My name is Monica. Steve and I have been married since 1997. We are from Panama City Beach, FL. Before we met, neither of us had ever camped. In the 90’s we tried tent camping and loved it. On a whim, in 2010, we bought a small travel trailer, and we were immediately hooked on the RV lifestyle. We loved tent camping, but no longer wanted to sleep on air mattresses that deflated by morning.
Steve has read travel memoir books for as long as I can remember. He has read about living on sailboats, living in other countries, and of course living in RVs. This led to to reading blogs of full time RVers. I think he started reading the famed Wheeling It blog from its inception. I started reading them too, and years ago we decided we wanted to join the fun. It was just the small matter of how were we going to do this.
We did not want to wait until “normal” retirement age to get started. So we crunched numbers, researched larger RVs that we could live in, and read about all the places we wanted to visit on other RV blogs.
Years before we ever heard the word “Pandemic”, we chose June, 2020 as our start date. We started going to the Tampa RV show to find our new home. We decided on a Grand Design 35 foot fifth wheel. We bought it in January, 2019 so we could work out the kinks, make some upgrades, and get it ready for full time living. I retired in 2019 and started selling our belongings, and getting our house ready for sale.
When the Pandemic hit, we briefly thought about delaying our start date, but ultimately we pressed on. Steve retired in June, 2020 and we hit the road.
We are not sure how long we are going to be on the road. As many have said, all of our plans are made in jello. We have already changed our 2021 plans 3 times ultimately deciding on traveling through the Great Lakes. Our “plan” is to visit a portion of the country each year for the next 5 years (Great Lakes, Southwest, Northwest, Oregon/Washington coast, and Northeast).
I hope you enjoy following our adventures on the road.