51: When It's Time to Quit Van Life: Why the Russos Gave it All Up for a House

How do you know when it's time to  leave life on the road behind and settle in to a home base? Tune in as we sit down with the adventurous duo, Joe and Kait Russo, who recently embarked on their journey from being nomadic wanderers to homeowners after six years of traveling full time. They share their experience of what it was like to initially start life on the road, when they realized it was time for them to transition back to a home base, and everything in between.

Joe and Kait take us through what they did to re-adapt to a grounded lifestyle, and share some of the perks of settling down, like enjoying a consistent routine. We hear how the Russos' nomadic journey has helped them in finding their ideal home base. And they reveal how their new lifestyle has encouraged them to engage with their local community, develop new hobbies,  and even connect with nature in new and fulfilling ways.

The Russos also recount the challenges  of their transition and share invaluable tips on how to maintain the spirit of travel while enjoying the comforts of a home base. They shed light on the importance of traveling smart with a smaller, easy-to-park camper van and share their advice for those contemplating a shift from a nomadic lifestyle. As they emphasize trusting your instincts and embracing life's transitions, you might find yourself inspired to reimagine your own path, whether that be to start your nomadic journey or settle down after years of travel.

Follow Joe and Kait:
weretherussos.com
https://www.youtube.com/weretherussos 
https://www.instagram.com/weretherussos/

Check out Joe's two books: Take Risks and Tales from the Open Road
Link to Joe's Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Joe-Russo/author/B0756TCVKC

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So I'm going to be totally honest with you right now. Sometimes van life is really hard. You have to deal with changing plans, inclement weather, figuring out where your next campsite is, where you're going to find groceries and water, and lots of driving and lack of routine, et cetera. It really can be exhausting. Sometimes even I need a break from van life and I often do that in the form of house sitting or staying with family members. But really there can become a time in life when you just are tired of nomadic living and you need a permanent break. That's what this episode of the wayward home podcast is all about. I chat with Joe and Kate Russo about their decision to buy a home with property and have a home base after six years on the road. We'll chat about what prompted them to make this move, what they love about home life and what traveling in their camper van looks like. Now let's go.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Welcome to the wayward home podcast. All about van life, boat life and nomadic living. We'll bring you tips, interviews and stories from the road and on the water. Now here's your host, kristen Haynes. Hey there, I'm Kristen Haynes with the waywardhomecom, and I spend half the year in my camper van and half on my sailboat in Mexico. I hope to inspire you to live nomadically too.

Speaker 1: 1:09

So nomadic living is incredibly exciting. You have so much freedom, adventure and flexibility. It's just mind blowing compared to the normal sticks and bricks lifestyle. But no matter how much you might like roaming around in your camper, van RV or sailboat, there might come a time when a home base starts to sound really nice. A home base is a great place to establish a routine, to take a break from life on the road, to cultivate community many of the things that are harder to find when you're moving around constantly as a nomad.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Well, this episode of the waywardhome podcast with Joe and Kate Russo of we're the Russo's is really interesting. We chat about their life on the road and what made them decide to stop traveling full time. Let's get into it, yeah. So first of all, you know I wanted to go way back to the beginning with you guys before we get into like the home base part of the podcast, but you were nomads for so long and I just wanted to talk about like how that started, how you started, so let's just go way back and discuss that first.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Okay, so going way back, that'll take us to 2015. So that's when we decided to hit the road full time. And at the time we were before we even hit the road we both had corporate jobs, we were kind of dog, we were living in Southern California. So it was a big step for us to decide hey, let's just make a huge change in our life, quit our dogs, sell most of our stuff and just pack everything and have no mas. And at the time our idea was we got this RV, we were going to travel around the country for a year and figure out where we would settle down at the end of that year. And that year quickly turned into six and a half years before we decided to settle back down and have a home base and travel part time.

Speaker 1: 2:56

So you guys traveled around for six years and you had a variety of rigs and I wanted to go over all those different rigs because you have quite a lot of experience with all these different kinds of vehicles. So what did you guys live in?

Speaker 3: 3:07

Let's see, we started with a 30 foot class A. That was for about a year and a half. Then we moved into a class B band on a ProMaster Chassis, so it was two years. From there we spent a year testing out different rigs. So we might spend a couple of weeks or a couple of months in a rig at a time and we're just kind of playing around with some different things. And then we decided on a truck camper pop up truck camper. Did that for two years and then at the end of those two years is when we decided to stop full time, full time travel and get the home base. And then, once we got the home base, we got another class B band.

Speaker 1: 3:49

Very cool and, yeah, I think that there's some interesting adjustments that go with both, you know, the launch into Nomad life and then the launch back into house life but, or having a property at least. But first of all, I wanted to touch on some of those changes that happen to us when we start the Nomad life and if you guys wanted to talk about, like how that was for you in the beginning and maybe how that evolved over time as you got more adjusted to it.

