First Time RVers Go Full-Time

Bailey grew up camping in her family’s pop-up camper quite a bit. As for me, I had never been camping, let alone in any sort of RV. The closest I’d come to camping in general was in my parent’s backyard, and one time at the local baseball field in my hometown. To be completely honest, I didn’t think I would have much interest in it anyway.

Both Bailey and I knew that we had a passion for travel and one of our goals was to eventually determine where in the world we wanted to plant our roots. In our 6 years together, we had only taken a couple long trips per year that extended 3 hours from Omaha. At the end of each trip, we wanted to get right back on the road and explore more and more. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit, and traveling came to a screeching halt. It was at that point that we became even more restless with our travel limitations.

In late 2020, we started to uncover the world of traveling full-time in RVs and vans. With how long travel restrictions and the pandemic was seeming to last, I began to wonder if this was going to be our only option. In early 2021, we decided to really contemplate this life style change. We knew it would likely be the most plausible way of exploring the country while continuing to make a living. Around July of 2021, we began looking at B class and C class motor homes.

In May, Bailey and I had signed a lease with an apartment in Omaha, so we knew what our timeline was. We wanted to wait until that lease expired before hitting the road. During that time, we went to multiple RV dealerships to gain a better understanding of what we were looking for. We got to know our sales person at the Council Bluffs dealer very well. Despite our efforts, we did not end up purchasing from him.

Jump to January of 2022, we found a C class motor home in Kansas City that we loved. With the inventory shortages and the RV season quickly approaching, we knew that our time to act was now. We placed a deposit and awaited word back from loan providers. This is when reality hit… We quickly found that, if you haven’t taken out a large loan (most commonly a mortgage), loan providers will not blink an eye as they decline you. An auto loan did not qualify as “large”. Note that, in their eyes, this is a “luxury”. We tried to push that this wasn’t a luxury for us, as it will be our home, but that just made things worse. Our life on the road seemed to crumble in front of us.

It took some time to regroup and figure out what our options were at this point. Since we had excellent credit, and a vehicle/auto loan is virtually acceptable due to functionality, our new path was a travel trailer. We originally avoided travel trailers solely because they do not have built in generators. With two dogs and plans of living off-grid frequently, we truly thought that this wasn’t an option for us. We soon found that this wasn’t the case, and we were quite pleased with how many more brands, floor plans, and dealers we had to choose from.

A.C. Nelson is a dealership in Omaha, and they exclusively sell trailers and truck campers. Because of our previous search criteria (motor homes), we had not yet visited. One of our criteria that remained constant was that we needed something that was prepped for our love of winter and the cooler climate. If you were unaware, we are snow birds. The salesman showed us a few options that were insulated all the way around, and we started to narrow our search. After multiple walk throughs and discussions, we settled on the Coachmen Freedom Express Select. We followed up this big purchase with another, and bought a 2021 Nissan Titan the next day.

Both purchases took place in February, so we had to wait until May before we could hit the road. Our travel trailer went into storage and Bailey’s Nissan Rogue was traded in. As for us? We not so patiently awaited the next chapter of our lives. During this waiting period, we sold as much as we possibly could. This included TVs, game consoles, our couches, area rugs, any furniture, and so much more. For our final month in our apartment, we had only a bed and a couple folding chairs. We packed up what we couldn’t sell, donated/gifted what we could, and stored what was important to save but was not RV friendly. Very little came with us on our new adventure, but don’t worry, Maxwell and Miles made the cut.

Follow our adventures to see where we are now!