two separate flats; one for home, one for work. We were like old timey shopkeepers, living above the business. Now we live and work out of our 200 sq. ft. trailer. People often asked us, “Don’t you guys drive each other nuts? How do you stand it?”
That was easy. The perks of never having to get a real job and doing a freeway commute every day, always outweighed the challenge of putting up with each other’s idiosyncrasies on a daily basis.
While in Troy, New York, we met another married business couple. Only they have a really, really long history together. And a special secret to getting along…
There’s nothing like a good dose of yard work to reaffirm one’s choice to live a simpler life on the road. But it was the least we could do. After camping out in my sister’s yard for over a week, I figured I could at least mow their lawn to show my appreciation. Besides, René had already provided some pretty good housekeeping a couple times already. It was my turn.
Our brother in law, Tim, is a tugboat engineer, and he’s currently living his own live/work dream. He spends half of his time in the engine hull of Tugboat Margot, running cargo up and down East Coast waterways. The other half of the time, he manages his company, NYS Marine Highway Transportation Company, from where he lives in nearby Troy, New York.
We got a tour of Tim’s latest addition to the fleet – Tug Margot – while we were visiting him and Jim’s sister Barb.
There are lots of good reasons to own a home. You don’t have to worry about being kicked out of your place without warning. You don’t have to write a check to some fat cat landlord every month. And you can paint your walls whatever colors you damn well please.
But there are twice as many reasons why owning a home sucks. Property taxes. Insurance. Yard work. Wet basements. Ceilings that fall down without warning.
This week, Jim and I have been reminded about why we decided to cut the shackles of homeownership.
For the last few years, a discussion forum I visit almost daily, is Simple Living, an incredible resource for anyone contemplating ways in which they can simplify their lives.
A few months ago on SL, I read about Sara, Matt and their 3-year old daughter Bella, who were planning to travel around the country in a grease powered RV. It was great to see another young couple selling all their stuff, and hitting the road to teach others how to tread lightly on the planet!
Sara and I have been chatting back and forth as we each embarked on our respective journeys. We even crossed paths in Minnesota, but missed eachother by a day when we each went through Brainerd. Last week, we finally got to meet up in Albany over coffee. What a hoot!
The farmer of the Teleion Holon CSA organic farm in Vermont discusses the good and bad reality about running a Community Supported Agriculture farm.
Tips, Plans, Patterns, Resources and Video for building your own RV, Van, Camper or Fifth Wheel Travel Trailer.
When you’re roaming about the countryside, be careful who you tell your story to, or you could end up as a member of the latest Manson Clan.
Yesterday while shopping at one of the last Farmer’s Markets of the season here in Vermont, we stopped to admire some homemade bread being sold by vendors who appeared to be typical Vermont farmers. We sampled the breads they had, and they were so good. They were “heavenly.” Even though bread looked as dense as bricks, each sample we tasted was light and tasty. So we were blown away when the farmer told us that the breads were wheat free, and made with spelt flour. Spelt?
Isn’t spelt some some earthy, nasty ingredient that hippies bake with to snake out their colons or something? Ick! Now we’d eaten it!
When we picked out our Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck, one of our requirements was that it had to have a diesel engine, so that we could run biodiesel or straight veggie oil (SVO) in it. We wanted to offset our footprint by buying such a large vehicle. So we took a class on Making Your Own Biodiesel, learned the ins and outs of producing and buying it, and set off on this trip with the hope that we would find it in lots of places. Eventually, we’ll make our own, but for now, we have to rely on Biodiesel.org to tell us who’s selling it and where.