Top Ten Reasons Fulltiming is Right for Me

    In no particular order…

1. Forced downsizing.
Not everyone gets the opportunity to declutter all the precious belongings accumulated in a life. As I get older, I find that I need less stuff. Most of us probably feel this way at one time or another but when you are forced to go from a fairly large house to a tiny space, you are faced with a lot of hard decisions. Basically our rule is: If you’re not going to use it in the next month, it ain’t coming on the road.

2. Travel, travel, travel
I’m originally from Ireland which is a small country so it’s possible to see most of it in a relatively short time. You can drive from one end to the other in a matter of hours. The US, on the other hand, is a whole different enchilada. I feel like we could travel for an entire lifetime and still have new experiences. I can’t wait to see this great country!

3. Food
Linda and I are both food lovers. It’s easy to just opt for pre-packaged junk when you have a typical busy family existence. Linda has been good about food choices but I have been remiss. We have promised each other that preparing healthy food will be a big part of our new lifestyle. I’m excited to try new things and spend afternoons cooking with our favorite music blasting through the speakers!

4. Photography
I love photography (duhr!) and the opportunities that are available while traveling are limitless. I plan on documenting our travels in photographs and video. I’m particularly eager to get some aerial shots with my newly acquired quadcopter camera. I also recently bought a GoPro camera for when we create some fun video blogs. Discovering new places will inject new life into my creative world.

5. Time with my partner
Yes, Linda and I have been living together for almost 18 years now but, with all the hustle and bustle of family life, we rarely get quality time together. At the end of a busy day doing our own thing, we both just want to veg out in front of the TV. Living in close quarters on the road will bring us closer together as we will share more of our lives with each other.

6. A simple life
The idea of not only simplifying our possessions but also our minds is so appealing to me. Although we are not exactly camping in the traditional sense, we are still getting outdoors a lot more and it will be a so much easier for us to have structure in our days. Funny enough, it’s the simple things that will make me smile. For instance, if I put something in the fridge I will actually find it exactly there the next day. Not so with a family of five…things tend to go missing and during interrogation, no one admits guilt. Reducing all of this down to two people in a small space eradicates this problem.

7. Trash
My kids take out the trash once a week. They have never done it without a reminder from me. If I forget, we will have two weeks worth of trash lying around. I hate being the trash nazi so the idea of taking out a teeny little bag and placing it in the campsite dumpster and never have to worry about trash night again makes me giddy.

8. Reading books
The last time I had or made time to read books was years and years ago. I’m definitely a product of our modern age where I am happy to read little bytes of info and be done. The only books I read these days are user manuals for my photographic equipment. I’m really looking forward to just having the time in my simple life to read a book or two without distraction.

9. Learning how to take care of my home
I’ve never been much of a handyman and any house I’ve owned has been a burden to maintain. The scale of everything is just too big. I can become an expert at one thing while another thing fails. I have vowed to get to know all of the relatively simple systems in our motorhome. Everything on this smaller scale seems way more doable to me. Being in control of all things and understanding the inner workings of Scoopy’s machinations is something I look forward to.

10. No lawn!!
We lived in a huge house on Pine Lake not too long ago. We never really got around to doing any kind of landscape design so most of the acre of land was grass. Sometimes it would take an entire weekend just to get all the grass cut and cleared. I loved it for a while because I was the captain of my ship when I was sitting on my John Deere tractor mower but I soon got sick of it because it consumed the only days I had off in the week. When we moved into our current home, the grass demands where far less. Quantity of grass, however, was replaced with a challenging hill in the front yard. Pushing the mower up that hill on a summer’s day was not my idea of fun. Anyway, I hate mowing grass so not having a lawn to take care of… WINNING!!

There are so many more great things about fulltiming, of course, and this blog post could go on to infinity. Just know that we couldn’t be more thrilled with our decision to give up sticks and bricks for a home on wheels.

To quote from one of our favorite singers-  “Drive it like you stole it, Park it like it’s rented”: Shotgun by Sheryl Crow

UP NEXT: Keeping dreams alive.

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