Speaker 3: 4:15

I would say there is a huge adjustment for both of us me more so than Kate In that Kate is much more able to down sucks, I not so much.

Speaker 3: 4:27

And I remember when we had our class A and we were in the process of selling the house and moving everything out of the house into the class A and trying to figure out what we keep and what we don't keep, every little nook and cranny of space in that class A we were putting stuff in or at least I was like I would have stuff in reserve, so that when we packed the class A, if there was room, the stuff in reserve was coming with us. And it got to a point where, about a like six to eight months in, we sat down and we kind of did spring cleaning and we started getting rid of all this stuff that we're like, you know, why did we bring this? Why did we bring this? No reason to have it Started getting rid of those things and realizing we had a lot of empty room in the class A and that's kind of what got us to the point of realizing we could potentially downsize to a class B.

Speaker 3: 5:22

Well, all of that going through that whole mental process for us was a lot of. It was a big exercise for us in realizing that we could do with a lot less than we thought we needed to, at least when we first got on the road. And now we're back in a house and we're back in the mentality of getting more things.

Speaker 2: 5:43

Well, yes, because you have a definitely a different relationship with things than I do, but I also think one of the biggest challenges that we also faced early on when we transitioned to this nomadic lifestyle was because we were on the move all the time. You were worried about where do we spend the next night, where are we headed next? And planning and getting into that routine, because it was something so foreign to us, this idea of traveling and being able to go wherever we want to go. And now and then I think we got in a really good groove and now, surprisingly, we're really enjoying only traveling part time and enjoy being stationary for a solid amount of time.

Speaker 3: 6:27

Yeah, and it was also interesting to. I think along with that was since we were moving and we were always going someplace new, I was feeling a lack of community. So all the community we had in Southern California was now gone and we were going to all these new places we didn't know people. There are a couple of times I told Kate, can we just like go to a bar or something so we can be around other people? And all of that was lacking. But over the years, as we've gotten to know people, we've reconnected with a lot of friends and now when we travel cross country we'll make it a point, if we have the time, to stop in, spend a night or two with people on their driveway, visit and really engage in that community that's gone from. It went from like this little bubble in Southern California to the entire nation.

Speaker 2: 7:21

And beyond yes.

Speaker 3: 7:22

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:23

In those six and a half years where we travel full time, we, our being so, took the camper and explore 49 of 50 US states, several Canadian promises. We went down to Baja, Mexico, and then also parked our camper for a month at a time and traveled internationally. So now there's this huge community, as you say all over the place Totally.

Speaker 1: 7:51

That's a wonderful thing about it. I've noticed that, especially with the sailing side of nomad life, you find sailors in certain areas and you just are friends with them forever. There's that instant bond which is neat about nomadic living, but it is very uprooting experience. And to be constantly on the move, I think, has its own set of challenges. I know sometimes I crave just being stopping and being in a house a little bit. I'm wondering if, when you guys were full-time, did you sometimes feel that need to stop and to maybe live somewhere? How did you deal with that while you were nomads?

Speaker 3: 8:23

I don't know if we ever got the feeling. The only time we had. There were a couple times where we were in between rigs and we would end up at my mother's house for extended period of time. It wasn't something we necessarily wanted to do. It was something we needed to do because of the fact that we didn't have another vehicle or other way of getting around. So in between RVs, we would have to pause for a little bit.

Speaker 3: 8:50

The only time we specifically came off the road was at the outset of the pandemic in 2020, when things started really getting bad and the nation was unsure about where things were going and what was happening. And what we were finding is that a lot of the services that we used as nomads, like showers and gyms and those types of things, water fill up. A lot of that stuff was closing. We didn't know when it was going to reopen. There was also talk that they were going to shut down the interstates, like state-to-state travel. So we decided to pick a place and just hunker down for a month. So we got an Airbnb, hunkered down for a month, got work done, enjoyed our kind of time off the road. That was really the only time.

Speaker 2: 9:40

I mean, I would say, when we were traveling full time, there were times where, since we travel and work at the same time, we would take a little pause and maybe decide, hey, we're going to pick this spot and camp here for a number of days, catch up at work, kind of, do laundry, all those things, and then we'll start traveling again. But that was where it very short spurts the amount of time where we would kind of stay put for a few days.

Speaker 3: 10:10

Yeah, I would say at any given time when we were on the road, we probably it was an anomaly if we stayed someplace more than five days.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Yeah, that sounds kind of like us, but we have had house-sitting stints throughout and being able to live in San Francisco for a month at a time, so we've had that kind of step back and sometimes that's nice just to have a reset catch up on work button. But yeah, so I'm also curious like what led you guys into that decision to go back into the house when you were living in the truck camper at the time when you came upon that decision?

