This one makes me laugh every time. We’ve heard dozens of different variations of this question. Some people try to be discreet about their curiosity while others almost demand to know.

“So, you’re independently wealthy?”
“Wow! You must have won the lottery!”
“How is it you’re able to do this?”
“Must be nice to have so much money you don’t need to work.”
“You guys sure retired young!”

These are all quotes, guys. I swear I’m not making any of them up.

Everyone wants to know how we’re making the full-time RV lifestyle work when we’re not retired. Even though there is a growing number of families turning to the RV lifestyle, we’re still pretty rare to find so we expect some questions.

There are actually several ways you can make the RV lifestyle work for you. We’re fortunate that Jerl works for an amazing company (waves to all of our Weather Trends family) who doesn’t mind that he works remotely. Working remotely over the internet allows us the opportunity to move around every one to two weeks. We always have to make sure there will be a strong Verizon cell signal at the RV park we’ll be at. It’s worked really well for us so far, but we always try to check the signal strength on the Verizon website before we commit to an RV park. I can only think of two times that we’ve had to change our plans because Jerl couldn’t work. Once was in Haines, Alaska where every time a cruise ship came into port all two thousand people on board would jump on their phones and the internet would come to a screeching halt. We ended up leaving a day early there. Another time was in Arizona when we were planning on staying in a place for two weeks while we explored the Grand Canyon. When we pulled in Jerl checked his signal strength and it was a big fat zero. So, the RV park was nice enough to let us leave the RV there while we took the car to try and find something that would work for us.

You don’t really have to be tech savvy to make working remotely work for you. I can’t give you any tips. Jerl does all of that for us. There are some great resources out there to help you figure out what will work the best for you. Technomadia is a great resource for all things techy and they usually do a pretty good job at responding to any and all questions.

So, you don’t work over the internet, you’re not independently wealthy, and you haven’t won the lottery. There are other ways to transition to living in an RV and traveling. I’m not an expert on all of the different ways out there. I really only know what works for us. We recently met another full-time family who started out by finding workamper jobs.  Nope, I didn’t misspell that. Workamper is a word that describes someone who takes jobs in exchange for a spot to park their RV and sometimes they make money too. There’s a website… Workamper News that you can visit to find jobs if this interests you. Some families own their own business. Some families work in construction or on pipelines. There are really tons of options if you’re willing to get creative and maybe step outside your comfort bubble.

“BE BRAVE. Without bravery, you will never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery, your life will remain small – far smaller than you probably wanted your life to be.”  ~Elizabeth Gilbert~

Have a question for us? Leave a comment here on the blog or email us at js@ourrvtrip.com!

See y’all down the road!

I thought I would start our FAQ series with a question we get asked every time someone finds out we’re a full-time RV family. But first, I should probably tell you who we are (for those of you who don’t know us).

We are Jerl and Jennie. We grew up living about a mile or so away from each other. We went to the same schools from preschool on, but didn’t really know each other. We started dating in 1993 during my junior year in high school (his sophomore year). Yup…I snagged a younger man! We got married in 1997 and started a family in 2000. We were high school sweethearts…we ended up being best friends.

We have three amazingly cool boys.

Mr. Man is our oldest. He’s your typical oldest child. He’s quiet, loves to write, and has a wicked sense of humor.

The Dude is our middle child. He’s got the gift of gab, is always the first to volunteer to help, and he’s always up for an adventure.

Littlest. What can I say? He’s my baby. He’s the family pizza connoisseur, he loves games, and he’s a huge music fan.

We rounded out our family with two big cats.

Sadi is our pretty little fat girl. She’s a little OCD when it comes to food.

Magnus is more like a dog than a cat. Seriously, he even pants like a dog.

Now for the where and the why. Where did we get the idea? I think people expect us to tell them this whole RV thing was Jerl’s idea, but it wasn’t. One morning I was watching the Today show and they were doing a segment on this family who sold everything, bought an RV, and spent the next 13 months traveling to all 50 states with their kids. That night after the boys went to bed, I mentioned the RV family to Jerl and we started chatting about how cool it would be to be able to show our boys all 50 states. One thing led to another and when we couldn’t find a legitimate reason why we shouldn’t make the move to the RV life…well…we jumped in with both feet. We broke the news to our family and then spent the next year and a half getting everything figured out and planned.

When people ask us why we do this crazy nomadic RV life…we always say “Why not?” Why wait? Tomorrow is not guaranteed…it’s not promised to us. Go out and live the life you want to live now.

I’m going to try to put up at least one FAQ post a month until we get through the list of questions.

Have a question for us? Leave a comment here on the blog or email us at js@ourrvtrip.com!

See y’all down the road!