How to full time travel across the U.S: 10 tips.

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America Geography Map

To us, full time travel across the US has always been part of a grand scheme of world travel. For a long time we’ve been dreaming about quitting our jobs and going. We decided that we will start with North America. Scott and I are both living here, we have existing resources, so why not just start in our own country?

The idea of travel has been a dream of ours for a long time. In the last couple years we have come up with a plan and we are finally executing it. In this post we would like to share the top 10 steps we took to achieve our goals.

1. Set a date to full time travel

The problem that we had was. It’s way easier to just have dreams than it is to actually accomplish them!
There’s never a perfect time to go travel: you have bills, work, family, friends, chores, errands, etc. How in the world can you have time to travel?

We were in the same boat until one night in January 2019. We realized that we have to make it happen this year! So, we set a date: October 15th, 2019. It seemed far enough in advance to prepare for the transition, yet close enough to be gone before the winter.

2. Full time travel budget

There’s never going to be enough money to do everything and to do it in luxury. We had to decide what our new lifestyle would be. This meant deciding what we needed and what we could live without. Scott and I tried to come up with affordable ways to live and travel on the road and still be able to have some fun without feeling guilty or going broke. We started saving two years in advance and are will be working on the road so we can keep our savings- savings.

Certain expenses such as food, gas and activities can be reduced. So, if we have a slow week or month when we aren’t making much money, we can just slow down and work for a while in one spot to reduce expenses. We can set our own schedule now since we don’t have time frame any more.

3. How do you want to travel?

We are all different: someone’s idea of traveling could be drastically different from someone else’s. Scott and I have wanted to do a little bit of everything: hike mountains, explore national parks, visit cities, drive on coastal roads and ride our bikes through beaches. We’re not big in the staying at the resorts, so getting a truck camper was a great compromise between being able to go to most places, but also be comfortable in our little home.

4. Mailing Address

Both of us did not want to own property for one major reason: it’s expensive to maintain it even as a rental property, if something major happens, we would be liable for the expenses. Scott and I are lucky enough to keep our same mailing address and have our family take care of our mail. We trust them with our personal matters and they’re nice enough to support us on our journey! However, if you don’t have someone to take that responsibility, there are several mail scanning services that will take care of any needs.

5. Insurances

  • Health Insurance
    Based on your income you may qualify for a low-cost or even free care through the market, however, you will be still have some related expenses. Some other travelers would rather skip that and have catastrophic health insurance. This type of insurance typically comes with low monthly premiums and a high deductible. You pay for any emergency medical care you receive until you meet your deductible and most preventive care is completely covered. Catastrophic health insurance is mostly good for accidents, unexpected injuries, sudden emergency illnesses, etc.
  • Truck & RV Insurance
    We wanted to stick with one company for both: our truck and camper. However many companies would not cover your RV if it’s not attached to the truck! It would have been very disappointing to wake up one day after the storm and have your windows broken, because a branch fell on the roof and not be covered. Therefore we went with State Farm, since they offered us the ability to cover our camper even when not attached to the truck.
  • Belongings
    We have also made sure that all of our possessions are covered and found a loophole: as long as you are paying for home or renters insurance your belonging are covered, even if you are traveling in the camper. So, we will be maintaining a renters policy just for the coverage on our personal belongings and some forms of liability.

6. Getting rid of stuff to travel full time

While living your life you end up accumulating a lot of things, some of it is very memorable and sentimental, the rest of it just stuff. Furniture, appliances, clothing, tools, trinkets- all of it is not a necessity, but a luxury in many cases. Going the travel full time route might bring you to this uneasy decision: I have to get rid of my stuff!

  • Selling online
    Luckily, there are many ways of getting some value back from your stuff. For the big and bulky items we have been successfully using Facebook Marketplace. Just log in your account, get a membership in your local yard sale groups and create a post of an item you want to sell. We guarantee, that someone will come pick it up and it will sell quickly (unless no one wants if, of course). For smaller, more valuable items we have been using Ebay.
  • Yard sales
    Whatever is too big or you are not expecting to get much money for, but you still need it gone, we recommend yard sales. Lay everything neatly and expect to spend a lot of time talking and negotiating prices, everyone loves cheap stuff! We found that posting on Facebook Marketplace really helped attract people to the yard sales.
  • Donate
    If you are desperate to get rid of something, a lot of your local thrift shops will offer free drop off of the stuff that you don’t want any more. It’s been very helpful for us, since we know that someone in need will keep on using what we once owned and loved.

7. Wills

Wills are another way to ensure that if something happens, our family will have an easier time handling our affairs. We do not have a great deal of wealth or property, it’s mostly our saving and our vehicles, as well as our final wishes.

8. Apps for full time travelers

Traveling around can be complex, we did our homework and found many apps that will make your life easier!

8. Let your friends and family know

Sometimes you can get wrapped up in preparations and you realize you have a week left to say goodbye. The good part is… you don’t really have a timeline any more, you’re free to go. If you are feeling like you need more time with your friend and family, you can always find it. You will be coming back and even if you decide you travel longer, there’s always a way to communicate!

10. Don’t plan your trip too much

I know, right? The first 9 items were about how plan/prepare/make sure, etc. Planning can get really exciting but also stressful. The greatest thing is you are not on a vacation any more. This is it. You’re traveling full time, it’s your new job, with all of its pros and cons. But really, go with the flow and enjoy your new lifestyle.

Thank you for reading a summary of what we have been going through during our planing phase. If you have your experience you would like to share or any other thoughts, please leave a comment below! You can read about out first experience as full timers here