Have you ever wished you could ask a full-time traveler, modern-day nomad, or travel and adventure addict what it’s really like to sell everything, hop a plane or pack your family in an RV, and just go?

Well, now that traveler is coming to you with the answers.

Here’s our full-time family travel story, our adventure-seeking story, and all our best travel and adventure advice from 10 years of living outside the box — in one place.

It started like this ⤵

The year was 2012. We were antsy. We knew life could be more than the way we were living it and we wanted so much better for our little family, but we couldn’t see how to get there. And that sent us into a season of discontent and disease.

Then, sitting at our breakfast table over coffee one morning, everything changed in an instant with a big question:

“Why don’t we sell this place and move to the coast?”

Hearing this question from the person I love most on the planet has to be one of my favorite life moments ever. It’s a moment that changed everything for us and truly the exact moment where so many of our best adventures and family memories were born.

It was the spark of possibility we needed, and we took it and ran with it.

It wasn’t our first big adventure since getting married. It wasn’t even the first time we’d turned our whole life upside down since having our first baby. (Flying across the world with a 15-month-old to live in Australia for a couple of years did that for us.) But it was quite possibly the most pivotal, life-changing one. After all, loads of people have one big adventure in their lives and then settle into a regular, suburban life quite happily with all of their travel bugs taken care of and every ant in their pants thoroughly shaken out.

In 2012, we had been on our one great adventure and come back home, and we had every reason to settle into our carefully crafted regular suburban life — family and friends close by, good and stable jobs, a beautiful home in a safe neighborhood, even piles of debt to ensure we’d never be able to leave even if we wanted to.

But we had to.

As soon as we realized we weren’t living a life we even remotely wanted, we knew we had to go.

So we left anyway and moved to take a job on the coast — something we’d always dreamt of doing but never thought possible.

After a few months, a renter showed up for our big, fancy house. (A year later, so did a buyer, but looking back on that now, leaving the home we owned empty to rent another home without either of those things in place does seem risky. I’m glad we did it anyway.)

We didn’t know much when we asked ourselves “Why not?”. We just knew we had to get out and on with our lives and we needed to do it fast.

So, we did.

One year and two rental houses later in 2013, we were at our breakfast table again asking each other another question that changed everything:

“What if we didn’t move all this stuff again? What if we sold it and traveled in an RV instead?”

And that was quite the question. Because back then, there weren’t heaps of full-time travelers on Instagram.

Back then, it was just a small group of single people and three families we knew as Malimish, Wandrly, and Bumfuzzle, who honestly seemed way more confident and out-of-the-box cool about the traveling lifestyle than we could ever be.

But this question was another spark of possibility.

And it sent us on 7 years of full-time travel around the US, helping us scratch our travel bug again and again and ultimately find ourselves living the lives we knew we were meant for.

Thankfully, I wrote about all those travels and everything we learned from them.

Month after month, mile after mile.

Now, all these years later, I’m so grateful I did, so grateful I recorded every place, every lesson. Because now, I have so much to keep learning from as I choose new dreams to pursue.

Now, I get to share all that experience with you.

Below you’ll find a blend of new articles and old travel blogs, magazine contributions and how-tos, and even a certain book to get you going.

Travel & Adventure — Big Picture

How do we get started?

Where are the best places to visit?

National Park Hacks from Long-Term Nomads
Roadtrip Advice from a Former Full-time Traveler
The Best Hikes in Acadia National Park
New England & the Northeast (our old travel blogs about RVing in northeastern USA)
Georgia & the South (our old travel blogs about RVing in southern USA)
Out West (our old travel blogs about RVing in western USA)
The Best National Parks for Families
The Power of the Solo Adventure
Tips for Roaming Around a Big City With Kids
Why National Parks are Magic for Family Togetherness

What about the kids?

What if it doesn’t work out?

Are you serious? Is this really possible for regular people?

This question. I love it — It’s the #1 reason I share our family’s pursuit of travel and adventure with the world.

Because it only took seeing a few despondent looks and hearing people say “Must be nice! We’d love to do that but we can’t — we’re not rich enough, homeschool-type people, remote workers, etc., etc., etc.” a few bazillion times for us to realize one very important thing ⤵

It’s way too easy for us humans to shrink behind our fears.

It’s way too easy to miss the sparks of possibility and shrink down into who everyone else expects us to be.

It’s way too easy to ignore our dreams and just survive.

And yes, it’s possible to live your dreams —even with a dead-end job, even with no travel budget, even if you can only barely believe it right now.

It takes work, but it’s totally possible.