Speaker 3: 10:42

Well, we've always been, ever since we hit the road. We wanted to get out of Southern California, and part of that initial year travel was to travel the country and see where we wanted to settle down again. So something that was always in the back of our heads. But the pandemic and what us having to take a month off the road to kind of reevaluate and see where things were was also, I think, the impetus to say, hey, it might be a good idea for us to have a home base in case things got worse or something else happened or we just we got sick or injured and needed a place to really hunker down and we wouldn't be able to go to our parents' house. So that got the ball rolling.

Speaker 2: 11:24

Yeah, and there were. So when the pandemic first started and the lockdown began, like Joe said, a lot of services became unavailable, but even the Airbnb rental that we got we later found out a lot of Airbnb rentals were shutting down as well and it just made us realize well, while we could potentially find some long-term rentals, it seemed like it was a challenge at the time and we couldn't go to our families. They were comfortable with us coming into their house and we didn't want to live with them and still be out. So that made us realize we really needed a place that we could kind of call our own to use as a base that we can go to should something like this happen again or if it continues on for much longer than we anticipate.

Speaker 3: 12:09

Yeah, and then the other part of that was we had planned in 2020, we'd actually planned on doing Alaska, which is the last state we haven't been to, as well as taking our camper and shipping it overseas.

Speaker 3: 12:22

Potentially Well, again, with the pandemic, getting up to Alaska through Canada was an option for us, as well as going overseas. So we'd seen the lower 48, spent a lot of time going through it. We hit up a few places we hadn't been yet, but at the same time, it's kind of like all right, we've done this and now we're just kind of traveling to travel, moving, to move With the truck camper. It's not the type of setup where you want to go and spend a month just living out of that. So that really kind of pushed us again to get serious about buying the house, and we did a whole series of the summer of 2021. We took a camper and took my mother for almost 10 weeks around the country, coast to coast, 11,000 miles, and the decision that we made was we have to dedicate an entire summer to this, so we will do that, and then, after this is done, we're going to start shopping in ours.

Speaker 1: 13:25

Yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned 2020, because I think a lot of Nomads started to feel very vulnerable during that time, cause I remember we did too we couldn't find water and it was just such a scary feeling to not have your own resources available and we actually started looking at property at that time and I think some a lot of Nomads I talked to were also looking at properties. We just felt like everything's suddenly unavailable and that's a very scary feeling. So it's interesting you also went through that during that time.

Speaker 2: 13:51

So was there a point you all were kind of searching Cause you haven't. You didn't end up with a property or a home base? Was there a specific harding point where you decided oh, I'm comfortable to keep going.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Yeah, and I think a lot of that had to do with having our sailboat too in Mexico and that being a place where we could go, because the Mexico border, we learned, was open and we could go down to our boat and so we kind of isolated on the boat that way, and so at that point we were like, yeah, we can, we have our little escape pod south of the border.

Speaker 1: 14:21

So that doesn't the point where we decided not to get the property, but it's definitely still something on the back of my mind regularly and, like you guys traveled around the US to see where you wanted to be, and that's always in the back of my mind, like where would I want a property? Where would I want a place to settle, cause it is nice to have somewhere to go and like do a garden or do whatever you want to do with that property that you can't do in the van, you know so. And when? So what was it like when you guys like found that property and did that transition from the full-time travel into the more stationary lifestyle?

Speaker 3: 14:53

It was. It was a little strange because we were used to having the room, especially when we'd go and, like I mentioned, have those times off in between campers and spend at my mom's house or something like that. But we didn't outside of what was in our camper and some of the stuff we'd put aside in boxes. We didn't have anything for a house. We had a couple of spoons and utensils and things that were in the camper. Each of us had a bowl. We didn't have any furniture whatsoever to speak of.

Speaker 3: 15:27

And having to go through that whole process again and luckily the house we bought the previous owners. We met them during the walkthrough at one point and they asked us if there was anything that, if they were throwing away, that we would want them to keep. And we said anything you're planning on throwing away, just leave, cause we have nothing. So we got a couple pieces of furniture, table, things like that and then Kate's parents were generous enough to give us some furniture that they weren't using anymore. We've slowly been buying and getting things, but it's been almost two years now and still our houses I wouldn't even say halfway furnished.

Speaker 2: 16:05

It's fairly empty.

Speaker 3: 16:07

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Yeah, that is a weird thing to have to start from scratch. I think about that too, like, oh my God, I have to buy so much furniture. If I ever get a house, it's overwhelming.

Speaker 3: 16:15

Yeah, and I remember when we were selling our house in Southern California, both of us said, hey, let's just get rid of all this stuff because, like you know, let's not bother with the storage unit or anything, because we can always buy it again. Having gone through that whole process, and if I went back to talk to old me, I would seriously consider trying to talk myself into getting a storage unit. Yeah, I was totally.

