A couple who was inspired to live life to the fullest. From building a dream house to living out their dreams in a Leisure Travel Van.
Living the American Dream!
Go to college, graduate, get married, have kids, build your dream house, and live happily ever after, right? Most can probably agree that this is the “American Dream”.
As two young adults striving in life and living the “American Dream,” we had reached the next chapter in our life to build our dream home. Within 18 months of this new chapter of ours unfolding, we were all settled into our brand new custom built log cabin. And we lived happily ever after. Or not.
Fast forward to 10 months later; we were starting to say “there has to be something more to life” rather than striving to live out the “American Dream.” We began feeling like we weren’t living out our dreams and that building our dream home never really made us happy at all. Our dreams weren’t to invest all of our money into this dream house and have nice cars, only to be tied down and not go nowhere. Our dreams were to invest in experiencing life, our dreams were to travel. Our dreams were not to care what anyone else thought and to live out our dreams.
We had spent 18 months of blood, sweat, and tears building our dream house and we thought, this is it. We’ve built our house and lived out the American Dream. What’s next? After living in our dream home for ten months we were ready for whatever next exciting thing in life was to come. This is the part when my husband asked me if I could live on a boat!
We took the leap!
So we bought a sailboat, moved aboard, and sold our dream house right at the one year mark of its completion date, and never looked back. We lived aboard our sailboat for one year. We had traveled from South Carolina down to the Florida Keys and back. This experience was pretty amazing, but we quickly realized that living this way was for someone who was able to disconnect from the world for a little while. We were still needing to connect to make money and work remotely, and living on a boat made this a little difficult. So we decided it was time to move onto the next adventure life had for us – we would rethink living on a boat when we could disconnect for longer amounts of time.
Next stop, the RV dealer!
We had no idea where to begin or what RV would be right for us. But, we seen a big RV with a lot of room. It was a brand new 40 foot fifth wheel at the cost of $70,000 US dollars. We were sold!
We made a short trip with the new RV up north and back to test everything out. There was a handful of warranty trips back and forth to the shop. And finally we were hitting the road!
After a month of hitting the road we quickly realized that pulling this big fifth wheel and having to be in RV parks was not the way we wanted to travel. So, we began searching online for something smaller.
Our requirements were a short list – we knew we didn’t need much. We wanted something as small as possible, but that still had a separate bed from the living & dining area, along with a dry bath. We wanted something that would be easier to get around in, allowing us to stop in those small random towns without the worry of getting ourselves stuck in a tight place.
We found Leisure Travel Vans!
We had never seen an LTV in person, but we knew as soon as we seen the layout of the Unity with the corner bed we had found just what we were looking for.
After several phone calls to nearly every dealer in the country, I couldn’t find one. Everyone was telling me the LTV’s are like unicorns and hot potatoes, that they’re really hard to get your hands on because everyone wants one. I was told several times that we were going to have to get one ordered and it would take about 10 months before I could get my hands on an LTV. But, I didn’t give up there. I wanted one now and I did not want to wait. I continued searching and calling around. Finally, a dealer I had called said that they had a brand new Leisure Travel Van – it was a Unity with a corner bed – that had just hit the lot. They said it wasn’t even up on their site yet to show that it was available. I quickly told them I would claim it and put a deposit down now and be there in a couple days to pick it up.
Living our dream!
It has now been a year and we have been traveling full-time around the US living in our LTV Unity. We have not had any major warranty issues. We have been easily stopping at any place we want, and staying out of RV parks. And we were still able to keep and store all of our toys and hobbies that we enjoy within our LTV. We have no plans on moving out of our LTV anytime soon. Our plans are to drive it til the wheels fall off, stopping and seeing everything our hearts desire, and living out our dreams.
(We have made a few upgrades to keep the wheels from falling off so we can prolong the life of our van. Head over to our YouTube channel at La Vida Adventures to see our LTV and what upgrades we have made).
The Lie & The Truth!
The lie that’s lived trying to live up to the “American Dream” is that you have to do all the things, to have all the things, to retire one day in good health, so that then you can live out all the things you dreamed on doing your whole life.
The Truth is, the cost of not following your dreams, is spending the rest of your life wishing you had.
It’s the priceless experiences in life that makes us happy.
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