Our Story &

Tiny Living

I always want to be real with anyone reading this blog about full-time travel, tiny living, Airstream life… all of the above. So I want to share some of our hardest moments that had us either wanting to quit or had us seriously questioning, “what are we even doing?” So here we go…

As with just about anything in life, you can only prepare so much until you are actually living it. We have been living in a 150 sq ft Airstream for the past 3 months and here are 3 things we love and 3 things we don’t.

1. Self-Cleaning Vacuum We have a little hidden cubby where we keep our Deebot (googly eyes not included). This almost didn’t happen and I am SO glad it did. I learned within one day how dirty our floors get. It’s awesome to run the little robot vacuum while we are gone or asleep or packing up and have it do all the work.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is ”How can you afford to travel full-time?” Well, I’m going to tell you! Our Story Once we decided to travel full-time, we knew we had to figure out how to work from the road. At the time I was employed at a hospital working as a surgical technologist in the operating room. I enjoyed what I did but also wanted to stay at home with my daughter Addie. I originally started to look into traveling scrub tech positions. And while that’s not the direction I went in, it’s still something I would like to do in the future. I also have always loved writing and have done little writing gigs in the past so I explored ways to do jobs that I could take on the road. Jonathan was working for a marketing company that allowed him to have fairly flexible hours. We started talking with his manager about working in a position that would allow him to work from the road. Then that all changed. Unexpectedly on February 13, 2018, Jonathan was called by his manager and HR rep. The call was to inform him that not only he but his entire department was being let go. While we were devastated at first, this was the exact push we needed to get our plan in motion. Jonathan has always had a dream to create his own business. He knew the marketing field extremely well and more importantly, knew how to do it better than the companies he had worked for. Two months later Adify Marketing was born. That sentence makes it sound really easy, but the reality of that sentence was not easy at all. There were struggles and sacrifices that only we’ll remember. But today, in hindsight, it has become just one sentence in our entire success story. Our Business Adify Marketing is an online marketing company that offers SEO, Websites, Social Media, Branding & more. I am so proud of this business and so grateful that we can do everything online from the road. We work with and try to hire other full-time traveling families to help allow others to work from the road and fulfill their dreams as well. I have loved helping others turn their dreams into businesses. I’ve been so fortunate to meet many insightful people that have inspired me. It is such a privilege to help other people with their businesses and aid them in being successful. Working from the Airstream One challenge we knew we would have while working from our Airstream on the road was Wi-Fi. We MUST be connected to the Internet to serve our clients so it is a major priority for us. While we have a system worked out right now, I know this will change and hopefully improve as we continue to work and see what works best for us. Right now, we have the following: Verizon MiFi Unlimited The Wi-Fi we mainly use when we are working from the Airstream. Verizon Hum This gives Wi-fi while we drive I love this option because I can get a lot of work done on driving days. And at times when we may not get a signal at our campsite, we can drive somewhere and work from our car. T-Mobile Hotspot from a tablet We also have a tablet for work that has a hotspot. T-Mobile phones Currently, we’re with T-Mobile and have limited data. This will change because we quickly discovered that we run out of that data so fast. We may stay with T-Mobile but we’re also looking into AT&T so we have a wide range of Wi-fi options as we travel around the country. So you want to earn money on the road: My biggest advice is to get creative! There’re so many needs in the world and you can make a living from doing so many things. Figure out what YOUR skills are and how you can apply those from the road. The second bit of advice is, take the leap. I am the kind of person that likes knowing where my next paycheck is coming from and how much it is. Starting a business was terrifying for me! But as we went along, I was surprised that it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. We work around the clock, but when we need to have family time, we can do that! The payout is so worth getting up early and staying up late to get work done. I heard this thought from somewhere and I’ll try to summarize it the best I can: Many people are scared to work for themselves because they’re worried about the source of income. It may feel safer to work for one company and receive that steady paycheck. But what they don’t realize is that when you work for yourself, you have several companies or people you are receiving a paycheck from. So if you get fired from one company, you still have several others supporting your income. I hope anyone who reads this, can gain one extra ounce of courage to go for their dreams and love what you do each day of your lives. Check out this blog post at Air-streaming.com

Over the next several weeks we began looking into everything about living in an RV with kids. I was shocked to see so many people who did this full-time with not just one kid but sometimes several! I reached out to so many families on Instagram and asked questions. I read blogs. I joined Facebook groups. Slowly the idea started seeming a little less crazy. There were still several things that needed to be figured out. Doing this would literally mean changing our entire lives! We needed to find an RV to live in. We needed to find work that we could do from the road. We needed to learn all about traveling the nation full-time. It was incredibly overwhelming but we took it one step at a time. Read more about the feelings of taking this leap HERE. Before completely agreeing I wanted to go look at RVs and see if there was a way we could live in one full-time. I had never even stepped foot in an RV before we headed to some lots to look at some. All I could see was BROWN! Why are RV’s so brown? I hated all of them. But I was still warming up to the idea and wanted to give it an honest effort so we kept shopping around. We went to an RV show and several lots around the state. We finally found one that we loved but it was really pricey. Through many reasons I won’t bore you with, we decided to move to Colorado. It would allow us to save some money, downsize our things, and give ourselves two months to get ready to move into an RV and hit the road. Then during a trip back out to Utah for a wedding is when we noticed an Airstream sitting in storage out in a field and everything changed. Read about how we got our Airstream HERE

