I'm doing this backward, I guess, because I've already posted in a couple of other places, but I'll introduce myself now: Hello everyone, my name is Mel and as my screen name indicates, I live in West Virginia. My husband, Richard and I have been thinking about full-timing for a number of years now. We were all set to do it about four years ago, but one thing led to another and we just decided it wasn't the right time for us. Now that our son will be graduating from high school next year and our house is much closer to being sellable, we think we might be ready this time. Richard works from home and runs two internet-based businesses. He'll continue doing so as we travel along. Currently, I work as a supervised psychologist. I would like to be able to due therapy sessions with people via Skype or something, but at this point I haven't figured out if this is possible or not. If not, I imagine I'll figure out something else to do. Our son, Daniel, isn't quite ready for college yet so he'll be coming along and maybe taking a few online classes as he decides what he'd like to do. He a metal detecting maniac and is getting started on Ebay so I'm sure much of his time will be centered on these pursuits. We've all lived in West Virginia our entire lives and with the exception of a few vacations to California, New York, and the Carolinas haven't been many places. We're looking forward to changing that! Oh, yeah, we're also bringing our cats, Inky and Eli. I look forward to getting to know everyone and hopefully seeing you out on the road at some point.
Lucky Mike said
05:13 PM Mar 9, 2013
Welcome to the Forum.......you should have no problems out here finding the support to make the journey!!!!
As far as being a Psychologist,you may have noticed after reading this and other forums this could be a very lucrative market for you!!!!!!!
Penny and Paul said
05:33 PM Mar 9, 2013
Hi Mel - I'm Penny, also as indicated by our screen name. Nice to meet you and welcome! My husband Paul and I have also been thinking about and researching the fulltime lifestyle for many years now, and we're pretty sure we'll take the plunge this year. I don't know about you, but the closer we get to making this real, the scarier it gets, but the folks on this forum are so very encouraging and helpful. Knowing that other folks are doing this successfully makes me know we can do it too! Of course it would be much easier if it weren't for having to get the house to a 'sellable' status! I never realized how much stuff we had until I started getting rid of it all - yikes!
Good luck with the sale of your house - the housing market is looking much better lately. Hope to see you down the road as well!
Terry and Jo said
06:21 PM Mar 9, 2013
Melinda and Richard,
Welcome to the RV Dreams forums, which is by the way, a form of therapy in itself. We have a tendency here of being helpful, friendly, knowledgeable, and encouraging to each other, whether it deals with RV'ing or just life in general. As a collection of "misfits" (to be explained in a bit), we all seem to get along pretty well.
I was discussing the full-time lifestyle with an acquaintance and when I mentioned that we were on that road, he asked me why I would want to be in a lifestyle that exposed us to so many misfits. I explained to him that "campers," whether part time or full time, all seemed to be lovers of nature and a simpler life. He thought about that for a bit and then admitted that he thought the concept sounded appealing after all.
Feel free to ask any questions that come to mind, as the only "dumb" questions are the ones that don't get asked, and thus, the questioner perhaps has to learn the hard and expensive way.
Glad to have you as part of the "family."
Terry
MelinWV said
04:10 PM Mar 10, 2013
Thanks for the welcome everyone! This decision is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I have serious moments of doubt sometimes, but then I remember I we want to do this: freedom, fun, adventure, opportunity, etc. That always helps me refocus and calm down. As far as "campers" being misfits, well if that's the case we should fit in perfectly! : )
Technomadia said
05:08 PM Mar 10, 2013
Welcome!
As your husband works online already - I imagine your travels will involve chasing decent bandwidth. Which would totally make it technically feasible for you to explore offering video therapy to clients. We know a handful of life coaches who do similar things while roaming. I don't know what is possible by offering services that might require special licensing across state borders - but I imagine you can figure out a niche that is enjoyable for you!
There are a bunch of us working remotely while traveling, so you're in good company!
- Cherie
Rob_Fla said
05:17 PM Mar 10, 2013
Welcome to the forum, lots of great info here.
We meet the most intreseting people during our travels and love the Fulltime lifestyle.
It is quite a change and some of our Family members still do not understand how we live every day in a "Trailer", and ask are we ready to quit?
I tell them, our stress level is way down, our enjoyment of life is way up and we will keep doing this as long as we can.
Robert
PIEERE said
06:24 PM Mar 10, 2013
MelinWV wrote:
Thanks for the welcome everyone! This decision is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I have serious moments of doubt sometimes, but then I remember I we want to do this: freedom, fun, adventure, opportunity, etc. That always helps me refocus and calm down. As far as "campers" being misfits, well if that's the case we should fit in perfectly! : )
Couldn't ask for a better (mis)-fit!!! Welcome and the apprehension goes away every time I get a few hours down the road. Now the family bickers......from a distance!!!
ew9266 said
09:21 PM Mar 10, 2013
Welcome. Pam and I have been full timing for a couple years now and Love it. It took us a while to loosen up some and really start to meet new people. We were both working for the Gov. in Northern Virginia so getting away from the traffic and stress was therapy for us. Working from the RV can be easly done, Verizon Hot Spot, is what we use. Most camp grounds that offer WiFi are weak at best. To do anything that requires any serious ban width you would need to do it at 3am. We use the sites when it's available but use our own for any thing important, or for purchases etc.
