Fulltiming roadblocks: Wanderlust vs. a house

Wanderlust: a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world. (Oxford Online English Dictionary 2013)

One of the biggest roadblocks for most people to go out and live the dream of RV fulltiming is the fear or the indecision about selling their “stick and brick” home. There are many reasons to have a very strong attachment to the place where you currently live. It could be where you raised your kids. It could be that you have strong family and friendship ties in the area and be an area of the country that you love. It could be that you still subscribe to the “American Dream” that was taught to so many of us right up to the Great Recession – home ownership is the ultimate prize, the be-all-and-end-all of which to aspire. Or it could be that, as in our case, you built the home from the ground up with your blood and sweat, choosing every aspect and fixture and doing almost every construction job yourself.

Are any of these reasons valid? Absolutely! Each one of us has to decide which of our dreams is stronger and try to live according to that. There are people who will decide that owning their own home, living in one city and taking periodic vacations is their idea of the perfect life. In some ways I envy them! This wanderlust that has always been a part of who I am can be frustrating at times and a blessing in others. I remember my good friend Jenny once telling me that she never put my phone and address in ink in her address book. Of course this was before the age of Smart Phones and computer address books! So this frequent changing of scenery has been a part of me for quite some time although previously it only occurred in Northern Wisconsin.

After meeting Bill and thinking that the “adult” and “responsible” thing was to own a home, I pushed to build our current home in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Many hours of hard labor and many arguments later we have a piece of property of which we are very, very proud. Enter 2008 and the beginnings of the Great Recession. Suddenly we were faced with having to leave the Northwoods in search of work and RV fulltiming was the answer. After three years on the road, the nomadic bug for me is even stronger than before. I am extremely grateful that Bill feels the same, although he would be happy just leaving Wisconsin in the winter. But we know that if we want we CAN come back and spend the summers here as with RVing “home is where you park it”.

So now we begin the chore of getting rid of excess possessions, something that we never did do the first time we left for the road. One thing that we have already realized by being on the road for three years is that there are many things that we have that are really not necessities. What IS necessary is being able to travel and go to the Master’s Golf Tournament in Augusta, spend New Year’s Eve in Key West and play washboard at a zydeco bar on Bourbon Street. Good or bad experiences such as these are more important to us than having a home without wheels. So if you happen to know anyone who is looking for a great one bedroom home on five wooded acres in the Wisconsin Northwoods be sure and pass my information along!