I never dreamed an epic 10,000 mile RV adventure and a two week European cruise would be in my future…2 teachers with 3 kids who were all involved in expensive sports, music, cheer, etc…and college…we weren’t great savers…🤪 BUT— we pulled it off, and I’m SO glad we did!

You can too! Here’s the secret:

You have to be willing to downsize your home AND be homeless for a while.

We sold our house and used the money we made to buy a travel trailer. You can buy a very nice used travel trailer anywhere from $14,000 -$20,000. Our Vibe was $20,000 for only one year old (2023).

We traded in a car to buy a truck that would pull it, but that didn’t really affect our budget. Our payment went up only slightly. If you already have a truck- BONUS!!

You could also do this with a smaller / cheaper camper or even a tent if you want to really save money and use it for traveling.

The homeless part:

We already had planned to downsize, so we decided we wouldn’t buy our down-sized home until AFTER we were tired of traveling. That way, we didn’t have a mortgage, utilities, property taxes, internet bill, etc., —AND we had the profits from our house sale too. We also had our pension income and still got paid for a few months from our jobs. Many people get some type of severance, paid for unused sick time, buy outs etc, when they retire, and this will help your travel budget too. My husband got paid for all of his unused sick days!😁

SO… we were able to travel all around the country- over 10,000 miles AND take a two week Europe vacation BEFORE buying our downsized home (a fixer upper).

We feel SO blessed to have been able to do this that I wanted to share with others. It is SO doable and SO fun. You don’t need to have tons of money saved up this way. We don’t regret it for one second or miss our bigger house — ok, we might miss the in-ground pool.🤪

We may even go back to work again as we’re still young!🤪 BUT taking this time out and pause to see and do all we wanted while we are still able to was perfect!

You can read about all of our adventures on my blog and get more budget travel hacks! Happy travels!!😁❤️

11 Ways to Save $ on an RV Trip

11 Cheap, Must Sees on a Western US RV Trip!

Going on an epic National Park RV Trip? Read these first!

10 things I wish I had known before taking a European Cruise

European cruise- everything you need to know before you go! Read these!