Since we've been married, we have always wanted to travel the country, but knew we would never be able to afford to go everywhere we wanted. A few years back, Kim suggested we get an RV and travel the country once Caroline went to college. And Dave said, "No way are we doing this." Three years later, here we are.
Once we decided to move forward, we began to slowly donate and/or sell all of our stuff. We considered storing all of our furniture, but realized that if we traveled for a year or two, the cost of storage would be close to the cost of getting new furniture once we stopped traveling.
Over the past couple of years, we've donated about 50 carloads of stuff to Goodwill. Seriously. About freaking fifty! The amount of crap we've accumulated over 32 years of marriage is downright embarrassing. Really embarrassing. All told, we donated about 75% and sold the other 25%.
Photos? Scanned and uploaded to Steve Jobs' grave or Bill Gates' garage or a cumulus cloud or something. Also transferred all photos to a digital photo frame, which has been awesome. So instead of pics sitting in boxes or being in an album that hasn't been looked at since the day it was finished, we see our pics every day as they cycle through the digital frame. Highly recommended!
And as far as slowly downsizing, it was so totally freeing! The more we got rid of, the more we realized how ridiculous it was to have all this junk. So much money wasted over the years on things we didn't use or didn't really need. Highly highly highly recommended.
So, how did we get to the AirBnb idea?
Our first idea was a Class A RV ... you know, the giant ones. So we were really excited about it and started doing some research. We went to RV shows, followed RV'ers on their YouTube channels, read a bunch of blogs and articles, etc.
As time passed there were many changes to the type of RV we were going to purchase, always a logical change suggested by Kim. In fact, at one time or another, we were absolutely going to buy a Class A, then a Class B, then a Class C, then a conversion van, and then a 5th wheel. And every time, Dave disagreed with Kim's suggested logical change because Dave's pretty much a jacknugget.
Then, Kim had a stroke of genius ... staying in AirBnbs month-to-month.. (Of course it was Kim. Dave have a genius idea? Nope.) But this time, Dave reached down deep and vehemently disagreed ... because ... see above ... he's a jacknugget! How could we possibly afford the nightly charge to stay in an AirBnb?
Of course, Kim had done excellent research and found that when you rent an AirBnb for a month or more, there is a significant discount ... you pay about the same you'd pay to rent a home. Freaking brilliant Kim!
So why go with AirBnb's and not an RV?
Thankfully, we realized an RV just wasn't for us. Some folks obviously love the RV life. But we decided we weren't cut out for it. Below is a list of our cons for the RV option and our pros for the AirBnb option. Of course, there's pros and cons to both. We're just too lazy to make two tables.
| RV Cons | AirBnb Pros |
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So, that's pretty much how the heck we got here. We'll see how long it lasts. Probably directly proportional to how long Kim can put up with Dave.
We’re headed to Gulf Shores, AL for a month, which is near where Caroline is starting college. Other planned destinations this year include the D.C. area and Asheville before returning to Central Florida for the holidays.
We then plan to head west in 2023, eventually making it up to Alaska. We’ll post where we’re headed in hopes of being able to reunite with old friends and family during our journey. Not sure how long this will last, but we’re hoping for many years.
Our tentative plan is to blog at the end of each of our monthly stays.
Stay tuned.
-D&K