Why We Sold Our House And Moved Into A Camper
Hello, and welcome to my first blog!
I’m Lauren, and if you are reading this, I just want to start by saying thank you for taking the time out of your day and showing your support by reading. With it being my first blog post, I want to introduce myself and give a little context on what we are doing and what lead us to drop everything and move back into our camper.
Joshua Tree - April 2023. Our last stop before we bought our house.
The Backstory:
To summarize my life in a paragraph: I was raised in Oklahoma and moved to New Hampshire in May 2019 for a communications residency in Manchester. In December of 2019, I got a job managing social media and there I met my husband, Martin. In 2021 we got married and wanted to buy a house, but the market was insane (and still is!). After putting in multiple offers, we decided to go a different direction. We both had always dreamed of living in a van and traveling. So we thought, why not now? We both went from working full-time in person, to part-time remote. We moved out of our condo in December of 2021 and by pure luck, we got our camper through a family friend for a deal in Oklahoma. We are forever grateful for their generosity!
After we got the camper, we did a little renovation work by replacing the carpet with vinyl wood flooring, painted the ceiling, added solar panels, and some redecorating. I should give Martin all the credit here because he put in so much work to make it amazing. He made the camper fully self sustainable so we could boondock on the public lands for free.
Our first year in the camper was definitely challenging. Mostly because we had no clue what we were doing. We went to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado before heading back to New Hampshire for the summer of 2022. I quit my job that summer and began freelancing here and there. We were definitely a little in over our heads but we made things work!
The House:
When 2023 rolled around, we had been parked in Oklahoma in my parent’s backyard for a few months. Our goal for that year was to buy a house in New Hampshire. We (thought) we were ready to settle down and be home owners. We had it all planned out: we would travel the first half of the year, then start the home buying process at the end of summer. The first stop of that year’s trip was South Padre Island (Read my SPI blog here!). While there, our friends listed their house in New Hampshire that we knew we LOVED and it was a dream house. All of the perfect pieces fell into place and we bought it! It was a gorgeous 1800’s farmhouse. We ended up cutting all of our travel plans short, drove to NH in April, and moved into the house by June 1st.
Living in the house was an experience for sure. It taught us many hard lessons, along with some good ones. Martin and I learned to rely heavily on each other in a season of difficulty. Living in a house is expensive, we found out quickly. We had roommates to help afford the insane mortgage. By the end of the first summer, we were already wishing we were back in the camper. I didn’t expect adjusting to the stationary life would be as difficult as it was. We missed traveling so much, but we knew we needed to give it more time so we made a deal that if we still felt the same in a year, we’d do it. Well, that year passed and even with us putting our all into making the house work, we were even more desperate to head out. After our roommates moved out in August 2024, we made the decision to list the house and move back into the camper. Which thankfully we had kept it as a guest house (er... a back up plan) despite me wanting to sell it!
Martin and I came to the realization that if we had the house we were not going to be able to afford to travel. No matter how much we loved the house (seriously... it was a dream), we missed traveling more. Plus, over 10 of our friends were moving out of NH as well, so there were friend group shifts and we felt it was time for us to move on in more ways than one. We put our house on the market on October 8th, and by November 6th we were closing and pulling out of the driveway with our camper packed and ready to go. HUGE shoutout to Christian Scott with Keller Williams, he was the best realtor in helping us move quick!
Now:
It has been about eight months since we sold the house and moved back into the camper, which feels a little like a whirlwind. We have no regrets! This year of traveling has been the best yet. Not having to worry about insane house bills is the biggest relief. We know a ton more about traveling now too and are actually prepared. Everything feels easier and like I can actually catch my breath instead of running around like mad woman.
So, why start a blog after all this time?
I decided to start this blog to document our travels, so one day I can look back and reminisce on this sweet season of life. I have no idea where this will take me. I am trying not to have any expectations on what will happen. But life is about trying new things, and our twenties are about reinventing ourselves many times over. So here’s to a new adventure in blogging!
I am so glad to be on this journey traveling and living on the road. I hope you come along with us and maybe even learn a thing or two!
Cheers!
