How did it all begin?

Yesterday, we heard from Beth, a long time reader who says she never comments. But she sent us a very nice email instead. She had some questions about our history and how we got into this abnormal lifestyle and how we can afford to travel full time. She apologized for being nosy, but we don't mind telling the story! I did write about it once about ten years ago, but there are more details I should have included. And of course we've got a lot of readers who would have never read that particular post from so long ago.

So here is the whole story...

We brought up our kids in a bedroom community just east of Ottawa, Canada's capital city. In the 1990's I owned a small automotive collision repair shop, and Ruth worked as a sales assistant for a computer supplies company.

We always took annual holidays, and lived for the times we were able to travel. We took the kids with us on a few trips... to England, Dominican Republic, and Cuba, and we did a few trips on our own while farming the kids off to their grandparents... Antigua, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico, U.S..

Around 2000, I got myself out of the bodyshop business, and Ruth was downsized out of her company. She then worked a variety of jobs from receptionist in a fitness club, to the call center at Bank of America. I contracted my services as a consultant to a variety of car rental companies in Ottawa looking after their damaged vehicles without ever having to fix them myself. 

In July of 2007, we were living in our four bedroom townhouse where we had been for the last 10 years or so.

Our house.

But three of the four bedrooms were empty. Our daughter was living with her boyfriend (now husband) in Nova Scotia, and our son was playing baseball and going to college in the United States. I was feeling like I needed a change...maybe sell the house and move into a condo downtown or something. Ruth was in between jobs and not working at the time, but I had a job that I loved...doing contract lease return inspections for GMAC Financing.

A few years before that, we had signed up to a website called Global Freeloaders where travelers stay in other peoples houses for free. Global Freeloaders didn't last, but a similar site was started around that time called Couchsurfing and that site became more popular.

We had hosted a couple of people through Global Freeloaders and enjoyed the experience of meeting other travelers. 

You've recently heard us mention our friends Glen and Steve. They were the couple who got us started on this life of full time travel. In fact, we spent a few days with them just last month in Greece! 

We received an email in July 2007 from a British couple (Glen and Steve) who had bought a motorhome in Boston and were on a two year motorhome excursion to Canada, U.S., and Mexico. They wanted to visit Canada's capital and wondered if they could park their motorhome in our driveway for a couple of days while they took the local bus into the city to play tourist. 

We were not motorhome people. We were always tent campers. The thought of sitting in a motorhome in a campground packed in with other motorhomes sitting 10 feet away from you just didn't appeal.

But Glen and Steve explained how their motorhome was equipped with solar panels for electricity and that they rarely stayed in a campground. Of course the cost was prohibitive. Even then, the average campground was probably $25 a night... $750 a month.

They stayed with us for 4 nights, and by the time they left I was ready to sell the house and buy a motorhome!

It took a little while to talk Ruth into the idea because she was pretty happy with the house and had spent a lot of time on her garden. Also, her mother was entering the later stages of Alzheimers disease and she was hesitant about taking off during that period. But by the beginning of August 2007, we made the decision. Sell the house, and buy a motorhome!

So that's what we did. We spent the month of August 2007 getting the house ready for sale and started to sell most of our belongings. The day after labour day weekend in early September, we listed the house. We listed it privately because I don't like using real estate agents. Two weeks later, we had a firm offer, with a closing date of October 5, 2007.

Towards the end of September we had a big ass garage sale, and sold just about everything we owned. Of course in the meantime, we shopped for and purchased Sherman. Bought him in New York State and did all the importation paperwork with the government. What a busy two months we had! From the time we made the commitment until the time we took off in the motorhome was almost exactly two months!

We bought a used motorhome in August for $12,500 USD!

But the problem was money. 

We had a some equity in the house, so we got a little payout from that. We used some of that cash to pay for a used motorhome. But neither one of us had ever had high paying jobs, and we had no job related government or company sponsored pension plans to rely on in future years. Anything we have ever done, we worked for it ourselves. And we had brought up a family and we were still partially paying for our son's education.

We were only 45 years old at the time and didn't have a lot of savings. Too young to fully retire.

We had a two year plan. We would travel North America by motorhome for a couple of years, and then re-evaluate. Worse case scenario, we would have to settle down and get jobs. 

The two years came and went, and we didn't want to stop. So somehow, we made it work. The first thing we learned was that it's not how much you make, it's how much you spend. And if you don't spend much, you don't have to make much.

So for several years from 2011 to 2018 we came back to Canada and worked most summers. Working for five months, and then traveling for seven months. We always earned more than we spent so were able to sock some away. This website also became popular enough to warrant installing advertising, so just by reading this you are helping us to continue traveling. Thank you! And, we also earn online through a Facebook group that we run, and of course we are able to do it from anywhere in the world. 

So somehow, we made it all work financially. 

We often wonder where we would be had we not had that chance meeting with Glen and Steve!

What does the future hold? Well, provided we are healthy enough we will just continue doing what we're doing!

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