Our decision to become a full-time RV family was something we had joked about on occasion. I had seen other people talk about living the full-time RV lifestyle here and there and never seriously considered it. That rapidly changed when my husband returned home from deployment.

We have lived the traditional American family lifestyle for all of our adult lives. We’ve had jobs,  bought cars, a home and had children.

We have also worked hard to save money and keep ourselves out of debt. According to the societal box of standards, you see in the United States we are right there in the middle of average.

Our Life Before Making the Decision to Become A Full-Time RV Family

Our life, like I said before is pretty average. We have a double income household, a mortgage, two cars, two kids and a cat.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary and both of us seemed pretty happy with the life we had built. Even now as I’m writing this I’m pretty happy with our current lifestyle.

If we hadn’t made the decision to become a full-time RV family I’d still be pretty happy. But not as happy as we could be.

You see Nate & I have been married for nearly 9 years. We’ve been together for 12 years. We met in high school and knew early on that we were going to be together for the rest of our lives.

Out of high school, Nate started working and I went to college.

In high school, I felt like the only thing I could do was go to college and get a job. It was the societal standard that I was supposed to meet. But it didn’t feel right.

As a teenager, I hopped from job to job. Even after college, I hopped around. I never felt at home with any “job” I held. It never felt like I could work for a lifetime at those places.

Nate felt the same way but knowing he had to do something he joined the Air Force.

Being the resourceful person that I am I used his remaining time in his contract with the Air Force to start an online business at the age of 26.

What I never realized was the path that set us on would lead us to rving full time with kids.

Nothing could have prepared us for this decision.

We have always been a live “by the book” kind of couple. But that is all changing now.

Having A Family

When we had our first daughter we were 20 and 21. Talk about young. At that point in our life we were still prescribed to the standard of living the societal norms. Work until you’re old then retire and die.

Having a family changed that for us. The older we’ve gotten the more we realized that this busy life wasn’t for us.

The Busyness of Life

Our life has always felt busy. There have always been those moments of living life in the fast lane and we have both agreed that neither of us want that life anymore. Nor do we want that life for our kids.

Living a life of busy isn’t living life to us. Always spending money and being on the go isn’t our idea of happiness.

Despite our many tries to slow down our lifestyle it didn’t seem to work for long.

We have this desire to live a more intentional lifestyle with our kids at the center of it.

We grew up in homes that were broken and sad more often than not. That isn’t something we’ve ever wanted for our girls.

So we buckled down and got to work creating something that would work for us.

Our Goals in Life

Our goals in life seemed to be right on track. Everything seemed so perfect. Two incomes, two kids and a home that was in our name. But we were living a lie.

What we didn’t realize until recently was the military lifestyle wasn’t for us anymore. We didn’t want to continue owning the house, buying the things, doing what everyone else was doing.

We had dreams of traveling. In fact, we have traveled quite a bit as a couple. Going on vacations and mini trips each year.

So far our goals were on track. We had kids and had built pretty successful resumes. But we knew there had to be more.

Our ultimate dream was to live by the beach for the longest time. All I had to do was work really hard to build our business to get us there.

Until one day we felt like we were wasting our potential.

The Turning Point

The military life was holding us back and we’d have to wait another decade at least to achieve our dream. Then who knows where we’d be.

Then the decision to start rv-ing full time with kids was easy to make.

You see my husband got sent away from us 3 times for a total of roughly 9 months throughout the course of 2017.

We would just get comfortable with him being home and away he’d go again.

I know you’re probably thinking, “you chose this lifestyle…” Yes, we know we chose this lifestyle. But we have been an exception to the rule for nearly a decade.

Staying at one base the entire time has the tendency to kind of spoil you.

But the deployment was the pin in the cushion we needed.

I had quit my job the same day my husband got orders to deploy. We both came home with news that would turn the tide of our family for good.

What we didn’t realize was this was the turn we needed. The change of lifestyle we’d been hoping for so long.

I am very thankful for my husband and his desire to serve his country, but at some point, you have to say enough.

Knowing when to wave the flag is a strength in my book.

After he came home from deployment I mentioned full-time rv blogs I had read told him about others who had decided to become a full-time RV family. 

We brushed it off the first time or two it was mentioned. Like it was an insane idea.

Until one day it wasn’t.

We started looking into RVs. We talked about the pros and cons of rv-ing full time with kids. All of the sudden it seemed doable.

With my growing online business and his contract ending in the Air Force it was just the ticket out that we needed.

The Benefits of Living in an RV Full Time

Over the years I’ve always wanted to live with less. I love to purge things and sell the stuff we don’t need online.

Little did I know my love of living with less would come to life!

In fact, our desires to be together more, experience more and stop buying into the standards of what we should be doing are coming to life.

Some of the benefits of this lifestyle are:

• Seeing new places
• Being together as a family
• Living with less stuff
• Less stress and improved mental health
• Our ambition to make our life work for us and to actually live it
• Ultimate freedom and flexibility

You see we aren’t wanting or asking for much. We just want to be together as a family. Something that we didn’t really have in our own childhoods.

We want see what our country has to offer and to give our kids memories that will last the test of time which is why we’ve decided to become a full-time RV family. 

We decided to become a full-time RV family and while this decision might not be for everyone… but we are going for it.