Road Trips

I have had this book that's been sitting on my bookshelf for years called Road Trip USA by Jamie Jensen.  I always intended to actually, you know, go on a road trip and make use of it one day but I never did.  Although I adore the idea of a road trip, with modern life being what it is, there never seemed to be enough time.  Or money, since I don't actually own my own car.

I just recently remembered that I owned this book and I've just been poring over it since I really am going to get to use it now.  It's an awesome book.  It contains eleven separate cross country roads through every state but Alaska and Hawaii plus a couple forays into Canada.

Living in Chicago, we are at one end of Route 66, so it seems natural to start with that one.  A bonus for us it that both of our sets of parents live in cities on or near Route 66.  My parents are in Oklahoma City and Paul's are in southern California.

I have to admit I've already planned out the first leg of our journey, Chicago to Oklahoma City and am now actually excited about visiting Missouri.  Missouri!  The only state I forgot when I did that game where you have to name all 50 states in five minutes.  They have caves there and a really good frozen custard stand and a Jesse James museum.  And the Ozarks (though I don't think Route 66 goes through there)!

If only we could leave right now.

 photo by meddygarnet

Saving Money and Trying to Make a Little Extra

We had a yard sale this weekend and made $200!  I know it's really not much but it's still $200 that wasn't there before that we can use toward the purchase of our new traveling home.  Not to mention it feels good to be rid of all that stuff we weren't using and that was just sitting around taking up space in our lives.  It was especially cool when people bought something from us that they were clearly delighted to find, like the girl who bought a stack of my old records (we instantaneously bonded because we had the same taste in '80s music - Blondie, Morrissey, Madness, the Pet Shop Boys) and the lady whose new rescue dog was just so excited to have the dog toys that turned out to be too big for our pug.  It just feels good to know that our old stuff that we never touched is now making someone else happy.

Even after the garage sale, though, we still have a ton of stuff we'll need to get rid of before we make the big transition - whenever it happens.  I'm going to try to sell as much as I can...I put my wedding dress up for sale yesterday, and once we have a "launch date" set I'll start selling the furniture on Craigslist.  We also have a ton of books and CDs I can sell on eBay.

Apart from selling as much as we can, we're also trying to save money. I just have to remember whenever I'm tempted to buy something how much  I'd rather have a camper or how much I'd rather quit my job one day early.  I also need to go through our expenses and eliminate stuff we're paying for but not really using, such as our home phone.  And of course we're trying to eat in and do things on the cheap and DIY whenever possible.  I know we can do it - and probably in less than a year - but a year seems like an eternity when there are adventures to be had.

Hopefully, I'll be smart and use this time to prepare rather than procrastinate!

Plan of Action

I am one of those people who love to make lists and set goals.  So, after perusing the two RV books I bought I've come up with a basic step-by-step plan to get from here, living in a condo in Chicago with no car, a ton of stuff and two steady jobs to where we want to be:  traveling the continent in a travel trailer with only a few possessions, a big truck and wages from various gigs along the way.

I don't have deadlines set for the steps as of yet, but I will add them later.  So without further ado:

Step 1:  Research as much as possible - I might order some more books and I'm looking for good fulltiming blogs to subscribe to.  I also found a few RV related podcasts.  I have to be careful not to go too crazy with research though (I have a tendency to do that - I want to kick myself when I think of how many beautiful summer days I wasted researching the perfect whatever for my wedding that was all over in four hours).

Step 2:  Network with other fulltimers - I imagine I'll have to the this mostly through the internets, forums and such, since I don't personally know any fulltimers and the nearest campground is over over an hour away by the car we don't have.

Step 3:  Set a budget - A very important step.  We need to figure out not only what kind of trailer and vehicle we can afford but also try and predict what our monthly expenses will be on the road so we'll have a baseline for what we'll need to earn to get by.  I'm hoping that fulltiming will be less expensive for us than the stationary life. 

