Ready For It?! This is where it all begins.

After planning for many years we finally decide to pull the trigger and live full-time in our camper.

I would say this journey really started in 2016 when we were camping in our first ever RV. It was a 17 foot 6.5' wide Forest River R-Pod travel trailer. It was a great starter camper and while spending some time together inside, Tyler and I said one day it would be amazing to travel the US living in our camper...maybe not this one but one just a little bigger. As we spend time camping around Vermont, New York and New Hampshire enjoying our R-Pod, excursions and spending time with friends we also took some time to look at and dream about a travel trailer with a little more room.

As we dreamt we continued on with our lives...Selling my condo and buying a house together. We called it our dream yard with a cute little house. We really wanted a yard to enjoy and let our Klee Kai, Ace have some room and freedom to run around. We spent over a year renovating the house and making our own. During this time we continued camping in the summers expanding in our careers and getting married. I also discovered RV YouTubers. Mainly a few YouTubers that were living in their RVs full-time. It really was getting in my head how awesome this would be...someday.

Then 2020 hits and my work goes full-time remote. We decide that maybe our someday could come sooner than we thought. We started looking more seriously at larger campers and in June of 2020 we purchased a new 5th wheel. A 35' Jayco Eagle. This was a huge jump from our R-Pod but as we were serious about accelerating our dream we needed something bigger but not too big. I wanted something with a little more room and Tyler wanted a nice kitchen. This one offered both. My Truck lease was up at this same time and we decided to purchase a 2020 Ram 3500 short bed with a gas engine.

We weren't ready to sell it all and jump in just yet. We needed to do some test runs and camp not just in our regular spots but expand out and also go out on our own without friends.

Over the next 2 summers we took trips on our own including going to Bar Harbor, Maine and Hershey Pennsylvania. We learned a few things from this. We loved traveling like this and was something we both really wanted to do more of. Also, although the camper was great and we had no issues with the quality, the layout wasn't going to work. We had also added a new member to the family, Deuce joined us in between camping trips in August of 2020.

It just so happens that when we were in Hershey we attended the largest RV show in the US. We were just there to explore other possible layouts that might work for us. "Just looking" turned into we purchased a new 5th wheel that weekend. We actually ordered it from the factory. The real maker was when they offered us not only a big discount off the msrp, but were giving us more for our current 5th wheel then we paid for it over a year earlier. We also could keep our camper until the new one from the factory was delivered in the spring. Sold!!!

While in Hershey we also met a couple that were full-time campers and YouTubers I had watched. They were super friendly and took the time to talk about their adventures and ours...Spoiler, we are still friends with them today and have had some great experiences with them.

What camper did we get? haha well it is a 45' Grand Design 5th wheel. The selling point was the amazing inside and outside kitchen for Tyler and the great exterior storage for myself.

We picked up the camper in the spring of 2022. We dropped off our Eagle 5th wheel at the same time and they never even looked at it. Oh those were the great days of trading in I'm sure we would never see again.

I was still not ready to jump in to full-time. There were a few things I wanted to do before we committed. I wanted to again do at least one long test run and wanted to get solar installed. In the summer of 2021 I had contacted a YouTuber that travelled full-time and installed amazing solar packages on RVs. They were going to be passing through Vermont in July of 2022. I contracted with them for a solar package on our Eagle 5th wheel, then made the change to the new Grand Design once we actually picked it up. The year actually gave me time to save for the installation.

We did a couple of local test camping to make sure all was good with the new rig. All was good. Then in July we had the solar installed. After the installation we decided to take a trip to Washington DC for a real test run. What a fantastic trip. We knew we had made the correct choice in campers. What we learned was although the truck could handle the weight of the camper, pull it just fine and turn relatively tight with no issues. Stopping was just not safe. A couple of times I had to push the brake pedal to the floor and grab the camper emergency brakes. This was not going to be the ideal way to travel and we would need to get a diesel truck with dually rear end. The hunt was on. This was still pandemic times and vehicles were scarce and in high demand. I had my search going as far south as Washington DC. We had a few requirements in the truck. Had to be a Ram 3500 Dually Diesel with a crew cab and the large 50 gallon fuel tank. It also couldn't be priced over MSRP, which was very common in those times. After an extensive search for a few weeks, one popped up in southern New Hampshire. I called that day and said I would be down the next day to buy it. We went and test drove it. First time driving such a huge beast...loved it. They also gave us the same amount we had paid for our 2020 Ram that was over 2 years old. Once again we were hitting things just right.

in September we took another NY camping trip to get a feel for the truck and trailer combo. Turned out to be a dream match. Were we ready to go? Just about. The problem was we were heading into winter and was not the ideal time to start the adventure. The housing market was really booming and we did feel like we were going to miss the bubble, but there were things we needed to do before we could head out. We needed to add a lifetime spray on roof protectant for the RV. Both our other campers ended up with small leaks that could have potentially lead to large issues so we felt this was a necessary add on and we couldn't get an appointment until May 2023. Also we wanted to do some non-camper traveling before we left on our adventures because we didn't think we were going to have the opportunity once we were on the road. These trips included the Disney Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, Broadway with my parents, 2 Taylor Swift concerts, A Caribbean cruise with both our parents and a Transatlantic 2 week cruise with my parents. We didn't know when we would be able to cruise again. So we made a plan to leave in July 2023 but we would need to do all the travel, sell most of our belongings 2 cars and sell our house all in a short time period.

It all worked out much smoother than we thought. Our house sold in 6 days for more than we listed it for which was almost double what we paid less that 6 years before. We also sold both cars almost immediately to one person that flew up from New Jersey. Once again we hit things just right in timing.

So on July 21, 2023 we officially left Vermont with all that we owned in our camper ready to live the full-time camper life. What follows in this blog is our adventures on the road. We are doing this so our friends and family can follow along on our travels and get more details than we intend to post on Facebook or Instagram. This also is for anybody that finds it on their own. We hope you enjoy.