Speaker 1: 16:41

I was wondering that too, because a lot of people do give everything up, and one of their common questions some people ask me is should I store everything? And I think if you are planning on settling down in the future, maybe it is a good idea to store stuff. At least you have your own furniture to repopulate a house. So that's interesting that you went through that as well. So yeah, and aside from having to refurnish the stuff, your house, you've also probably had to buy just stuff, and I'm wondering what was that like buying things? Because I know, as nomads, we try not to buy things. So what was that whole experience like?

Speaker 2: 17:17

I'm still struggling with buying things Because, having lived that nomadic lifestyle, you get in the mentality of you would just have what is essential, right, you really don't get very many nice to have because you don't have the room for it. But also, getting out of that consumerism frame of mind, you have it and it works, I don't need all this extra stuff to be sitting around. I think a little bit of the turning point maybe for me to say, oh well, maybe we should get a few more things, is when family come to visit. We might not necessarily have comfortable places for them to sit and thinking about them more. So for me it's less about buying things for me to furnish the house. It's a little bit more about making it comfortable so that when our family are staying with us or friends visit, that they have a comfortable place.

Speaker 3: 18:17

Yeah, but the flip side of that too is we get this stuff and then she's really happy to have it because she has a comfortable place to sit. I think the mid ground for us is more not going out and buying things in excess that we're not going to use. So having a couch or something makes sense, but I still have just a towel. I don't have a whole set of towels like we used to. Now we have extra towels for guests, but I don't need more than one towel. It can get washed and then I can use it again. It's one of those things where it's stuff like that that living in a van, in a camper and realize you can only you can do with one of something and not having to go to excesses about all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 19:07

But we did learn that we need to double up on certain things for our camper versus the house. So having an extra set of bedding and thing a camper that just stays in the camper so that we're not constantly moving things in and out. Or if we end up driving the camper out to see family and we need to fly back to home base, we still have a set of sheets here the off in the camper.

Speaker 3: 19:34

Yeah, we learned that very quickly because the first time we took the camper and left it somewhere and flew back, we got back and realized we don't have coffee making equipment, we don't have this, we don't have that, and all of a sudden we start ending up with a lot of Amazon boxes.

Speaker 1: 19:50

That's traumatizing to come home and not have coffee equipment. I'd probably freak out. Yeah. So you guys feel like you probably learned a lot on the road about stuff in general and you've taken that to your now house life.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Now I'm curious do you have separate things for your van versus your sailboat, or do you just move the camper?

Speaker 1: 20:11

Yeah, that's something I always think about and we're getting to a point where we are trying to have more separate things, but there's definitely always a gigantic van of stuff. We're driving across the border to the boat and unloading onto the boat and then I forget what things I have on there versus the van and I'm like I just need to do what you guys do and just have boat stuff and have van stuff, because it gets really overwhelming and you always forget or lose something. Yeah, but it's challenging. It is a challenging mentality, because in the van, before I buy something, I think about do I really need that? And so it's always this process of purchasing that sometimes it holds me back from purchasing what I might really need. So it's always a struggle. But what was it? What are like when you started living in there versus traveling full time? What did you notice about it? Like you feel like you had more time for personal things, or what kinds of changes did you see in your lifestyle?

Speaker 3: 21:00

It's definitely easier to have a routine. Yes, I think, because it's when I would try to have a routine in the van. There were days and times where we were supposed to wake up and get someplace, or we'd be on the road all day long and, aside from making coffee every morning, there's really no routine we could set, and I think that's been one thing that I really enjoyed about having the house is being able to have that morning cup of coffee, get some work done or do a Chinese lesson, stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 21:36

And we, when we started shopping for whole days, we had a list of requirements that we were looking for. And then some nice things and one of the requirements for me was having enough land where there is nature right, because I love nature and that was one of the reasons we started our being when we love food, docking in the national forest, going to all the beautiful national parks. So having kind of our, my access, daily access to nature makes it really enjoyable and calming and peaceful to be at home base and it's nice to have a place that we really enjoy coming back to after we're traveling.

Speaker 3: 22:17

And what's interesting too about that is since we have our own forest and that when we go out now in the camper we are more interested now in going into kind of like a city, town environment where we can kind of mix it up there and less out in the middle of the forest, because we have that at home and it's kind of changed the way we travel and kind of the places we look at going to.

Speaker 1: 22:44

That's so interesting that you said that about the nature, because sometimes when I stay in homes like I was just at my sister's house for a week because we had a hundred degree heat wave here in Portland so I had to go escape in AC and her house is in like the tightest subdivision you can imagine Like the next house is 15 feet away and there's no nature. I mean, there's a view of the forest but you can't go in the forest or really sit outside because the neighbor's looking at you and I just started to feel like a trapped wild animal and I'm like I gotta go. Like I just started like feeling like a dog that needed a walk. It was a really weird feeling.

Speaker 1: 23:14

But, like you said, when you have a home and it has that nature, you have both. It's like a grounding experience. So that's cool that you guys needed that, because I think we learn that as nomads that we need to be outside a lot. Yeah, and do you guys do a lot of things outside at your house, like are you doing gardening or are you doing outdoor or do you just go like hang out outside?

