Coming Soon: Life On the Road

Well, it’s official: we’ll be hitting the road full-time around March 28th.  Last we posted, it was still a dream, but a lot has happened in the last few months. 

Last summer, we stated learning about families that had decided suburbia wasn’t for them and were traveling the U.S. full-time with their families. This seemed like a great fit for our family. We had also become disenchanted with the idea of the typical American dream and decided not to fight our wanderlust any longer.

We decided to change jobs last November and find something that would allow me to work remotely. I landed a job at Heroku in December, working on their technical support team. The job is a perfect fit for us and it’s been awesome working there.

We purchased a truck in December and a 5th wheel trailer in January and put the house up for sale. I’m thrilled to say that we just went under contract on the house this week and will be shipping out soon.

But rather than go into too much detail in this post, I figured this would be a good place to answer a few FAQ’s – because we’ve been getting a lot of them recently.

What made you decide to do this?

The short version is this: we realized the American dream we had been taught wasn’t exactly lining up with the goals and dreams of our family. We worked long and hard at an office, rarely saw our kids, and turned to medication to manage the stress of it all. This whole thing really started with a dive into Minimalism, thanks to Joshua Becker. As we continued to cut back more and more of our things, we began finding the joy in simplicity. The one big missing part of the equation was adventure. We were first introduced to the idea of full-timing by watching a video about the Works’ family. But they had 1 kid – we have 3. But while following Josh Works on Instagram last summer, we saw they were co-traveling with another family. Dan and Marlene have 3 kids – two girls and a boy, about a year or two older than our kids. “It IS possible,” we said, and started dreaming.

What truck and trailer did you get?

2013 Ford F-250 and a 2013 Heartland Elkridge E30 5th wheel. I’ll post more in the future about how we decided on these two.

When will you settle down again?

We haven’t decided yet. And we’re ok with that. We know people who did this for a few years and settled down. And we know families who are on their 5th, 10th, and 15th years (yes, all with kids).

What’s your travel plans?

Year 1, we’ll head over to New Mexico for a bit before heading north into Colorado. Great Sand Dunes National Park, Rock Mountain National Park, then Yellowstone and Glacier. My sister lives up in Calgary, so we’ll be staying with them in July. We’re also thrilled because she and her husband (and my niece and nephew) will be renting an RV and traveling along with us to Vancouver. I hope to do some climbing in Squamish, then head South along the Pacific coast before spending Christmas with family in San Diego.

Year 2? No idea yet. We’ll see how we feel. If we’re tired, we’ll just hang out in Arizona and SoCal before traveling slowly back up the West coast for summer. Or if we have the energy, we may make a run for the East coast, visiting friends along the way. I’d love to travel South along the East coast during the fall and winter in Florida. But we’ll see. That’s a long way from now.

In the meantime, check out our map and follow along this year.

How will you work?

We’re incredibly thankful that I work at Heroku – a company with about 50% of its 200-some employees working remote. Basically, we’ll be traveling wherever there is cell reception. I’ve purchased a LTE hotspot and will be working from our trailer during the day, making sure to carve out plenty of time for my kids to explore wherever we’re camping.

Are the kids ok with this?

I think they’re more excited than we are! My kids LOVE the outdoors – it’s one of the reasons we knew this would be an incredible adventure for them.

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Well, I think that’s it for now. If you have any other questions, let us know!