Road Trip

The Realities of Adventure: Are the Headaches Before and After Worth It?

The Realities of Adventure: Are the Headaches Before and After Worth It?

10 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Kids, Panama, Road Trip, Travel and Vacation / /

There’s no doubt we’re making the most out of our early retirement freedom. I left my career at the end of 2018 and we’ve done a lot of unique things since then, including: The point is that we’ve stepped out of our comfort zone to do some different things – some involving a fair amount of adventure. There are two on that list that really stand out though on the adventure list just because of the commitment, work involved in […]

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8 Months and 13,409 Miles Later... Our RV Adventure is Over

8 Months and 13,409 Miles Later… Our RV Adventure is Over

17 Comments / Road Trip, Life in Early Retirement, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

After 8 months of living in an RV (with a couple of small breaks in between), our RV adventure has come to an end. It’s a little bittersweet in a lot of ways. We saw so many incredible places that we never would have had the opportunity to do otherwise. We got to do so many cool things during our life on the road. And we saw several old friends we usually don’t get the chance to see very often.

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The World’s Largest What??!! 7 Months of Our RV Road Trip Complete, 1 To Go!

The World’s Largest What??!! 7 Months of Our RV Road Trip Complete, 1 To Go!

22 Comments / Road Trip, Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / /

It’s pretty crazy to think that we’ve now been living in an RV for over 7 months. Yes, we’ve taken a couple of breaks and stayed at my mother-in-law’s house for a few weeks twice in that timeframe, but our home has been the RV… for better or worse. Around this time last year, we brainstormed a way to do something different to escape the winter blues and cold of Ohio for one winter season… and this was what we

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Our RV Trip Was Quickly Becoming a Florida Flop… Until We Shifted Gears

Our RV Trip Was Quickly Becoming a Florida Flop… Until We Shifted Gears

20 Comments / Road Trip, Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / /

“Head to Florida for the winter during your RV trip”, they said. “You can enjoy the sunshine and be like snowbirds! It’ll be wonderful!” Yeah, well, guess what – we disagree. Making Florida part of our RV trip was quickly becoming a source of frustration for all of us. And when you have three people in a small 22′ RV travel trailer, that frustration can easily become a nightmare. Lisa, Faith, and I were at that point and everyone was

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Our 9-Month RV Adventure: The 55+ Essential Items We Bought for the Road

Our 9-Month RV Adventure: The 55+ Essential Items We Bought for the Road

8 Comments / Road Trip, Life in Early Retirement, Product and Service Reviews, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

It’s crazy to think that we’re already 4 months into our 9-month RV adventure around the country. We completed our first loop (of 3 planned) and went from Ohio to Texas and back. We’re now on loop 2 as we head toward the south for a couple of months and then make our way up the east coast when we smell spring getting near. Then we’ll be making a massive trip out west for loop 3 throughout the spring and

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Wellness, Wealth, and Wanderlust: Paving the Way for 2024

Wellness, Wealth, and Wanderlust: Paving the Way for 2024

18 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Investments, Kids, Motivation, Road Trip, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

In the blink of an eye, 2023 has come and gone. Whether you had a great year or not, it’s time to decide if you’re going to make 2024 a better one! Our 2023 was something truly different and not anything I would have imagined. Our wanderlust took over and we ended up buying an RV, letting the lease lapse on our apartment, putting our stuff in storage, and set off to travel the country. We’ve been learning the RV

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The Ups and Downs of RV Life: 45 Days in Our Tiny Home

The Ups and Downs of RV Life: 45 Days in Our Tiny Home

20 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Road Trip / /

“Move out of your apartment and enjoy the RV life,” they said… “It’ll be fun!” Ok, that’s only sort of what happened. We enjoyed our past couple of monster road trips (2020 and 2022) so much that it became the catalyst for us letting our apartment lease lapse, putting our stuff in storage, buying an RV, and taking on the RV life. It was also one solution to dodging another Ohio Winter! I will say though that full-time RV life

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The Calyx Institute: Our Secret to Inexpensive, Unlimited, Unthrottled Internet on the Road

The Calyx Institute: Our Secret to Inexpensive, Unlimited, Unthrottled Internet on the Road

25 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Life in Early Retirement, Product and Service Reviews, Road Trip / /

Well, after almost a month of living in our new trailer at two local campgrounds to get the hang of things, we’re finally off and running. We’ve started our road trip around the country with an anticipation of finishing in early summer next year! I think we did a good job learning as much as we could beforehand because things have gone relatively smoothly thus far. Sure, there have been some minor things like me getting sprayed down from water

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It’s Amazing What Being Alone With Your Thoughts on a Walk Can Do for You

It’s Amazing What Being Alone With Your Thoughts on a Walk Can Do for You

15 Comments / Motivation, Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Road Trip / /

I had no plans to go for a walk today. Lisa and Faith were gone and that’s usually when I focus on getting things done. Sometimes I’ll work on projects around home (which is the RV right now!) and other times I’ll work on a blog post for Route to Retire. For whatever reason, the idea of being alone usually means I’m going to work on something and get it checked off the list. But today was different. Today I

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RV Boondocking: Spending a Little Money on 3 Changes Now to Reap Huge Savings and Enjoy a Better Trip Later

RV Boondocking: Spending a Little Money on 3 Changes Now to Reap Huge Savings and Enjoy a Better Trip Later

4 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Road Trip, Spending / /

This past spring, Lisa and I bought an RV travel trailer – a 2022 Jayco Jay Flight SLX 7 184BS to be more exact. We’ve never owned an RV and we didn’t know much about them. All we knew was that our family of three had two incredible month-long road trips in our Honda Pilot in 2020 and in 2022. So why not try something bigger just because we can? That led us to planning a 9-month road trip, buying

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