Step 4:  Determine how we will make a living - Also very important.  I recently started a freelance writing business but I'm not making much dough at it yet.  I definitely intend to continue writing for dollars on the road but I'm pretty sure we'll need to supplement that income.  I recently read about a guy who made a living while fulltiming as a traveling bicycle mechanic, which would be perfect, since that's what my husband does now. But I imagine we'll take whatever jobs we have to. 

Step 5:  Take an RV rental vacation - This is a hard one for me, not because I wouldn't love taking a trip but because renting an RV is so expensive.  If we decide to do this it will suck up a good deal of the money we've worked so hard to save to buy a trailer.  On the other hand, it seems ridiculous to say that I want to spend my life doing something I've never even tried even if I feel 110% sure that I'm going to love it.

Step 6:  Select a rig - We've kind of already started on this.  I don't think I could ever be happy living in an ugly house, so that rules out about 90% of contemporary RVs with their beige hideousness.  What's left are vintage RVs, Airstreams, and a few teeny trails like the Shasta Airflyte and the Tada.  It's looking like a new, or even late model used, Airstream is going to be beyond our budget, but there are plenty of vintage ones available too.  As to the ultra-tiny trailers, I know that there are people who live in them full-time, but my husband is trepidatious because we'll have also have two cats and a small but flatulent dog we'll be taking along.  So it looks for now like we'll probably be taking the vintage route. For a while I was checking out all the old '70s Avion and Airstream-type 30 to 34 footers because they offer so much room and so many features at a comparative bargain, but now I'm wondering something like a 23 footer might be a better idea since it would have everything we need, would be able to go just about anywhere (e.g. National Parks), be easier to tow and cost us less in fuel.  As to the trailer or motorhome question, the hubs is pretty set on a trailer for the perfectly logical reason that if the engine craps out on us, we'll still have a place to live.  I'm a bit more open to the idea of a motorhome and keep getting crushes on adorable little 1970s models that I could buy right now and use right away.  Paul (my husband) thinks this is a monumentally bad idea but neither one of us knows enough about  motor vehicles to really say for sure, in my opinion. 

Step 7:  Select a tow vehicle - I'll leave this one up to my husband, perhaps with some help from my dad.

Step 8:  Purchase tow vehicle - The trailer is more important to me than the tow vehicle so I want to select the tow vehicle based on what the trailer model we've decided on needs to pull it.  However, I think actually buying the tow vehicle first makes the most sense so we'll have something to tow it with especially if we buy it from a private party.

Step 9:  Purchase the trailer - I can't wait to complete this one.

Step 10:  Take a trial run - To work out all the kinks.

Step 11:  Sell our condo - Fingers crossed!

Step 12:  Deal with minutiae - Stuff like mailing addresses, internet connections, domicile, etc.

Step 13:  Deal with possessions -I've already started on this.  Yay me!  I've been selling books on Amazon and clothes at the consignment shop and we'll be having the first of probably at least two garage sales this weekend.  Just getting rid of the clutter feels pretty good.

Step 14:  Fix up the trailer - Make any mechanical or cosmetic repairs or upgrades that are needed.

Step 15:  Work on storage solutions - Figure out how all of the stuff we need is going to fit in the trailer.

Step 16:  Create a maintenance plan - There are checklists for this, right?

Step 17:  Fix up the tow vehicle - Like Step 13 but with a truck.

Step 18:  Deal with bikes and/or scooters - Figure out how we will transport our bikes.  Consider purchasing a scooter as a low cost getting around vehicle for non-bikeable distances.

Step 19:  Make sure everything is safe and secure - Fire extinguishers, first aid kit, locks and all that.

Step 20:  Prep the pets - Shouldn't be much to this but we might need to buy a few travel friendly accessories.

Step 21:  Move into the trailer - I love thinking about how I'm going to arrange and decorate our new place.  I'm such a girl about things like that.

Step 22:  Hit the Road!

What do you think?  Did I miss anything?

Research

For some reason, finding books on RVing is really difficult - at least in the brick and mortar world (there seem to be plenty of options online).  Up until the other day all of the bookstores I went to had zilch despite (or maybe because of) the fact that I live in a major city with many chain and independent bookstores.

