Imagine it never happened - Memories can’t be made in the past…

To set up your environment properly for this reflective post, turn on some nostalgic music, shut down any distractions, lean back in your chair and read on. I promise this will be more impactful that way. Ready? Now, let’s begin:

Your son wobbles by as he unsteadily balances while laughing and clapping his hands. Your young daughter is tossing a pinecone into the air and making funny faces as it falls to the ground. Your spouse is stepping out of the RV with a granola bar and you start poking fun asking if they brought one for you too. The breeze very gently pulses through the pine trees and you feel the warmth of the sun as the branches sway and this way and that - just enough to momentarily block your face from the bursts of rays that are radiating all around. You take a deep breath in… and then back out slowly - realizing that in this moment everything is… perfect. This is your life and you’re living it now. You’ve escaped life’s hassles and now you are alone - at peace here in this remote forest location - and doing something for yourself and your family.

As cliche as this setup sounds, I’m looking at a set of pictures from camping trips in 2017 where this was happening. This is a memory that’s locked-in and so fragile that you have to pause and slowly relive the scene - photo by photo.

This was the moment that everything finally sunk in. Although we were only in this spot for 1 day deep in the Crazy Mountains, everything just made sense as we were sitting there in this secluded spot. Due to the steep approach, I am not sure we can fit our larger RV in here, which goes to show that bigger isn’t always better when RVing in the forest.

Now let’s rewind. None of this happened. You are present in time - sitting at your desk right now at work or reading this on your phone on the couch. You have a sense of loss. You never took the risk or made the sacrifices to buy an RV all those years ago and now your children are grown. One is out of the house and the other is a teenager that doesn’t come out of their room. You and your partner had visions of this lifestyle so long ago that you’ve almost forgot that this is what you really wanted to do. But now, it’s too late. What would it have felt like? Would it have changed how our children developed later in life? These questions will have to remain unanswered.

So, wait - did this memory actually happen or didn’t happen for us? Well, yes, it very well did happen. The pictures are real, the experience was real, and we hold it dearly to our hearts. Back before we bought our first RV, I used to think forward 10 or so years into the future and ask myself what life would look like if we don’t take the chance - the risk and additional financial burden of purchasing an RV and opening up that wonderful world of experiences with, and for, our children. I didn’t want to age knowing that the one thing I really wanted to do didn’t ever really happen. However, we were completely broke, very in-debt, my career was just ramping up, and I was going through some pretty serious medical issues. What we were about to do wouldn’t be easy, but when we did finally climb that metaphorical mountain and made it to the summit, we just simply rested and caught our breath - even if it was just for little weekend outings. This made life bearable. This was now something we looked forward to and strived for. This created memories and experiences for our children that could neve have happened any other way. And we still had time to do it. This was the RV Lifestyle.

One of our first forest outings. We struggled to get our trailer into this spot and then we spent significant time gathering stones and trying to get the RV stabilized. I would do this differently now, but this was one of the first times we had to be resourceful. What an awesome 4-day weekend this was with friends whom had a campsite just across and down from our spot. We will never forget this precious time.

When we’d hitch up on Friday nights and head out, we can still so very clearly hear our 1 1/2-year-old son in the back seat saying over and over “Camping? Camping? Camping?….. Camping”. “Yes, yes, yes.”, we would respond with every question. He didn’t speak very many words at the time, but “camping” was as clear as a bell. He would sit there excitedly smiling and clapping, all why my spouse and I would exchange glances knowing that we’re doing exactly what we should be at that very moment.

As mentioned above, work was a beast. My career was just getting into full swing, we had enormous responsibilities back home, debt loomed, and people around us were saying we were awfully young to be buying an RV and heading out on these adventures. I was in my early 30’s, so I really didn’t quite understand that angle. After we toured America several times over, we now knew that indeed most couples RVing out on the road are retirees and well beyond our (then) age. However, I will note that paradigm has been shifting in recent years.

So the question may remain for you: should you spend radically and go into debt just so you don’t miss this opportunity? Well, not exactly. There is a strategic way to get there that won’t break the bank and completely hose your financial life. We go into this in detail in both our RV Lifestyle Roadmap as well as our RV Buyer Blueprint. The takeaway here is that you actually can do this and that you should do this if RVing is one of your goals.

And if you’re in a former generation than us and want to get started now, that’s perfectly fine as well! Not everyone felt the same calling we did when we started. In fact, many people wait until their retirement years to purchase their first RVs and start their RV Lifestyle - that’s honestly not a bad option; you get to pick larger, better quality RVs and you have much more time on your hands to really explore rather than trying to rush home to a job on Monday. No matter which route you’re taking, you belong here and you need to get your adventure started now! We’re here to support you and hope to hear from you real soon.

Fall in one of the neatest campgrounds we have stayed in. It’s built for smaller RVs so we cannot return to this particular campground with our much larger RV. There were paths to a beautiful meadow and the river just out the back of the campsite.