Our Path to the Full-Time RV Life
Bill and I have always loved to travel. One of the first things we purchased after we were married and moved to Michigan was a tent, camp stove and lantern. (We still have and use the Coleman camp stove, 30 years later). When we had our boys, we wanted to extend our love of the outdoors to them, so we bought a bigger tent and then upgraded to a pop-up tent trailer. We travelled all over Oregon, parts of Washington and even into Canada. We had some great adventures. As we all got older and the boys became less interested in camping with their parents, we decided it was time to upgrade again and add a little more comfort to our lives. We purchased a 5th wheel and quickly became spoiled with the comforts of home while still enjoying the pleasures of camping. It was then we started asking ourselves, what would it be like if we never had to go home? What if we could move on to another beautiful location to explore? Just little questions around the campfire at night. Those questions became longer conversations on the front porch after a long week at work.
About 2-3 years ago we began to plan our escape from the sticks and bricks life to finding and making our home on wheels. First step was getting our adult boys out on their own. Giving them “the boot” was a little difficult but needed to be done for everyone’s benefit. They are both thriving on their own and just needed that little push towards independence. They are now fully supporting themselves and we are very proud of them both. Second step was saving some money and shopping for the perfect rig. Since Bill will continue to work remotely, we needed a setup with a built-in workspace and of course I needed a place to work on my sewing projects. We shopped Craigslist for a few months and just could not find the perfect layout. We stretched our search and a coach popped up on our Facebook feed in Bend, OR. Next thing I know, we are in the Mazda making the 3 hour drive to Bend. Just to look. We aren’t buying anything yet…famous last words. As soon as we walked into the coach we both knew this was the one for us; 4 slides, dedicated workspace, kitchen with a lot of counterspace for cooking and cutting out quilt pieces, a large bathroom and bedroom. Heck, this thing was about as big as our first apartment. Yep, this was it. We bought our 2005 Beaver Monterey in February of 2020 with the hope of going full-time by the end of the year.
Then… Covid hit and our plans were put on hold. During this time we did a lot of research, read Full Time RV forums, watched YouTube videos and just saturated ourselves with information. Finally, in December we decided to proceed with our plans and started talking again but no action as to when it would happen. One afternoon while we were out walking, we decided we needed to set an exit date and work backwards from there. With the housing market as crazy as it is, we decided to sell the house rather than rent it and we started working with a realtor, who turned out to be AMAZING. We decided to list our house on June 10th, 2021. This gave us about 3 months to go thru 30 years’ worth of stuff, make repairs, do some sprucing up, have a HUGE garage sale (or two) and prepare emotionally and mentally to close this chapter in our story. Sounds easy, right?