Speaker 2: 23:34

I go for daily walks around the woods, which is really nice, and I've been learning, getting more into foraging, so being able to identify what's edible, what's not edible on the property. Last year we harvested some amazing oyster mushrooms that grew on a tree that came down, so that's definitely part of my routine. Now is I wake up and I go outside and go for a walk, visit with my trees and see what changes are happening, because we picked an area. Our home base gets four seasons. They're mild, but it's also really nice to see the trees when they're changing colors in the fall and then all the leaves fall, and learning how to identify these trees with and without.

Speaker 3: 24:18

Thirdly, and I get to do all the maintenance for most of it Fun. So you know it's now going out and getting chain saws and pole saws and all these, all this equipment. I have a commercial spray mower and all of these things and the hours spent working on the property.

Speaker 2: 24:38

Well, some of the trees on this property are, I would say, over 100 years old. So, when they come down after a store. It takes a while to chop it up, fit it reluminated. It turned into firewood.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 2: 24:53

Yes, sitting out on the deck having a fire, feeling like we're in nature, but having access to all the comforts of a home.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Cool, yeah, that's the best of both worlds really, when you can have that property. And I'm sure when we get a property, that's it's gonna have to be on land, like for sure. So I was wondering about, like, the cleaning aspect, because also I noticed when I stay in a house I get overwhelmed because I'm like, oh my gosh, there's so many rooms that I have to clean and organize and track my stuff and what was that transition like for you guys?

Speaker 2: 25:22

Well, I tell myself one day at a time, one room at a time, right, oh, it doesn't get so overwhelming, and making that part of my routine. But I'm also the type of person who enjoys cleaning and organizing, so to me it's not a chore, it's just a matter of like breaking it down into smaller tasks so that doesn't show overwhelming.

Speaker 3: 25:44

And I will say for me it feels having a house feels much cleaner than having a camper, Because with the camper, especially a lot of the places we're going in the southwestern net, that really fine dust that just gets everywhere and you can never get rid of it, it was just constant. And the other thing I've gotten used to is getting back into routine of taking a daily shower and now that now when we go out, not taking a shower every day feels strange, Whereas before taking a shower every day felt strange.

Speaker 1: 26:18

But that's very true. That's an interesting adjustment. I always know that I love having endless hot water whenever I stay in a house or like I could take a really long shower. You know it's not a problem.

Speaker 1: 26:27

So that is a it's amazing, or a bath, that's the best thing. That's. Something I definitely miss is the bath, but I feel like when we're nomads we, you know these things become luxuries. You know where most people that live in homes their whole life take it kind of for granted. They're like this is just what we have and this is what available, what's available.

Speaker 1: 26:44

But when you're a nomad you're like, wow, that's fancy, like there's a dishwasher. So it's funny that now you guys are living the life of luxury and all these small things that we have in, you know, in homes here in the US, so just incredible, like what we have. So, yeah, that's all interesting transition.

Speaker 2: 27:02

Here is a living school time on the road helped us kind of develop that list of things we were looking for in the home base that we found, and one of them is good water pressure, because so many times in the camper you know you don't have great water pressure or you don't have a limited hot water, so that that was definitely a requirement for us.

Speaker 3: 27:22

Yeah, and another requirement too was we wanted to be somewhere in the country that doesn't experience droughts and things like that. So you know, like my mother living in Southern California is dinged or, you know, can get severely fined if she goes over a certain allotment of water and all these other things, and we didn't want to have to deal with that. So where we live, we can use as much water as we want. There's no irrigation because you don't need it. It rains all the time. It's nice, it's green, so Cool.

Speaker 1: 27:54

And did you guys pick a bathtub in your house?

Speaker 3: 27:57

Yeah, yes.

Speaker 2: 27:59

That was definitely something I really enjoyed when we would visit with a friend or family and they would offer to let me take a bath.

Speaker 1: 28:06

Love. I know there's the best. Stay in peace.

Speaker 2: 28:09

I know.

Speaker 3: 28:10

I think another thing that a lot of people take for granted is the community and the things you have around, and I believe that for us, having lived this lifestyle, we would go into little towns and we would seek out all sorts of different unique things about that town, kind of the history behind it, certain farmers or markets that were going on. I remember in New Mexico we'd found this family that they do their own chilies and it's their own variety and everything, and we sought them out and found this stuff. So now that we have a home base, we're doing that same sort of exploration, but in our hometown or home area, and we found a lot of amazing things that even the locals here don't know about. And we've developed this community where, for example, there's a farmer not too far from here, there's all their own grass-fed everything. So one season we got a whole hog and now we have the room for all of that meat and things and it's just cool to have that again.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Yeah, that is something that we miss and being able to do certain activities. Like I know beforehand. I really liked taking horseback riding lessons or learning how to do dancing. That was big for me and Tom, my partner, was in a band and when you're traveling you just can't really do those things because you don't have that community and you're usually not in cities. So it's neat when you can stop and you just develop those connections again and maybe pick up some hobbies you can't do when you're traveling.