Our base camp is Indian Cove, at Virginia Beach, Virginia and our winter camp is Paridise Oaks in Bushnell, Florida. I only mention these because these are two great parks. It took us a while to find places that made us feel like we were at home when we were there. We have stayed in parks all over the U.S., we haven't ventured into Canada with the RV yet. If you haven't done much camping becareful using the description on web sites, they aren't always true and normally worse rather than better. Don't get me wrong there are many beautiful parks and some that are not so beautiful. We have found having home parks in the places you may friquent makes it nice, kind a like going to a bar where everyone knows your name.
Good luck, hope to see you on the road. If I can help in any way just ask.
I'm doing this backward, I guess, because I've already posted in a couple of other places, but I'll introduce myself now: Hello everyone, my name is Mel and as my screen name indicates, I live in West Virginia. My husband, Richard and I have been thinking about full-timing for a number of years now. We were all set to do it about four years ago, but one thing led to another and we just decided it wasn't the right time for us. Now that our son will be graduating from high school next year and our house is much closer to being sellable, we think we might be ready this time. Richard works from home and runs two internet-based businesses. He'll continue doing so as we travel along. Currently, I work as a supervised psychologist. I would like to be able to due therapy sessions with people via Skype or something, but at this point I haven't figured out if this is possible or not. If not, I imagine I'll figure out something else to do. Our son, Daniel, isn't quite ready for college yet so he'll be coming along and maybe taking a few online classes as he decides what he'd like to do. He a metal detecting maniac and is getting started on Ebay so I'm sure much of his time will be centered on these pursuits. We've all lived in West Virginia our entire lives and with the exception of a few vacations to California, New York, and the Carolinas haven't been many places. We're looking forward to changing that! Oh, yeah, we're also bringing our cats, Inky and Eli. I look forward to getting to know everyone and hopefully seeing you out on the road at some point.
As far as being a Psychologist,you may have noticed after reading this and other forums this could be a very lucrative market for you!!!!!!!
Hi Mel - I'm Penny, also as indicated by our screen name. Nice to meet you and welcome! My husband Paul and I have also been thinking about and researching the fulltime lifestyle for many years now, and we're pretty sure we'll take the plunge this year. I don't know about you, but the closer we get to making this real, the scarier it gets, but the folks on this forum are so very encouraging and helpful. Knowing that other folks are doing this successfully makes me know we can do it too! Of course it would be much easier if it weren't for having to get the house to a 'sellable' status! I never realized how much stuff we had until I started getting rid of it all - yikes!
Good luck with the sale of your house - the housing market is looking much better lately. Hope to see you down the road as well!
Melinda and Richard,
Welcome to the RV Dreams forums, which is by the way, a form of therapy in itself. We have a tendency here of being helpful, friendly, knowledgeable, and encouraging to each other, whether it deals with RV'ing or just life in general. As a collection of "misfits" (to be explained in a bit), we all seem to get along pretty well.
I was discussing the full-time lifestyle with an acquaintance and when I mentioned that we were on that road, he asked me why I would want to be in a lifestyle that exposed us to so many misfits. I explained to him that "campers," whether part time or full time, all seemed to be lovers of nature and a simpler life. He thought about that for a bit and then admitted that he thought the concept sounded appealing after all.
Feel free to ask any questions that come to mind, as the only "dumb" questions are the ones that don't get asked, and thus, the questioner perhaps has to learn the hard and expensive way.
Glad to have you as part of the "family."
Terry
As your husband works online already - I imagine your travels will involve chasing decent bandwidth. Which would totally make it technically feasible for you to explore offering video therapy to clients. We know a handful of life coaches who do similar things while roaming. I don't know what is possible by offering services that might require special licensing across state borders - but I imagine you can figure out a niche that is enjoyable for you!
There are a bunch of us working remotely while traveling, so you're in good company!
- Cherie
We meet the most intreseting people during our travels and love the Fulltime lifestyle.
It is quite a change and some of our Family members still do not understand how we live every day in a "Trailer", and ask are we ready to quit?
I tell them, our stress level is way down, our enjoyment of life is way up and we will keep doing this as long as we can.
Robert
Welcome. Pam and I have been full timing for a couple years now and Love it. It took us a while to loosen up some and really start to meet new people. We were both working for the Gov. in Northern Virginia so getting away from the traffic and stress was therapy for us. Working from the RV can be easly done, Verizon Hot Spot, is what we use. Most camp grounds that offer WiFi are weak at best. To do anything that requires any serious ban width you would need to do it at 3am. We use the sites when it's available but use our own for any thing important, or for purchases etc.
Our base camp is Indian Cove, at Virginia Beach, Virginia and our winter camp is Paridise Oaks in Bushnell, Florida. I only mention these because these are two great parks. It took us a while to find places that made us feel like we were at home when we were there. We have stayed in parks all over the U.S., we haven't ventured into Canada with the RV yet. If you haven't done much camping becareful using the description on web sites, they aren't always true and normally worse rather than better. Don't get me wrong there are many beautiful parks and some that are not so beautiful. We have found having home parks in the places you may friquent makes it nice, kind a like going to a bar where everyone knows your name.
Good luck, hope to see you on the road. If I can help in any way just ask.