About Our Family
We’re Caitlin & Ryan. In 2021, we bought our first RV when our boys were 4 and 1.5 years old. We lived in Coastal Virginia and we were ready to see the country with our travel trailer! We named her Bex and about 2 weeks later, I had the next 3 years of part time family road trips mapped out! Not really. (But kinda.)
Two years later, we moved to the mountains of South Carolina and by the end of 2023, we’d visited our 35th state together!
How It Happened
This was probably a bit of a shock to our friends and family, because we did not set out to become family RVers. In fact, we didn’t have plans to travel much at all while our kids were little. But we had always dreamed of working remotely.
After we had remote work figured out, we booked a 4 week Airbnb stay in Florida. The entire family loved the sunshine and the escape from winter, and we started dreaming how we could make this happen more often.
But frequent road trips with two young kids don’t sound like much fun. Unless… we did it in a family RV. We’d have our home with us. Our own comfy beds. The boys’ favorite toys. No need to unpack and repack our groceries or clothes at each new rental.
And so we jumped in with both feet and purchased a travel trailer small enough to tow with our Tacoma. We caught the travel bug and we made it work, diapers and all!
The RV Travel Journey
Lil Bex – 2021 to 2025
Forest River Ibex 19MBH Travel Trailer
Towed with a Tacoma and then our 2021 AEV Prospector XL
Small but mighty and ready to boondock with upgraded batteries and solar
Bex the Great – 2025 & Beyond
Stryker 2613 Toyhauler
Towed with 2021 AEV Prospector XL
6 feet longer, 2 feet taller, with tons more tank capacity!
Renovated bedroom turned bunkroom for our boys
Double the solar and battery power
So What Now?
Now that our kids are a bit bigger, we’re really loving this part-time travel lifestyle! We have a wonderful house in South Carolina close to family, and we’ve found a part time travel rhythm that works for our family. We take our homeschool on the road and travel this gigantic beautiful country a couple weeks (or months!) at a time.
Some Fun Road Trip Goals:
We can’t wait to:
– Eat at least 1 famous food from each state we visit
– Stay at a lavender farm
– Hike on a glacier in Alaska
– Visit a cheesy Christmas themed town
– RV our way through California’s state and national parks
– Go on a whale watching tour
– Finish the Mighty 5, Utah’s gorgeous national parks
– Photograph the Milky Way
– Spend a summer in Michigan
– See 49 states via RV. Currently planning our Alaskan adventure in Bex the Great!
– Book flights to Hawaii
Already completed:
– Tube down a natural lazy river in Florida
– Ride e-bikes on Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park
– Attend the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta
– See the 2024 total solar eclipse
– Visit a dinosaur dig site in Utah