Speaker 2: 29:43

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 29:44

So you guys have really enjoyed that, it sounds like. So that's really cool. And how often do you now go out on the road now that you have a home? What percentage do you think you now go out on road trips?

Speaker 2: 29:56

I would say last year it was about 50% we were traveling and then 50% at home base, and then this year we made the decision to try to spend more time at home base, especially in the summertime, to get a better feel of what the weather is like and if we did want to grow vegetable garden next season, kind of have an idea of what that timing would look like.

Speaker 3: 30:17

Yeah, and I would say now this season we've spent more time doing short trips. So, coming up, we have a trip up to Michigan and we're just going to be gone for the weekend and it's nice to be able to do short trips like that. It's also nice to be able to configure the camper for that trip so that we can take up, like we have this pizza oven we can take with us that we never would have had in full time life, because you just don't have the room to dedicate to something like that. So it's those types of things where, despite, we don't travel as much, but when we do it's different in a lot of ways and we can make more use out of our time.

Speaker 2: 31:00

But there are definitely challenges now, I've found, with trying to travel while having a home base. For example, if there is an ice storm that's going to be rolling through, do we want to schedule our international travel for that time of year or that time, and what's going to happen to the home base?

Speaker 3: 31:20

because we don't have someone looking in.

Speaker 3: 31:22

Yeah, and it definitely makes it more difficult if we want to do travel on one of the coasts or something further away from us because we're in the Midwest. So now we have to say if we want to go through Oregon or that we now need to travel cross country to do that, plan to spend the time and or plan to leave the camper someplace where we fly home, do our stuff at Wolman and fly back to grab the camper. So there are challenges that we didn't have before. If we were living on the road full time, we could say, hey, let's go spend summer in the Pacific Northwest and we would drive out there. You slowly make your way out there, you slowly make your way through the Pacific Northwest and then slowly make your way somewhere.

Speaker 1: 32:06

Right, but now you have that desire to go home and to check on your home and make sure things are okay over there, and that's probably why you fly back when you're traveling.

Speaker 3: 32:14

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 32:16

Yeah, that is a big change to get used to as well. And then what you said before that you touched on was interesting that you like to go into cities a little more now and explore and park in cities and what's that been like with the camper, like doing the city thing?

Speaker 2: 32:30

It's fun because we have a small class vehicle for under 20 feet. We can park essentially anywhere in a standard vehicle can park. So it gives us the freedom of flexibility to kind of go in and out of cities and explore that way.

Speaker 3: 32:46

I mean, we even yeah, we even explore, you know what's local to us in the camper, because we can go. We have the camper, especially if we're going out for the day and we really want to just spend the whole day out, like if we go to Costco. We bring the camper, we put all the stuff that needs to go in a refrigerator or freezer in the refrigerator or freezer and we can do the rest of our errands and everything else. So it's fun that way.

Speaker 2: 33:13

And even if we're just a friend locally, we can take our camper, still spend the night on their driveway. If we're staying late Now, it won't make the 20 minute drive home and then wake up in the morning. Spend more time with them in the head, yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Yeah, yeah, you've got your little apartment on wheels and your little guest room, which is really handy when visiting people. I definitely agree with that. Oh, looking back on your like time as nomads, did it feel like the right length of time? Like, how did all that feel to you as nomads?

Speaker 3: 33:42

Um, I wouldn't say anything, felt right, it just we went with the flow. We, whenever people asked us how long we were going to do it, we just said until we weren't, until we were ready to do something else.

Speaker 1: 33:54

Yes, and for me.

Speaker 3: 33:56

I just I felt like we got to a point in that nomadic lifestyle where we were. We got to a point where we're traveling to travel Meaning we weren't, we were no longer going someplace to necessarily see it. We're going someplace because we lived on the road full time and we wanted a bit of a change of scenery. We wanted to keep going and do stuff Um where? And I think at that point we started to say to each other okay, I think now's the time for something New, something different.

Speaker 2: 34:26

Yeah, I would say, if the pandemic hadn't happened, we definitely would have gone to Alaska, like we had probably shipped our camper overseas and that definitely changed the trajectory of where we were headed. Um, and we still have plans to ship our camper overseas, potentially, and or ready a camper overseas, which we tried doing that in Italy recently.

