When I was a little girl, I was exploring the winding creek that ran through our yard. Odds are, I was likely looking for tadpoles or bullfrogs to catch. Momentarily, I looked up at some unfamiliar sound and saw an enormous motorhome slowly trying to navigate our long gravel driveway. As I stood there staring in utter disbelief, a man opened the door and told me to climb on it.
He seriously could have been Jack the Ripper, and it wouldn’t have mattered to me. It turned out to be my great uncle and aunt. I was immediately smitten and asked him no less than a hundred questions about living life on the road. They spent a great deal of time sharing their travel stories with me, and I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to know everything!
At that moment, the dream was born…
I tried to satisfy that overwhelming desire to spend life traveling the backroads, breathing in the forest air, and exploring every rustic trail, lake, and river I could find. For a long time, the answer seemed to be camping during my vacations, but as I sat by the campfire every night, my thoughts were consumed with finding a way that I could continue the job I love working online and be able to camp full time. Of course, the answer was to stop dreaming and start taking action to make it happen.
I knew it wouldn’t happen overnight. I would need to take many steps to overcome the challenges.
In May 2022, I bought a Certified Pre-owned 2020 Ram Promaster 1500 with 18,145 miles. It already had a small sink (with foot pump water), a platform bed set up, flooring, foam insulation, a roof vent/fan, and shelving. Yes, I can stand in it, but I am slightly over 5 feet tall.
My oldest daughter graciously offered to provide me with a home base for my travels so that I could stop paying rent and use that money to build out the van fully, one step at a time, while always having a home to return to and a permanent address. After giving notice at my old place, I downsized over the next 60 days, giving away or donating everything I wouldn’t need to take.
I still have an overwhelming list of things to accomplish before I set out on the road full-time, but in the meantime, I need to do more road trips and camping to understand better where I stand with being prepared. As an experienced camper, my priorities now are more about working out ways to work effectively from my van.
In the next post, I will share the prep work I have completed, the steps I still need to take, and the results of my first test run.
Have y’all ever dreamed of living life on the road?
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