After getting married in 2010, we quit our jobs and booked one way tickets to Costa Rica with no set plans for where we’d live or what we’d do for work. This 4 month adventure set the tone for our marriage.
Two years later, back in Denver, Colorado, we were sitting around a campfire in the backyard of the house we were renting at the time. We were reminiscing and laughing about our travels in Central America and we realized that those are the stories we’ll tell our grandchildren someday. We won’t be telling them about the cars we drove, houses we lived in, or any other belongings we collected. And with that thought, we booked a 3 week trip to Europe, using the money we had worked so hard to save for a down payment on our very first home together.
The adventures continued…
Although we eventually purchased our first home together in the suburbs, we’d find ourselves booking trips on a whim after a few glasses of wine. We went back to Europe and then to Thailand and took shorter weekend getaways around the U.S. in between.
Traveling is a vital piece of our relationship. We love exploring new places, learning new cultures, and enjoying memorable experiences together. So, with our history of wanderlust and travel “track record”, the decision to live in an RV and take our life on the open road, wasn’t that much of a stretch for us.
But, it wasn’t entirely the full-time travel that led to our decision to become full-time RVers…
We actually faced a bit of a “roadblock” in our life. In 2015, after 2 years of trying to get pregnant and going through a variety of fertility tests and treatments, we were told that we cannot have biological children together. You can read more about that story here, but ultimately, that was the turning point for us.
While we were devastated, we eventually found peace in believing that this “roadblock” was actually just allowing us to take a “detour” in life. Our perspective changed and we chose to stop thinking of our situation as a “dead end” and instead, follow our detour. It wasn’t easy to take a path in life that we were unprepared for and felt was against our greatest life dream. But, we took small steps to follow it and it’s led us on a journey that has been so incredibly fulfilling and exciting.
This new detour led us to move across the country, and now into full-time RV life. It’s also forced us to let go of certain fears we had, take risks, and gain new confidence. We’ve created new dreams for our lives and have found a happiness we didn’t know we could find after the grief we experienced.
While we still don’t have everything figured out and the destination this detour is taking us to is still very unclear, we found peace in knowing that it’s going to be beautiful and we’re enjoying the ride. We may still explore alternative ways of starting a family…or not. But we are finally okay with not knowing and taking life one day at a time.
Our marriage on the road
We had no idea that RVing would help provide us this sense of peace and calmness about our future. In reflecting back on our first year of RV life, we’ve been so surprised by how much it has positively impacted our own individual growth, as well as our marriage. It’s less about the 100-ish square feet box that we live in or even the incredible destinations we get to visit.
These benefits come more from the lifestyle that we’ve created inside the RV and how it’s changed our entire outlook on life.
RVing has allowed us to free ourselves from the pressure society was placing on us. Pressure to have high paying jobs, a big house filled with fancy things, and children, in order to have a happy life. This so-called “American Dream” just wasn’t working for us, but was hard to turn away from living right in the mix of it all.
RVing also allows us to do more of what we love, which ultimately just makes us happier. It’s really that simple. We get to be in nature more and enjoy our favorite outdoor activities. We get to visit new places and meet new people. Everything we love about taking trips and vacations is intertwined with our everyday life. But then, we can also be back home with our friends and family at any point, which is extremely important to us as well.
We’ve also grown in ways that are crucial for a successful marriage, such as communication and conflict management. We are constantly tested by challenging situations. Whether it’s something breaking on the RV that we have no idea how to fix, getting lost on travel days, or if you’re an RVer, you know how stressful it can be just backing into your campsite. You aren’t always a “happy camper”, especially when you go a few days without a shower or it’s rainy and you’re stuck inside your tiny space all day long.
Basically, RVing isn’t always as glamorous as it may appear. We’ve had to depend on one another for support during the tough times. We lean on one another for comfort and encouragement. We’ve also had to learn to communicate more effectively and handle any conflicts immediately…there’s not really anywhere to “have your own space” in an RV.
The biggest benefit that RVing has had for our marriage is the amount of quality time we get to spend together. It used to be that we would come home from work and maybe get an hour of quality time together after making dinner, working out, and walking the dogs. Then our weekends would be filled with errands, household chores, and preparing for the upcoming week.
Overall, RVing has allowed us a more simplified lifestyle. Working from home, wherever that is each week, and minimizing our belongings has been so freeing. We now have less junk, less obligations, and less stress and instead, more fulfillment through experiences and more time to actually live and enjoy life together.
We don’t know how long we will full-time RV but we do know that we will never regret the decision. It’s been a monumental part of “detour” and if you’re a couple who is considering RV life, we can’t encourage it enough. RVing full-time has impacted our marriage in so many beautiful ways.
If you want to know more about our personal journey, how we afford to travel full-time, or get tips for becoming a full-time RVer yourself, you might be interested in the following:
- “Our Personal Detour” blog category. Read about how we’ve grown along our journey, what struggles we’ve had, our goals, and more.
- “Affording Full-Time Travel” blog category. Read our posts about what we do for work, the budgeting process and ways we cut back to afford to travel more, how we paid off debt, etc.
- Full-Time RV Resources and Information Page. This page is full of tips for getting into RVing. From what products we use for full-time RVing to FAQs and featured destinations!
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Thank you for sharing this! I would love to be able to do this one day!