I know not everyone loves the idea of life on the road, but I think we can all learn a little from Tiffany and Sean’s adventure like: living with less, going after your dreams, and doing what you love! So, today Tiffany is back for a little Q and A about life on the road, how they took the plunge, and more. Check it out!
What made you want to go out on the road?
I have what a wandering soul, I like to move around, meet new people, and see what’s “out there” also, we felt like there were so many places in the United States that we wanted to visit and we didn’t want to see one place a year for a week or two, and it take 20 years to see all the places on our list. So we thought let’s do it all at once and then spend the next 20 years re-visiting our favorites.
How do you live in such a small space?
As much as I love design and creating a home, things just aren’t that important to me. This is important because it made it a lot easier to give up most of our stuff, only keeping one small trailer full for when we stop. The second part of the equation is I designed the interior of eddie just like I would our house, so it feels just as cozy and homey as if it were a regular home. This is one of the things that we see many travelers neglecting to do and I can’t imagine going into a plain box of a room and being happy, I guess I can’t totally leave the design part of my personality out, luckily it can be done with minimal things.
How long have you been on the road/ plan to be on the road?
We got on the road the beginning of January and plan to go as long as we enjoy it, which should be awhile. Our hope is to always travel to some extent. As we travel we are looking for 2 places to call home, we want 2 (ideally) because we’re warm weather people and would love somewhere sunny & warm during the winter, but we also anticipate finding a little spot that we never want to leave somewhere in the Northwest, so 2 spots would allow us to have both, and then travel parts of the year too.
How do you support yourselves?
Right now is part hiatus, part work. We are going to design & renovate vintage travel trailers together and are scouting trailers all the time, (as soon as we find one of our two spots, we will get land and start this process).
Also, I work via Skype, email, etc. with clients doing both design work and personal coaching. On the ME blog (on wanderingairstream.com) I have a column called Ask Me, it’s all about living your best life and is centered around topics that I work on one-on-one with clients. I hope to build this into a full fledged “dear abby” style column, as both writing & helping others create & live their best life are my passions. The website also hosts 5 blogs and this keeps me very busy! As I said, writing is a huge passion of mine and I look forward to seeing where this and the website might lead me.
Tiffany at La Jolla Cove in CA
How did you decide to take “the plunge” of actually living in an airstream?
I know all to well that life is precious and how long you have is uncertain, we didn’t want to wait for ??? Also, we knew that we wanted to live somewhere totally new and we have no idea where that is, so this seemed like the best way to find that place. It takes a lot to uproot a whole life and business but it has been so worth it. It is so easy to get comfortable. We had built a successful business of 14 years, had a good routine/lifestyle, but that can trap you and we didn’t want that. We had dreams of something new, and the thought of waking up 5 years down the road and not have had the courage to go for it was scarier than starting over and hoping it all works out.
Where do you plan to settle down?
Even though we don’t know for sure, we have some ideas.. we think somewhere warm (or warmish at least) in California for our winters, and then possibly Montana for the summers. We both love wide open spaces, being able to see for miles, so it will be a small town with a big view.
How do you decide where to go/where have you been?
So far we basically have followed the weather, it’s hard to be on the road if it’s freezing, that’s why there are so many snowbirds! Your pipes freeze, etc., so a lot of travel so far was dictated by where it doesn’t drop below 4o at night. We have traveled extensively on the East Coast (not in the Airstream but on vacation) from Maine to Key West and also much (but not all!) of the Midwest, so we were anxious to travel West and see all new territory. We don’t go by a set plan, we just have a general idea, which includes Northern California as a starting point and then moving throughout all of the Western states, (Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana….) We have been through Alabama, Mississippi, Texas (which we had seen a lot of prior to starting our journey), New Mexico, Arizona, and now Southern California. We plan to re-visit many of these when the weather is better in the fall. We fell in love with the open plains of West Texas, particularly Marathon, Texas and will go back there for sure.
Photo of Marathon, Texas
What are the best and worst things about being on the road?
The best is the adventure, the never knowing what’s around the next corner. I am especially looking forward to meeting new people which has been limited thus far because where we have been has been mostly people who live full time at the RV camp (this is very common) and therefor they are not as friendly and outgoing as when you’re in National or State Parks where people are also traveling and on the go. Also, just the simplicity of your life when you live in 175 sq. ft. Everything is simpler, and I love simple.
The worst? There hasn’t really been a worst. The space is absolutely no issue for either of us, we have wifi, we cook just the same as home, we don’t have TIVO or satellite right now and that is a total bummer, I like my tv shows in the evenings and we both miss that! So far the shower houses have been good, I was worried about this but so far so good, so overall it really is great.
What have you learned from your experience so far?
That it is 100% worth the risks of leaving behind comfortable to go in search of your bigger dreams. We don’t know how it will all come out in the end, but I will never regret it. I hope in life to always be able to say I did it, or I tried it, when I think of things I want to do, see, experience and this is the beginning of that.
A big thanks to Tiffany for sharing about her life and lovely airstream! I look forward to keeping up with all her adventures on the road on her blog Wandering Airstream. . . and eventually following her example by buying an airstream of our own!!!