Why We Sold Our House to Travel in an RV

You might say that Justin and I had a mid-life crisis.  So we decided to sell our home to travel part-time and live in an RV.

But it was an ongoing crisis that started in our early thirties.  We had a successful business, a beautiful house, and two amazing daughters. 

We had everything we were supposed to want, but we weren’t content.

Our house was a 5 bedroom, 6.5 bathroom home on nearly two acres in the fantastic Mars, PA school district.

After our commute home from work, we’d pick the girls up from daycare around 6:30.  By the third grade, Claire had nearly an hour’s worth of homework every night.  We’d eat dinner, do homework, and say goodnight.  We went to children’s activities several nights a week.  Neither of us felt like using our precious spare time to clean or mow the lawn, so we paid for those services.

After we bought the house, we finished the basement.  Then we remodeled the kitchen, and put new hardwood floors on the first floor.  My next plan was to remodel the master bathroom because it was so 90’s and outdated…even though it was perfectly functional.  What can I say, I love beautiful things and HGTV.

At this point, you may be thinking that our lives and schedule sounds just like yours…what’s the problem?  Or you may be thinking we sound really spoiled.  Either way, we felt like we were working really hard and spending a lot of money on a house.  A house that was bigger than we needed.

About five years ago, we realized that we wanted something more, so we decided we would sell our house and buy a little farm.  We’ve always wanted land where we can have a few alpacas and chickens.  We had a huge yard sale and sold A LOT of our household items that weren’t going to fit in the farmhouse.  But, God has a plan, and that farm at that time wasn’t meant to be.

In the meantime, we started camping.  The girls are at that sweet age where they will remember these trips, that they are excited to see and experience new things, and most importantly, they still want to hang out with us.

We realized that if we didn’t have a house and maintenance, we could take the next few years to travel more extensively and live in our RV.  We started exploring education options for the girls.  Since Justin and I work together, we considered homeschooling them.  That way, we could spend more than two hours a day together.  Ultimately, we decided to go with a cyber school option, and enrolled at PA Cyber Charter Academy.  

We are able to work remotely, as long as we had a reliable internet connection (which has proved to be the most challenging part of the plan).

We simply decided that it was more important for us to spend time together than it was to have a house.  It took about two years to get everything in place. There seem to be two camps: those who think we’re nuts and those who think we’re brave.  I suppose we’re somewhere in the middle.  I remember when we started telling people about our plan.  It even sounded sort of absurd to us.  There were so many logistics to work out, between work and school and where do you get your mail. 

Figuring all of that out is a process.  I do know that we have grown closer as a family already, that we stopped doing things just because society tells us we’re “supposed to,” and that the girls are learning to analyze what is important to them and why (something I wish learned at a younger age).  Deciding to live in an RV is certainly not an easy choice, but one that we think aligns with what we value.

Read more about how we downsized from 6,000 square feet to 600 square feet and where we live now.