It was a couple of years ago that Doug and I started seriously thinking about what we wanted the next season of our lives to look like. Our older daughter was halfway through college; our younger daughter was about to be a senior in high school. The years we had spent settled into a community as a family of four were coming to a close. In a few more years, we would be able to access our retirement account and reorganize our lives. But in what way?
Both Doug and I grew up traveling, and still loved it. Something about the combination of the open road and new experiences has always brought out the best in our relationship as a couple and our relationships as a family. I found that even work (as a bookkeeping specialist, I just need a connected laptop) was more pleasant when done while looking out at a great blue heron on the Gulf Coast of Texas, or feeling the sea breeze on the coast of St. Kitts.
You may have noticed a coastal theme! In fact, Doug's initial idea for retirement was to live on a boat. If you have a touch of claustrophobia, though, as I do, even a great love of the ocean will not make living on a boat sound attractive! And we both had also enjoyed the beauty of West Virginia's mountains and forests, the sweeping expanses of Montana and Nevada, and fascinating cities and towns in Tennessee and New Mexico. We decided highways and byways might be a better fit for us.
While we had never camped in a full-size RV - both Doug and I had grown up camping in tents or pop-ups - we had enjoyed owning and traveling in a conversion van with our daughters, and we also had the role model of my parents, who had traveled throughout the U.S. and Canada in an Airstream trailer for eighteen months back in the 80's.
So as we contemplated retiring into an RV, our first assignment was to understand better what that full-time lifestyle might look like. Doug had been introducing me to the concept of podcasts, so I thought I would try finding one about RV life. I was so fortunate to find the engaging and inspiring RV Miles Podcast, hosted by a family of five traveling throughout the U.S. in a converted school bus. If Abigail and Jason Epperson could make the RV life work with three young children, surely two adults on their own could do it! And the podcast was full of useful information on topics we knew nothing about: RV manufacturing, getting internet on the road, RV communities... The Eppersons' other podcast, America's National Parks, was inspiring in a different way. Doug and I already knew there were some well-known parks we wouldn't want to miss - I've never been to the Grand Canyon, neither of us have been to Mt. Rushmore - but the history of so many other places in our great country really whetted our appetite to be out on the road.
One of the places I have long wanted to visit is Alaska. My father worked at a donut shop in Ketchikan as an adventurous young man, and more recently, Doug's parents had taken stunning photos on a cruise there. But could Alaska be reached by RV? Once again, I turned to the internet, and I was introduced to the delightful, inspiring, and informational videos being produced by Marc and Tricia Leach at Keep Your Daydream, specifically their RV to Alaska season. They were also traveling with children, and so here was another example of the successful navigation of even more logistical challenges than we would have!
Now Doug's and my dream was beginning to feel more fully realized and doable. We could spend a couple of years clearing out our house (which we had learned could be referred to as our "sticks 'n' bricks"), see our younger daughter graduate from college, then become people of no fixed address.
But the call of the road, and of a more adventurous lifestyle, was becoming louder. I had discovered that there had been an earlier incarnation of Keep Your Daydream, a podcast of interviews with people who had chosen to live less settled lives and were richer in experiences for it. Doug and I began to talk about whether we could take some version of our careers with us on the road, and make this dream happen sooner. Our older daughter was graduating from college and had a job lined up in another city; our younger daughter was enjoying her first year of college and was contemplating a variety of study abroad programs and out-of-the-area internships for her college summers.
Could we do it? Could we turn "two or three years in the future" to "six months from now"?
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