Finally, a day or so ago, I decided to take a load of my books to sell at Half Price Books (as part of my decluttering program in preparation for moving into a trailer).  I only got $20 crummy dollars for my trade in but it was totally worth it because they actually had a section in the store about RVs, with three whoe books!  I bought two of them Full Time RVing: A Complete Guide to Life on the Open Road by Bill and Jan Moeller (a little outdated but whatever) and The Complete Idiot's Guide to RVing by Brent Peterson.  I'll review them for you when I'm done reading.

I figure with these two books and an RSS feed full of fulltiming blogs, my husband and I will be able to educate ourselves on the topic of RVing and come up with a master plan.

I Want to Live in a Trailer

One morning last spring,  I shook my husband awake at the ungodly hour (for us) of 6 A.M.  Something had come to me in a dream, as if placed there by the hand of Zeus.  I suddenly knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  As soon as he opened his crusty little eyes, I blurted “I think we should live in a trailer and travel around the country!”

I expected him to say “no” or to roll his eyes, sigh and go back to sleep, as are his usual reactions to my cockamamie schemes.  But much to my delight, he said “okay” and sat up in bed and we proceeded to make plans as how we were going to pull it off for the next three hours.
Fast forward to now, early October, and I’ve decided to start keeping a blog to chronicle the process of how we’re going to make this happen and hopefully, after it does happen, it will become a journal of our travels.
We have certain things going for and against us in terms of achieving our dream.  First of all, we’re young, which is both a pro and a con.  We are both decades away from being able to collect social security or receive any type of government medical benefits but our youthfulness should open up a wider range of work opportunities on the road, especially in Paul’s case, being that he is a rather strapping lad.  I’m not so into physical labor but I suppose I could do it if I had to.
Also, our family consists of me, Paul, our pug George, and out two cats Tilly and Iggy.  No kids  to worry about warping for life with our alternative lifestyle (although if we were to change our minds later, I’d probably just go ahead and warp them).
Growing up, my parents moved over twenty times before I reached the age of majority.  They always seemed to be chasing a better life somewhere, a terminal case of “the grass is always greener”.  On the one hand, I’ve been to (and lived in) more U.S. states than anyone I’ve ever known and I think I have an unusually broad understanding of different American classes and cultures.  I can fit in just about anywhere but at the same time I’ve never really felt I belonged anywhere.  I’ve lived in Chicago nearly all of my adult life and I still don’t feel I belong here.  Conversely, my husband was born and raised in Chicago, leaving only to go to college in Indiana.  But he has several close friends from missionary families who moved all around the world growing up, so it’s not an entirely alien concept to him.
Although it wasn’t easy growing up the way I did (especially the having to make new friends only to lose them again part) it’s pretty much instilled wanderlust in my nature as well as a profound appreciation for the vast and varied beauty of the country we live in.  I long to revisit many of the places I knew as a kid and also have a list a mile long of new places I want to see.  But if I a am being honest, my real ulterior motive is to be able to spend time with or far-flung friends and family without being obligated to return to some crappy job somewhere else the next Monday.
As to the practical aspects of living in a trailer, time will tell.  However, I’ve always been drawn to the idea of small living quarters  with a place for everything and everything in it’s place.  The idea of having very little housework to do is highly appealing for sure.
Our biggest hurdle by a long shot is the fact that we are far from moneyed.  We have a modest amount saved to buy a used trailer, and we will need to work and save quite a bit more before we can be fully kitted out and ready to hit the road.  We have no tow vehicle either, so we will need to purchase one of those as well.  Finally, we will need to work on the road in order to have money to live on and pay our bills.  I have started a freelance writing business which has yet to be profitable and we both currently hold down day jobs.  I work at a non-profit and Paul works at a bike shop as a mechanic.  I imagine that we will have to take on various odd jobs while we are traveling to survive.
That is our story for now.  I intend to update as often as possible with progress on our goals and I would absolutely love to hear from anyone who is currently planning for a life on the road or has already begun one.