Hi all,
Some of you may remember recently that my wife and I were looking for a house in the Tempe area. Well, we've put our house-owning plans on hold for a while, in favor of a more awesome, more-ambitious, and ultimately IMO more-badass idea: move into a travel trailer and live as wayfarers. The idea is to just roam around North America, experiencing all the culture and sights and wonderful natural landscapes this great continent has to offer. We'll do this until we don't want to anymore (which might be never, who knows?) or until circumstances align against us and we can't manage it for whatever reason.
The main reason we want to do this is a fairly obvious one: it sounds freakin' awesome! We found that as we talked more and more about buying a house here we got less and less excited about it. We really don't want to be tied to Arizona, and especially not to the Phoenix area, long term. We DO want to travel and be free from the 9 to 5. Since we are young and not rich yet, the solution is simple: live in a very small, cheap space and pull it with us wherever we feel like living! The more we talk about THIS idea, the more excited we get about it. We've been thinking about it for a few months now.
Other important motivations include:
-More personal freedom and responsibility over our daily schedules and activities.
-Spend more of our days together, which we really value and enjoy. Right now we don't get anywhere near as much time in each other's company as we really like--before I got this job we spent 20+ hours together, every day, and that was the way we liked it. Now we miss each other all the time. :-(
-Spend MUCH more time outdoors and in motion
-Migrate freely to avoid seasonal extremes or for any other reason, as we desire
-More time and freedom to pursue our passions and hobbies--writing, inventing, programming, art, crafts, etc.
-(Hopefully) smaller environmental footprint and waste stream, which is more in line with out political and social values
-Visit friends all over the country as a natural consequence of our roving about
-Destress! Unplug from the ridiculous pace of consumer society
-Perfect setting to practice survival and wilderness skills as desired--hey, you never know. :-) Also, living mobile makes you naturally more resilient to local disasters and so on.
And the list goes on--you get the idea.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone around here has ever done something like this, and if so, what words of wisdom you might have for us. I've been reading cheaprvliving.com and cheapgreenrvliving.com for ideas, as well as some other sites that I've seen linked to, and ERE--any other resources people are aware of that would be helpful?
Our current plans:
-Obtain a travel trailer and suitable tow vehicle. The trailer we are totally in love with is the Cricket (crickettrailer.com), which is a funky popup made out of structural aluminum foam-core panels and beams, and looks a little like someone artfully crushed it with a giant vise. We like this trailer for many reasons--it is small and very light (~1300lbs unloaded) for its size, so we can tow it with a relatively small, efficient vehicle. It has a folding couch/bed, a small table, a kitchen sink/cabinet area, operable windows and vents, 12V deep cycle battery and power system, and a shower area with a portable toilet. It has everything you NEED and pretty much nothing you don't, and it's small enough that we'll want to be outside most of the time except for sleeping and washing, which is a plus. The major downside is the price (~15K equipped), but this is a reasonable number if we use it for a couple of years or more, since we will be saving so much money on living expenses and rent/mortgage that we would otherwise be paying.
We are not totally decided on this trailer, but it's the one that I keep coming back to as the best bet for light weight, compact size, efficiency and capability. Everything else I've seen is bigger, heavier, more expensive or doesn't realy seem livable long-term. I really like that the Cricket is always ready to go and requires nothing but a quick pop of the top to set up. But if you think you have a better option, let me know! I'm looking for input.
-As for a vehicle, we are thinking a Forester or maybe a four-cylinder double cab Tacoma with a full-height bed cover. This mostly depends on how much gear we decide we need to take. The Tacoma is slight overkill as far as towing capacity (the 2400lbs rating on the Forester is more than adequate), but we may just need the space afforded by the truck bed/cover to keep everything we need with us. We plan to get the trailer first, and take it camping using our current pickup (a v6 Tacoma, which we will be getting rid of in favor of a smaller, more efficient tow vehicle, but right now it's what we have) to get a feel for how much we will need to bring before we decide on a final vehicle. Again, advice is appreciated.
-We have a whole list of gear, which we are trying to keep reasonably minimal, but again, any suggestions from experienced people as far as what you consider essential would be great. We're planning to get a 12V compact freezer, and use a cooler or two with ice as refrigerators, and use a 2-burner propane camping stove for cooking. I won't go through the whole gear list unless someone wants to know.
-As for making money, my wife is starting to make a pretty decent income reselling antique and vintage jewelry online. I have been taking over the "CFO" role for her, which is her definite weak point, and helping her to leverage her skill at finding amazing deals to resell into a more profitable venture. So we are planning on continuing with that as we travel. It's mostly online anyway, and we can use a mail forwarding service to receive parcels as needed. We actually expect that traveling to different markets regularly will be a boon to our income, because we can take advantage of price differences in different markets, and be traveling merchants! Jewelry is also very compact and portable so it works out on multiple fronts. I expect I will be helping her with her finances and logistics part-time. I also would love to find some freelance writing, programming or engineering work as we go, especially tele-commute stuff, so we'll see what I can pick up in that regard. I also have a possible opportunity to go in on a development project with a buddy of mine in the near future, which would be awesome--and we can move our trailer to wherever that is located if needed. We shouldn't need to make a ton of money to fund this lifestyle so I'm not too worried about it. We are also, of course, saving as much as we can before I quit my current job to give ourselves as good a headstart as possible.
-We also have a whole list of activities and things to do on the road, including volunteering around the country for Habitat for Humanity or possibly WWOOFing (which in particular would lower our expenses, given free room and board with most of organic-farm arrangements).
That's it, in several Brazil-nutshells! Advice, criticism, and thoughts are all appreciated greatly, unless you're a meanie-head in which case you can GTFO. :-)