Why we chose to live in our RV full time

We used to live a much more “normal” life. We lived in a 2800 sqft home near Seattle. My husband worked in tech. I stayed home with our two young sons. We had a two car garage full of hobbies. We camped on the weekends and explored the PNW as much as we could. 

In fall of 2022 we bought a camper van. We have always loved camping together, the magic of traveling to beautiful places on a tight budget and limited time. In college we camped in just a double hammock. When we had kids we graduated to a family tent. We were ready for the next level of camping: a simple camper van that would extend our camping season, keeping us warm and dry in the cool, damp Pacific Northwest. 

In spring of 2023 my husband was working on a startup along with his full time tech job and was beginning to feel overwhelmed by balancing the two along with making time for our family. The tech job had a reorg and wanted to move him into a new role. Legally they had to offer him a severance option as well as the option to accept the new role. He decided to take the severance and focus on the startup. 

Over the next few months he threw himself into the work of the startup, often working on weekends so we could take advantage of weekday adventures. We took our camper van on road trips through the Cascade Mountains and started frequenting the Oregon Coast to surf, hike and marvel at the place where the forest meets the sea. We had a Thousand Trails camping pass and visited Seaside, OR many, many times that summer. We had learned about Thousand Trails from a full time RV family who I followed on Instagram: she had told me that it was the most budget friendly way to travel full time, so we thought we’d give it a try with their low-cost membership meant for weekenders. 

Once my husband had engineered a working prototype and was ready for his cofounders to focus on their initial investment round, we took a month-long road trip in the camper van around the west. We saw the Lumineers play at the Gorge, scrambled on rocks in Goblin Valley, hiked to Delicate Arch, explored ancient ruins in Mesa Verde, visited family in Santa Fe, slid down the Great Dunes, saw Pando start to turn golden and hiked through crimson maples to cerulean hot springs. We loved being on the road but needed a few upgrades if we were to do it for longer than a month: we needed a bathroom and the ability to stand up. Our Ford E series van was great for exploring, but not set up for full time living. 

We arrived back in Washington in early October 2023, happy to be home and energized by our time on the road. It was time to see how the startup was coming along. The investors that had sounded so promising were not coming through. We couldn’t keep renting our house near Seattle without significant income and we started to wonder– is that even what we wanted? We looked at the math and realized that we could buy a travel trailer and an upgraded Thousand Trails membership and be able to afford life on the road with savings and rental income. This sounded like an excellent Plan B if the startup didn’t work out. In the meantime, we started researching trailers, trucks and the many spectacular locations of Thousand Trails campgrounds. It was not long before life on the road started to sound like a Plan A. 

The startup didn’t work out. We hadn’t bought in Seattle and were just renting our house. We already homeschooled our kids. We didn’t have anything tying us to one place. We started to dream of the possibilities. 

We asked the kids what they would think about living on the road. They immediately started going through their toys, setting aside a pile of things to take to our local kids’ consignment shop in order to downsize and be able to live in a smaller space. 

In November 2023, we found a travel trailer on Facebook marketplace that was only 15 minutes from our house. Every other option in our spreadsheet was hundreds of miles away and listed for a higher price. This one was exactly the layout we wanted. We went to look at it. We looked a second time just to be sure. We called our friends and asked if we could possibly store a trailer in their pasture while we prepared for life on the road. 

The next day we bought it and towed it into the pasture, which is its own story for another day. Over the next six months we prepared and downsized. We upgraded our Thousand Trails membership. We took toys and clothes to the consignment shop. We sold musical instruments, a trampoline and a sauna on Facebook marketplace. Every morning we went through another drawer, snapping a quick picture to post on Buy Nothing and setting a bag of things to give away for free on our porch. We kept a list of every storage space in the trailer and would wake in the middle of the night with an idea of exactly which items would fit in that space. 

In May 2024 we pulled the trailer out of our friend’s pasture and started the most incredible adventure we have ever been on. We’re two years in and have no plans of stopping anytime soon.