A Year in Review: Our First Year on the Road as Full-Time Campers

Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity. ~Gilda Radner

 

As I sit outside our camper in Cross Hill, South Carolina, I reflect back on where this year has taken us and try to envision what the next year might hold. Living in a camper was a wistful thought of how I wanted to spend my days after we retired. That tiny seed was planted and took off like a weed and in a mere six months we bought a camper. We kept the camper stored for three months before we parked it in Asheville, North Carolina and began the slow transition from living in our house to the RV lifestyle. Even after being fully moved in we stayed at our jobs and enjoyed living in the camper until the time was right. On August 23, 2015 we hooked up and rolled out on our maiden voyage.

 

In this past year we have traveled through 10 states and camped in 9 of those oddly enough to have our current resting place be only 2 hours from where we started. As much as we talk about where to go next, we only have ideas and what we have learned is that will probably change next week. It’s not that we decide not to travel to these places it’s just what falls into place. When we left Asheville we had jobs lined up with Amazon Camperforce and so off to Texas we went. When our stay in Boyd, Texas approached it’s end we brainstormed, planned, researched, changed plans several times and on a whim and a strong recommendation we made up our minds to finish up winter in South Padre Island, Texas. Once we got jobs in South Padre we extended our original reservation as long as they had availability. We were always torn about wanting to stay longer but having no place to stay. With summer season quickly approaching we soon got our answer as to what was next. Jamie got a job with the National Park Service in Ninety Six, South Carolina, so our new path was made clear and back on the road we went.

 

I have a desire to travel and see “all of it” as I like to say, but this lifestyle for us isn’t a sprint it’s more of a stroll. Our original plan was to work somewhere six month then take a month to travel to the next six month location and I feel that works well for us. This year we were in Boyd 4 months, South Padre 5, and plan to be in Cross Hill for 6. We had to adjust a bit and that’s fine, this life has many adjustments. It’s odd to look back and think I have had 5 different jobs since we left but had been at my previous job for almost 8 years.

 

I say I have learned or am trying to learn how to be a chameleon and it takes that to adjust and adapt to all the new environments. We have made friends that we would have never met, took jobs I never envisioned, traveled more than I ever have and this is just our first year, the tip of the iceberg. I was fortunate in my old job to have had 4 weeks vacation but my husband only had one. We never worked the same scheduled but for 2 out of the 3 locations we have had the same days off. In the past year we didn’t work a total of 4 months that we had off to travel and spend together. I think this year a huge success with our main goal being to spend more time together. As far as our plans for what comes next, that’s still up in the air. We will travel on and continue to enjoy life together wherever we are parked.