A-Z Guide to Full-time RV Living: Inspiration

Welcome to post 9 of 26 in the A-Z guide to full-time RV living!

I is for Inspiration

Inspiration is a beautiful thing. When we have our sights set on a big goal or dream, inspiration helps keep the fire stoked, because even the most exciting dreams can start to feel like a grind when you get down to the minutiae of bringing them to fruition. Add to that a goal as unconventional as living on the road full-time and inspiration is what keeps you company when you might start to feel alone in your pursuit.

Watching, reading about, and talking to others chasing their wildest dreams can be wildly motivating. I will never forget, back in 2011, discovering Bumfuzzle.com, a blog written by Pat & Ali Schulte, chronicling their unique and never-ending world travels. Reading about their many adventures opened my eyes to a way of travel I’d never considered. I had no idea the Pan-Am highway was even a thing until reading their blog. In Think Like a Monk author Jay Shetty said “You cannot dream what you cannot see”. Discovering Bumfuzzle and subsequently redefining my view of travel is what birthed dreams I never could have imagined.

With that I’m dedicating this post to some of the awesome travelers and stories that I find endlessly inspiring.

Books

I enjoy any non-fiction book about people living an unconventional life. These are a few of my favorites.

• Drive Nacho Drive: A journey from the American Dream to the end of the world
• 927 Days of Summer: Around the world in a VW van
• How To Be Alone: An 800 mile hike on the Arizona Trail
• To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret
• Nowhere for Very Long: The unexpected road to an unconventional life
• The Road Chose Me Volume 1: Two years and 40,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina
• The Road Chose Me Volume 2: Three years and 54,000 miles around Africa
• Walden on Wheels: On the open road from debt to freedom
• The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the quest that will bring purpose to your life
• Home Sweet Anywhere: How we sold our house, created a new life, and saw the world

You Tube Channels

I enjoy great story-telling. These are some of the travel You Tubers whose stories I love to follow.

Kinging It

Craig & Aimee are world travelers and have embarked on some pretty wild adventures from buying a rickshaw in India and driving it the length of the country to spending a winter road tripping through Scandinavia in their bus named Custard. They’re inspiring, entertaining, and always opening my eyes to new adventures.

Keep Your Daydream

Marc & Trish are now empty-nesters but when they first embarked on full-time RVing they had 3 kids in tow. Not only that but they’ve lived in a wide variety of rig configurations making their You Tube channel a great place to gather all kinds of RV knowledge, especially families dreaming of living on the road full-time.

Christian Schaffer

Christian isn’t afraid to share the realities of van life but she manages to do so in the most beautiful and cinematic way.

Kara & Nate

Kara & Nate started their You Tube channel to document their goal of traveling to 100 countries. Since achieving that goal they’ve lived in a van and traveled across the US and now partake regularly in some pretty wild adventures like biking across the country or attempting to survive on a desert island. No matter what they’re doing, they’re fantastic storytellers.

Podcasts

The RV Entrepreneur

Practical, actionable advice on living and working full-time on the road.

Overland Journal

Stories and interviews of people overlanding around the globe.

Forums

Wander the West
Expedition Portal

Interviews

Over the years I’ve done some Q&A posts here with friends/fellow nomads. They all share some great personal insights around life on the road.

more insights from full-time Rv-ers

I contributed to an article on roverpass.com titled Unlocking the Secrets of RV travel: expert insights and advice. Check it out for various tips from other road-lifers like us.

A note of caution (when inspiration backfires)

Following other people’s journeys doesn’t always reap motivating benefits, in fact, sometimes it can do just the opposite. If comparing yourself to others is more paralyzing or depressing than inspiring, pay attention to that and be mindful of your media consumption. I didn’t share any Instagram accounts here because I think bite-sized content like what’s found on IG (that tends to be just highlight reels) can be more detrimental to our mental health than motivational. I love books as well as any kind of long-form content that allows for nuance, depth, and a more realistic look at the story being told.

I hope you find something here that fires you up and helps get you closer to your goal of living on the road full-time. In addition to what I’ve shared above I hope the posts on our blog are a nice little dose of inspiration too. See you next week for another one!

More posts from the A-Z Guide to Full-time RV travel:

• A-Z Guide to Full-time RV Living: Know your Why
• A-Z Guide to Full-time RV Living: Juggling a job with life on the road
• A-Z Guide to Full-Time RV Living: Having a home base
• A-Z Guide to Full-time RV Living: Great Expectations
• A-Z Guide to Full-Time RV Living: Finding places to stay
• A-Z Guide to Full-time RV Living: Expenses
• A-Z Guide to full-time RV living: Downsizing
• A-Z Guide to Full-time RV living: Community & Companionship
• A-Z Guide to Full-Time RV Living: Bears, Bandits & Breakdowns
• A-Z Guide to full-time RV Living: Anatomy of a Dream