Speaker 3: 34:46

So and I will. I will say, based on that experience, at least for Europe, I have no interest anymore of shipping our camper over to Europe because it's so much nicer to for at least for me to go to every city and things via train and be able to kind of spend that time in the center of town rather than on the outskirts and a camper and have to go back and forth and everything else. I don't feel like you get the same culture and experience in a camper as you do if you're just on foot and you can pretty much go anywhere you want.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Yeah, very true, and, like you said, you can always rent one Like we're thinking of doing that as you go, rent a camper for a couple of weeks and then you can drop it off and then you can train into the city and stay in the city, and then you can have the best of both worlds without having your own rig to have to deal with and worry about that whole time. Yeah, yeah, and I was. I'm curious if you guys have any like advice for other people that are nomads and they're thinking of doing this, like I know you created like a list or like how did you narrow down a home? Or just any advice in general you have for people.

Speaker 2: 35:52

Well, I think my first bit of advice for anyone who's can rent a place for a little bit was, say, a couple of weeks or month. See, you know, if it gives you kind of what you're looking for, that was driving you to get a home base, and maybe after the two weeks or month you're ready to get back on the road and keep doing what you're doing. Sometimes we've met people and that this happened to us, to you a little burnt out as a nomad, and it's okay to just take a pause. You know, settle down for a month, rent a place, regroup and then keep going and maybe you won't even need that home base.

Speaker 3: 36:29

Yeah, and the way we ended up in this area. For us, we're an Indiana. Excuse me, but we never had any intention of moving to Indiana.

Speaker 2: 36:41

I believe you said I will never live in India.

Speaker 3: 36:45

Yeah, I went to school in Indiana. Excuse me, I would just go to Indiana and yes, I said that. For us, you know, we had the opportunity to live anywhere in the country and that made it extremely difficult for pinpointing where to look, because you could be looking at a place in Montana and a place in Florida and there's no way you're going to be flying back and forth and all these things, you know, going to showings and things, especially in a competitive market. You need to be on the ground and you need to be in a spot where you want to live. So I think, first and foremost, if you have made the decision that you want to kind of hunker down and get that home base again, figuring out where in the country and having a general idea.

Speaker 3: 37:31

For us, how we ended up in Indiana was we were looking more in Alabama, more southern and where we have friends up in Indiana and during kind of looking at bones and other things, we would drive up to Indiana and visit with them and spend time on their driveway and we just started to fall in love with the area we're in now and the more time we'd come back up here and spend, the more we really enjoyed the area until our friends said hey, I have a friend with a realtor, I'm calling her up and you guys are looking at homes around here and the rest is history. So for us it was kind of serendipitous that we had friends and we were able to spend time here, otherwise we never would have considered it as a home base. But the other two was just that we had to pick an area to look. We were not able to house hunt the entire United States.

Speaker 2: 38:26

Yeah, so picking a place for us where we had a good community in terms of friends that have lived here and grown up here, is it gave us immediate access to resources that we would have had to figure out on our own so, for example, we could easily call them and say, hey, do you have a good location for a dentist, or do you know a realtor in the area?

Speaker 2: 38:49

Do you know someone who can do a rift inspection, stuff like that, or just even any kind of those resources and connection that you would need once you settle down? It's nice to have that.

Speaker 3: 39:02

Yeah, and the other thing we found too not so much in this area but some other areas where we looked briefly was that some of the smaller towns you're now trying to break into a well formed community and you become the outsider and a lot of people are great at making new friends and kind of breaking those barriers. But what we found and heard in talking to locals is that process can actually be very and especially if you need services or work done on your house. For example, we have friends who bought in the mountains of Colorado and they're having a really tough time finding people to come out and have work done and just being able to break into that community and find the people who are willing to trust you and come out and do the work for you and those sorts of things, rather than the friends or other people they know in the community already.

Speaker 2: 39:57

And sometimes that's due to picking a location where there's more people or people to support all that in terms of services, and keeping that in mind, if you pick an area, let's say, that might not be able to have the service infrastructure to actually support all the people that live there.

Speaker 1: 40:17

Yeah, yeah, very true. And yeah, I do like what you mentioned about having the camper and you're able to just go to that part of the country and just sort of home base there out of your camper and make sure you like it, and so that's an important part too, so cool. So what are your guys's like upcoming plans? Like in your van, you said the Michigan one, but what else are you? Do? Have anything else on the docket?

Speaker 2: 40:39

Well, let's see Michigan trip and then we're actually gonna be very busy hosting a bunch of people. We've had, like, lots of people friends who are nomads roll through in their camper and they'll spend a few days. You know they could do laundry, have a real shower. We offer them a guest bedroom if they want to take a break. So we'll be hosting quite a few nomads for a little bit. And then our next trip Joe and I have gotten into cruising, so we've got another cruise coming up with family.

Speaker 3: 41:08

Oh fun.

Speaker 2: 41:11

Oh yeah, and we will be taking our camper to Chattanooga, tennessee, that'll be fun.

Speaker 1: 41:16

That's so cool that you guys can now provide that respite for nomads, because I know I'm always thankful for that when I'm traveling. When a friend is like, yeah, parking, a, drive by, use the shower, do laundry, it's always such a fun thing, and then you get a visit with them as well. So that's neat. You're able to like be on the other side of that and provide that support, and you have the land and property to host campers.