I stand with two feet planted firmly atop a steep cliff. The view up here is divine. I can see the cliffs and valleys go on into the horizon. Everywhere I look is a destination. I have with me a large backpack, and my arms are heavy from a large load I’m carrying. At the edge of the cliff, I can now see below, where before all saw was across and out. Down below I see a blue river striding along a careless path. It looks like a stroke of paint across a brown canvas. I see vibrant green trees hugging the mountainsides and traces of speckled wildflowers. I’ve never seen so much color and beauty. All I had ever focused on was the scenery in front of me, but now I’m being drawn to this oasis below me. But how do I get there? At first, it feels impossible, not even worth entertaining the thought. The view around me is beautiful, and I am safe, and I have all of my stuff. I try to dismiss the , but I can’t help but look down and study the thrilling foreign scenery. I’ve only seen pictures and heard stories before, but now I want to experience it. Well, I could jump. Jump and hope I make it safely and that the best of my belongings won't escape my grip in the fall. While the jump sounds exhilarating, the rest of the logic ends about right there too. I start looking more closely at the decent. I notice cliffs stepping nearly all the way down. The distances differ from each cliff to the next. With a lot of hesitation, I leap. I leap downward toward the closest cliff, just 2 feet below me. I land with a thud, and all my stuff clatters at the impact but stays secure in my tight grip. I look up at where I was, still within reach. I look down below, still very out of reach but is now feeling more attainable just two feet closer. I look around and find another cliff about the same distance as the last. I leap once more. This time as I land, one of the items in my arms slips away. I don’t even recognize what it is as it crashes and clangs along the rocks. The decent carries along in this pattern. Jump then look back at the top to ensure it’s still there and easy enough to get back to if needed. As I get deeper into the canyon, the jumps are getting bigger and further apart. The beginning is barely in sight, and while I can now see details of the trees and the crests in the river, it still is far away. Did I make a big mistake? If I go back, I would have to lose all of my belongings, and if I keep going down, I might not make it. I almost sit down in defeat but instead rid my arms of the last remaining Knick knacks and jump down to the next cliff. It felt good to watch all that stuff disappear, and I feel lighter and more confident. I continue leaping step by step until I get to the bottom. My feet land onto long squishy grass. I can feel the mushy wet strands between my toes and water trickling over my feet with each step. I step into the river and feel the ice-cold water run past my ankles, not even flinching at my human resistance. These feelings and experiences are just the beginning. There is so much to explore and discover. I look up towards the sky and see the cliffs above me. I’m sure I’ll be able to climb back up one of those cliffs one day, but for now, I’m going to wander and see what is meant for me right here, right now.

Jon and I have lived in Utah while we were dating and through over a year of our marriage. We had just had our baby girl and apparently that wasn’t a big enough change because we were feeling antsy for something more. We both felt like there was something that we were supposed to be doing but couldn’t quite put a finger on it. As the weeks and months wore on the anxious feelings got worse. Jon was working a 9-5 job that included some travel and I was working weird hours at the hospital. During one of Jon’s lunch breaks he surprised me by coming home and taking Addie and me to grab lunch and go for a drive. With our lunch in sacks on our laps, Jon turned to me and asked, “Up or down?” I chose down and off he drove. A few minutes later we arrived at Utah lake. This had become a favorite spot of ours to take Finnick on a walk and let him play in the water. We parked the car and faced the large reflective waters. We sat in silence for some time then Jon asked, “What are we supposed to do?” “I don’t know.” I replied, “but we are supposed to be doing something.” For the thousandth time we talked about just packing up and leaving this town and traveling the country. As we watched the wide open waters it seemed almost possible to do the impossible. With a long sigh the reality weighed back on us. We both had good stable jobs. We lived close to family. We had a decent apartment, if you dismiss the upstairs neighbors playing piano at 5:30am. It just didn’t seem to make any sense to throw all of that away. “I wish we could do something like that.” Jon said as he pointed to a tiny house parked in the campground. “I’m going to go talk to them.” “What? You can’t just go knock on some random stranger’s door and ask to see their house.” But I am so glad he did. We ended up meeting Stacy who was lives in a tiny house with her husband and 3 sons. She raved about tiny living and how much they loved it. I never thought tiny living was doable with a family but she showed us that it wasn’t just doable, it was extremely enjoyable. As we drove back home there was a palpable change in our spirits. It wasn’t just a feeling of hope, but it was also a sense of direction.