It’s true, we’ve decided it’s time to try something new and different. Not just a little different but something completely out of our comfort zone. We’re selling our nice comfortable home, purging almost all our stuff, buying an RV and spending time roaming around this amazing country visiting places we’ve never seen, wanted to see again, and never even heard of until we started this adventure.

I don’t remember the exact moment when a vague idea gelled into something solid but we knew it was time to try something different for a little while. I know overall I’ve been content with our life but it’s become very routine and rather vanilla. I’ve been incredibly lucky that I haven’t had to work for the last few years. You’d think retirement was fantastic but because Mike works full-time, I spend a lot of time working on the house; routine upkeep, maintenance, cleaning, landscaping, etc. As the house has become older, it’s been harder for me to keep up with the work needed to maintain the house and I’ve been falling behind. Mike’s been frustrated with work and the typical red tape, bureaucracy, and lack of time for doing fun things.

Due to the stresses of work, when we go on vacation, it’s often specifically to unwind. That means our vacations are as mindless as possible, a cruise tends to be our favorite unwinding vacation. Every couple of years we’ll go on a big vacation (Korean, Mediterranean, Aspen). While those are fantastic and we have great memories from them, we often come back from those exhausted and needing another vacation to relax so we haven’t done those types of vacations very often. That means that we haven’t had a lot of time to visit a lot of the great places our friends and family rave about.

We’re also tied down because we have three dogs and so can’t really be away from the house for more than 8-10 hours a day. Petsitting gets expensive after 1-2 weeks of vacation. This year one of our dogs was diagnosed with lymphoma and only given about 1.5 years longer with treatment (unfortunately he had a drug-resistant strain and the treatment only gave us an extra 3-4 months). Between knowing that one of our dogs only had a limited time left, the house maintenance list getting longer, and the lack of enjoyment at work, we were ready for change.

Simply selling the house and moving somewhere wasn’t enough for us, that’s simply changing our location but leaving everything else the same. We wanted to make this count! We wanted to visit new places, go on adventures, and not be bogged down by typical responsibilities like a house and job. Since we knew our dogs were coming with us wherever we went, we had limited options. The thought of RV’ing came to us and the more we thought about it, the more it really appealed to us. We could go all over the US and Canada (Mexico and South America would wait until we were experts) and bring our dogs with us. Mike’s research kicked into high-gear and we were off to find out all about what RV’ing really entailed.

We’ve told a few of our friends and family and some of the responses were “Wow, that sounds great!”, “Holy cow”, “I have no words”, “You’re carrying your poop around with you!”, and my favorite “You and Mike must really love each other”. Interestingly there are many RV blogs out there that do touch on that particular subject. An RV doesn’t have a lot of space and you have to already get along very well with your significant other. We don’t think/we’re hoping that won’t be an issue with us, and if it gets a little stressful, I can always take one of the dogs for a LONG walk or Mike can stick on his headphones.

We’re certainly nervous about all the changes, this is definitely different for us. Getting rid of 14 years of stuff, no matter how liberating, is scary! Living in a vehicle and learning how to maintain it is scary! However we’re also incredibly excited and we look at this as an opportunity to really live and enjoy ourselves. It’s time to break out of our little insulated bubble and see what is out there!