RVlife

This is where we are parked and living at the present moment. A peaceful campground in Cochiti Lake, New Mexico. What you see in the picture is our home of 5 1/2 years. It’s not your normal home and not everyone can RV life or live on the road as a nomad full time; but after a couple of years, we found the new “normal” to us. My husband and I work remotely and follow the nice weather with our two adventure cats, Mango and Kali.

How did we meet and decide to live this way? We met 14 years ago on MySpace in Michigan. Denny is a good-looking guy, so I messaged him to see if he wanted to meet and go dancing that same night. We did, had the time of our lives, and couldn’t stop talking or smiling. Our lives were forever changed. I would soon move in, then we would start planning to move to Miami, then years later to Raleigh, and then into an RV.

Our life on the road is always changing, or we’re changing and learning from our mistakes. We travel in a toy-hauler, 37 foot, class A RV; what that means is that we have a garage that opens and serves as a deck with beautiful views, depending where we are. At the beginning of our travels, we had to think about what toys we wanted to take with us. At first, we thought a golf cart was a good idea. Then selling it and getting a motorcycle was a better one, and that led to me (Veronica) wanting my own. So we both got dirt bikes and took them on beautiful trails, some harder than others, and I had my rookie close calls. And the trails and adventures were so worth it!

Now, after selling the bikes and trading them for e-bikes, we learned that we would rather be safe long term by taking the Jeep out on trails and later adding a rooftop tent, provided all the extra off-roading adventures we needed. But we missed having the cats with us, and also didn’t like leaving them in the big RV for extended periods of time. So we played around with the van idea. That way, we could take the cats and adventure, too.

Now you might be thinking why we would want to take the cats on adventures in the first place, why put them in danger? But Mango and Kali are not normal cats. Almost six years ago, they left the comfort of a townhome and already started enjoying the benefits of both indoor and outdoor cats. So they knew how to enjoy the outdoors and find their way home. We have pushed those comforts a bit and changed their stick and bricks home for a home on wheels, and their backyard changes monthly, if not weekly. But they adjusted, and boy do they love the outdoors. Their favorite thing is joining us on mini hikes, they strut like mini panthers in the wild.

So back when we were already two years on the road, we felt like we had everything under control. we had the reigns on our life and we would go and live how and where we pleased for as long as we wanted. There was no going back to what others call “normal,” and we couldn’t replace the feeling of being “free” with anything else.

But recently, we have been meeting a lot more people that are living the same way, and just happened to sell everything and traded their safety and homes to live on the road full time. This home on wheels and our story was unique a few years back.. and our way of living was only done by a few... now it’s become another “trend” so... we are planning to downsize to van life! So, the story is again changing and to be continued, and we will share the stories and updates as we slowly transition and try out our new way of adventuring :)