Who are you and what is your backstory?

We are Warren and Robin and we’re full time rvers.  We are high school sweethearts and both from military families.  After high school, Warren enlisted in the Navy.  We had no real commitment to each other when he left realizing that we were both very young but stayed in close contact and never fell out of love for each other.  After being apart for 1 ½ years, Warren popped the question and we got hitched.  We were raised to strive for the “American Dream,” big house, nice cars and to have a family.  As young and middle aged adults, we accomplish those goals, but through the years began to realize that it was not “our dream”.  We wanted to expose our sons to more than just working and coming home.  We wanted them to know that life has so much to offer if you're willing to get out of your comfort zone and explore.  We traveled abroad, locally and started doing more camping.  

After purchasing our first home, we became friends with our neighbors that re-introduced us to tent camping which was so much fun.  The boys quickly learned that it was okay to get down and dirty, fish, hike, respect nature and make s’mores over a beautiful campfire.  From that point moving forward, we were all hooked.  Our family, through the years, progressed from tent camping, to a pop up trailer, a couple of travel trailers and a Class A motorhome.  We used it for camping trips as well as driving to competitive soccer tournaments.  With the Class A, we realized how many more options were available to us, such as, adult Wine Tasting trips through California’s Wine Country, with a designated driver of course, family and friend trips to the Pacific Northwest and down the coast to San Diego, CA.  We have a lot of shared memories with our family and friends.

 

We have been married for 37 years and feel closer than ever.  Our relationship has only grown.  We have learned to pick our battles, and truly having a sense of freedom has made us so much more relaxed as individuals.

 

As the boys grew up and went off to college and the military, Warren accepted a promotion to the Bay Area in California and used the Class A as his second home.

Our outlook on life has always been “Do What Makes Us Happy.”  With that being said and both fathers being in the military, stationed all over the world, along with our own worldly travels, we have always been smittened by travelling as well as our children. 

The fulltime RV community has been good to us.  We’ve just concluded filming a short video sharing our life on the road for Roadtrippers and THOR industries and was selected to become a Keystone RV Ambassador for 2021.

 

Take us to the moment you decided to begin your RV life?  

Our interest began in full time RVing as we began to approach retirement and the kids were settled in their lives.  We had already sold our home and found ourselves thinking “Now What”?  We were blessed to be able to retire fairly young and didn’t want “our” retirement years to be tied to a home, mortgage and only looking forward to “vacations”, we wanted everyday to be a vacation.   Before Robin retired, we went on a year long mission of looking at different rigs, travelling up and down California to different campsites to question others that appeared to be full time RVing and ask them questions about the lifestyle, likes, dislikes, regrets, biggest challenges and why they chose their particular rigs and trucks.

Being people of color, we also had concerns about how we would fit into this lifestyle.  We could not find people that looked like us, but that wasn’t going to stop us from living our dreams.  Throughout our previous camping years, we had not experienced any problems because most people that Camp/RV share the love of the lifestyle.

Now we were faced with the task of minimizing 33 years of “stuff”.  We thought we would have a lot of sentimental attachment to our belongings but surprisingly we didn’t. Our boys took what they wanted and we sold the rest.  It actually felt good getting rid of all that clutter.  Our children retained our family pictures, sentimental Christmas Ornaments and the rest is with us.  Who would have thought we could be minimalist after all those years of accumulating stuff.

Our favorite quote is “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us” and we decided to put that quote in motion and use it as our motivation.  We are blessed to have good pensions but we still have to maneuver our finances.  We purchased our first fifth-wheel and started our journey.  The first year we were stationary in Morgan Hill, CA at a RV resort.  We were presented with the opportunity to work-camp one day a week to offset the cost of living there.  It was a great experience to learn the ins and outs of how an RV park/resort work.  Warren became a master at backing people up which has made our backing up routine easier.

 

Tell us about the advantages to the RV lifestyle?

Before we started full-time rving, we would plan vacation destinations and wait for the day to arrive, which was usually a cruise or a planned overseas destination.  We have a tendency to get antsy and when that happens, we pack up and move onto the next location.  Recently, we have really grown to love the beauty of the desert.  Our eyes have opened up to so many places that we thought would never interest us but, there is beauty in every big and small town. 

Warren has always been a handy man and has learned our fifth-wheels inside and out. Living life on the road things are bound to happen and instead of stressing about it, you learn to fix them and keep it moving.

A recent ah ha moment for us was our first time boondocking with friends in Quartzite, AZ., sitting on the deck of our toy hauler, having our morning coffee and gazing at the beautiful desert mountains and asking each other “How did we end up here?”  Two kids married young, raised our children and now living our dream and loving every minute of it.  We made the right choice. 

