An ongoing conversation of ours had always been what would life look like after we retired. We both love to travel so we knew that would be a big part of our retirement. At some point Rod started watching Youtube videos about RV travel and living. We quickly decided that this was the route we wanted to go. So, the search was on for the perfect rig and planning started for the time when we would retire.
After many RV shows, RV dealerships, RV reviews and YouTube videos we finally settled on the Lance 2285. We looked for a used one but quickly found that as soon as one would come up for sale it would be sold. We decided to buy new and another search began. Where do we buy from? We’re from Colorado and know that Colorado prices tend to be high. Through the Lance Owners of America forum we found Princess Craft RV in Round Rock, TX. We contacted them and they already had the trailer that we wanted on order. It was then just a matter of waiting until Princess Craft received it. Working with them was amazing! Their communication through the process was outstanding!
During the few months between when we ordered our trailer and the time we picked it up we purchased all the supplies we would need to stock the trailer. Kitchen stuff, towels, sheets, a mattress topper, hoses, leveling blocks, and many other items. Once Princess Craft received our trailer we made arrangements to pick it up. We loaded our truck with totes containing all our RV supplies. We drove straight through from Denver, CO to San Antonio, TX (over 14 hours). The next morning we headed to Princess Craft in Round Rock to pick up our new trailer.
We chose to stay in the San Antonio area for a few days to shake things out and make sure everything was working correctly before we started to work our way home. After leaving San Antonio we slowly worked our way home to Colorado, stopping at several Texas State Parks, including Palo Duro Canyon and Inks Lake. We also stopped at Walker Honey Farm and Hanger 25 (on the old Webb Air force Base) which are part of Harvest Hosts.
With our new trailer purchased we headed out on some new adventures. New Mexico, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota and a number of places in Colorado. We continued to follow full timers on YouTube and loved the life they were living and created a 5 year plan to go full time ourselves. In mid 2018 we met with our financial adviser and presented him with our plan. He asked one question that changed our lives. “Why are you waiting?” he asked. We looked at each other and said that we needed to for financial reasons. (At this point Rod was already working a remote job.) Again he asked us “Why?” He told us that we were in a good position to go if we wanted to.
The conversation on our way home from that meeting was an interesting one. Can we really go now? We really don’t have to wait 5 years? What does going now look like? What steps do we need to take to go now? How long will it take us? Oh, the questions. Over the next couple weeks we had many conversations about this new possibility.
At the start of our downsizing we decided to set a date to start our full time journey. Once you have a date, it’s real! We set the date as Oct 1, 2019 (a year out). We realized there was a LOT to do in the time leading up to that date. We researched domicile and mail forwarding. We started to make a plan for where we wanted to travel first. It was a stressful time, for sure, and became more stressful as Oct 1, 2019 became closer.
We started downsizing. Box after box after box was packed for either garage sale or donation. We’re pretty sure our trash collectors hated us over the coming months as so many cans and bags were filled up and piled on the curb to be hauled away. Antiques and special items were given to the kids or grand-kids. The few things we decided to keep were moved to storage. The summer of 2019 saw 4 huge garage sales with all the money raised going into an emergency fund. In between garage sales we were selling on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. We were truly amazed at the amount of stuff we were able to sell and at the rate our emergency fund grew.
On September 29, 2019 we left Colorado and went to Box Elder, SD to change our Domicile. On October 2, we returned to Colorado as South Dakota residents. We packed up the trailer and headed to a local city park for 2 weeks until the last day of Vicki’s job. We were officially full-time RVers!
