Full-Timing Q&A Vol. 1

OK class, though I still often feel like the student myself, quite a few folks have been asking questions lately through our fulltime RVer contact form. Here’s the rundown of a few recent e-interviews…

QUESTION: Are you pleased so far with your decision to sell your home and be a full timer?

ANSWER: Yes, very pleased. We planned this trip for a long time and it is meeting all our expectations and then some.

What factors do you take into consideration when traveling to a certain location?

We have a very general agenda for the whole trip which is basically to travel the U.S, across the North for Summer, down the East Coast (I have a sister in Upstate New York), and back across the South next Winter.

Aside from that, we are only planning our route only about one or two days ahead of us at a time. Sometimes we just go day by day. Which direction we head is based on or research of upcoming communities that meet our criteria as potential locations for permanent relocation.

How long do you stay in each place?.

This depends on whether or not it is a town we would consider living in. If so we stay up to 5 nights to get a good feel for the local flavor, talk with business leaders and development agencies, and venture out into surrounding communities. If not, we may just spend a night and move on.

From what I can see you still work from your RV, do you have additional sources of income?

We do work from our rig, but have very limited income. I provide some graphic design services, but the majority of work is focused on developing our blogs. We also have a Google AdSense acoount and Amazaon Associates account that enables us to display syndicated advertising on our sites. None of this, however, should be considered any sort of true income.

We budgeted carefully for a year on the road, and hope to stretch that as much as possible. It is really more of a spending plan since it does not factor any income. Anything we do make form client work or our blogs will be supplemental. Be sure to review Rene’s recent post on planning and budgeting an RV sabbatical this subject and the budget report she posted on our full time RVing resources page

Have you considered what you would do if eventually you get tired of your new life style.

Oh yes… That is the main purpose of our trip, We have an ever growing list of potential business ideas that we started before we even left. We may purchase something already up and running, start an RV campground or resort of our own, become traveling campground hosts, or find some sort of work camp situation. Or, if we can make a go of it on the road we may just keep on driving!

Having provided professional marketing and design services to companies of all sizes for over ten years, we are confident that we will be able to apply those skills to our own enterprise whatever that may be. All we do know is that you will never find us working for someone else again.

Why does the Google map stop at Flagstaff?

The first map stops there, but as of this post there are now three maps tracing our route. I talk about this on our full-time RV road trip maps page … The KML files used to embed the Google Maps have a limit of only 50 markers. This must include all the points that make up the lines because my maps have choked on the route lines I’ve drawn.

After spending too much time in support forums, I discovered the easiest solution was to split up the maps.

Are you planning on making a quick lap of the country first and then slowing down to check stuff out?

Yes. We will blow through areas where we don’t ever see ourselves living. In other locations we stay long enough to decide if that place goes on our list of potential locales for permanent relocation. After a year on the road, we hope to go back and see what we missed and/or go back to the places we loved.

Explain the ads on your site.
We place product links using our Amazon Associates account which will give us a very small cut if users actually make a purchase. The Google ads get us a few cents here and there when users click on them. We do this as a service to readers in hopes that they may find there way to other useful resources and books for further reading

Why are you doing this, is a book in the works?

Our “mission” is to eventually find a new community to live in and try and figure out what we want to do next since we are nowhere near retirement age. A book deal would be one very welcome option.

How do you determine if a place is worthy of considering for your potential relocation?

Sustainable amenities like biodiesel stations, CSA farms, and recycling programs as well as negative factors like poor planning, traffic and sprawl are just a few factors that help lead our way to places we want to check out (or avoid). Climate plays an important role as does the cost of real estate and land.

Are you enjoying life on the road without a home?

So far, the trip is definitely fun, but also quite a learning experience. We haven’t felt restless yet. And we’re not homeless… Just houseless! 😉

Is your LiveWorkDream blog your own or some sort of community blogging site like Blogger or Typepad?

LiveWorkDream is indeed our own creation. We came up with the original site and domain name to market the sale of our home-based business. Now we’re using it to search for the next one. I figured out how to install the open source WordPress blogging platform and we use that maintain the sites ourselves.

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