Speaker 2: 41:34

So that's cool.

Speaker 1: 41:35

So if you're going to, yeah, if I'm in Indiana, I'll come visit. Are you guys joining Boondockers? Welcome or anything like that. Our schedule is so crazy. Totally, I get that. You're still. You have that nomad at heart where you still love to travel, but you have the home. You have the best of both worlds right now. So cool, well, great. Is there anything else that you guys wanted to say to people about your lifestyle, joe?

Speaker 3: 42:00

No, I mean, I think it's everything we covered. It is something you're considering. Take the time, figure it out. I think the biggest lesson we learned was what I mentioned earlier about narrowing down your search, because that was actually something that was causing me a lot of stress, where we would look at a house and it would be really nice and we're talking about should we put a bid on this house and Kateri would pull up our laptops and be like, well, this is in Nashville, but there's this really cool house in Montana, yeah, and look at the price difference and you just have to kind of pick a spot. Narrow it down. Focus on that. Trust your instincts.

Speaker 2: 42:45

And we always kind of live by the motto of going with the flow right, and you're never 100% locked into anything that you do. So even if you do pick a home base in an area for a while doesn't mean you're going to be there forever. You always have auction and the flexibility to pick another spot somewhere down the road. Or maybe you give up the home base and go back to nomadic lifestyle.

Speaker 3: 43:09

We have friends who settle down and they're both in the house now and they especially one of them doesn't like it, Doesn't like the whole base, wants to be back out on the road and there's no, there's no shame in saying, hey, we screwed up and we need to do something else.

Speaker 2: 43:26

Or we tried it and it's not.

Speaker 1: 43:29

Yeah, and that's the amazing thing is to be able to have that choice and that freedom, I think, to do what you want and change your mind.

Speaker 2: 43:34

I mean that's amazing, and so I think there's no attitude for people who made that transition of you know having a more traditional lifestyle and deciding to hit the road or travel time. However you are wanting to do it. You've already made that huge shift and change. I think it makes it a little bit easier at least it did for us to make that shift to having a home base and traveling part time, and it doesn't make me have any like fear or apprehension for what's to come of. Hey, we can make another shift and do something else in a few years.

Speaker 3: 44:06

Yeah, and I think Kate also brought up a good point earlier, which is a lot of us nomads. There are times where you get burned out and I think at least when we were starting even some of the comments we got on YouTube we might take a break or something. People would say well, you're not real full-timers. Well, if you live in a house full-time and you take a vacation, you're do you not live in a house full-time? So don't, don't feel like you have to be in this box of I'm a nomad, I'm full-time, I'm always going to live out of a van, it's. You can take a break, get an Airbnb, park the van or camp or whatever it is. Take a month off and see if at the end of that month you're really enjoying having that whole base or your Jones, and to get back on the road and you're like you know this whole base thing isn't.

Speaker 1: 44:56

Yeah, very true. Yeah, you guys brought up so many good points and I'm really excited to talk to you about that, that transition and tell people like where to find you. You're you have really cool YouTube videos, but just yeah, tell me, tell everybody where to find you guys.

Speaker 3: 45:10

Yeah, you give them the website, I'll grab folks.

Speaker 2: 45:12

Okay, we. So we share resources about traveling and you know camper lifestyle on our website where therusoscom so that's W-E-R-E-T-H-E-R-U-S-S-O-R stuff I'll put links too, and we also published videos on YouTube and we'll do some updates and things on Instagram as well, as well as Facebook, and that's all at where the resource.

Speaker 3: 45:38

And for those of you who are interested in the transition we made from full-time house living into that class A and everything we had to go through the downsizing process, the purchase process, selling the house I wrote a book all about that. It's Take Risks, provided on Amazon or pretty much anywhere in digital format, but Amazon's the only place that you have to go is Opy. And then the first year and a half we spent on the road in the class A talking about boot docking, getting into that lifestyle, why we started the YouTube channel and the website and everything else I have Tales from the Open Road also available on Amazon and everywhere else Awesome.

Speaker 1: 46:16

It sounds like. Sounds like you need another book in the works now.

Speaker 3: 46:19

There is one in the works, so I'm doing one. All about the summer with Mom.

Speaker 1: 46:24

Oh, very cool, I can't wait. Awesome, and then your email list. Don't forget that I love your email list. So how do people get on that? They go to your website, yep.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Just go to our website and you can subscribe to our email list there.

Speaker 1: 46:35

Cool, yeah, I love your update. So, yeah, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. It was always fun to chat with you guys, as always. Well, thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Wayward Home podcast. I'd like to take a second and encourage you to join my email list. You can get direct access to me. I read and respond to all my emails, plus tips, stories and advice for life on the road. To subscribe, just go to thewaywardhomecom forward slash subscribe. That's thewaywardhomecom forward slash subscribe. I'll see you over there.