 

Tell us about the biggest challenges and downsides to the RV lifestyle?

We feel our lives are full and not missing anything but have only added to it.  We are proud parents as well as grandparents and recently upgraded our Keystone Montana  fifth wheel to a Keystone Fuzion 427 toy hauler to allow for our growing family.  Lucky for us, we live in an era of video chat and we never skip a beat in our sons and grandchildren's lives.  When we decided to jump into this lifestyle, it was important to us to stay connected to family as well as friends.  As we plan our destinations, we include our family so that they can make arrangements to visit us no matter where we are.  For safety factors, we let our sons know our every move while traveling on the road to different camp sites.  We still take vacations with our friends or they come to see us. It's a win-win situation.  We have met so many people that we would have never met without living this lifestyle all the while sharing the common bond of being nomads.  We have the best time sharing stories of places we have visited, repair fixes and sharing new adventures together.  Robin also is the Administrator of an African American Full time RV group on Facebook to connect with other people of color.  It is such a beautiful thing to meet all kinds of different people that have been nothing but friendly and helpful.  It is a friendly community regardless of your background.

 

We do not see our lifestyle changing anytime soon, we are already booked out until 2023.  A dream of ours is to RV across Alaska and to expand on our travels abroad.  There is so much to see around the world and we want to continue to do more with less.

 

Our biggest challenge when our rig needs maintenance work is finding somewhere to stay, usually in a hotel until the work is complete.  To us, it’s a chance to stay in a hotel and enjoy some of those amenities but in reality, we can’t wait to get back into our own house-on-wheels, it has everything we need to live our minimalist lifestyle.

One of the challenges that we were faced with while traveling was a blowout on our fifth wheel trailer.  Under normal circumstances a flat tire on the fifth wheel would be no problem because of the leveling system installed on the trailer, we would just lower the jacks, lift the trailer up and replace the flat tire with the spare.  On this particular occasion, the damage caused by the blown tire lacerated the hydraulic lines to the leveling jacks, therefore we could not take a chance of trying to lower the jacks in fear of the fact that they might not retract.  Luckily, we were at the bottom of a really steep grade when this happened.  It took the tow truck approximately four hours to arrive and install the spare.  By the time we arrived at our campsite, it was close to midnight.  Mishaps will happen from time to time, patience along with a cool head is definitely needed in these situations because it's inevitable that they will occur. 

 

How do you find a sense of community when you’re always moving? How do you maintain and build relationships on the road? 

We have been married for 37 years and feel closer than ever.  Our relationship has only grown.  We have learned to pick our battles, and truly having a sense of freedom has made us so much more relaxed as individuals.  Things that used to be important aren't anymore.  If we have places we want to visit, we make it happen.  We encourage each other in things we thought we would never try.  Recently Warren has become a Drone Pilot, Robin has taken up roller skating and together we are learning how to SUP (stand up paddle board).

 

How do you support yourself financially?

We have financial freedom from pensions and have worked to become pretty much debt free. The goal with this lifestyle was to do more with less.  There are some RV Resorts we love that are on the more pricey side so we save for those splurges and during the winter months by taking advantage of 55+ and over communities that offer winter specials.  We have recently purchased a toy-hauler with the intent of boon-docking, free camping off the grid on Bureau of Land Management land.

 

What is your one piece of advice for people who want to do what you do?

It's hard to sum up one piece of advice before diving into this lifestyle but, here are a few suggestions that I’d recommend.  Research research and more research for at least a year or two to decide on how you will be living and traveling in your rv, ex: are you going to stay put for several months at a time or do you plan on covering as many miles as you can.  Decide on what type of rig would fit your lifestyle as far as motorhome, travel trailers or fifth wheels, in which the last two require a vehicle to tow them.  Once you answer those simple but difficult questions, the journey can begin.

 

What have been the most influential and helpful books, podcasts, blogs, websites or other resources? 

The most influential help has been talking with other people that RV, especially those who are full time or snowbirds.  They have a wealth of experience and love to share the ups and downs, tips and tricks.  There are a variety of apps available to use, some of our go to apps are Roadtrippers, Harvest Host, Passport America and All Stay.  We are also members of the Elks Lodge which allows us to stay at the lodges that have rv access with limited utilities, such as water and power.

Some of our biggest influences for Rving has been viewing Instagram posts, where people have shared their travels, repairs, destinations and most of all the rv makeovers and flips.  One of our biggest influencers for decor on instagram is the “RVflipper” Trina and Steve, they do amazing work. We also connect with many other people on instagram for travels destinations, RV tips and tricks and learning how to maneuver this nomad lifestyle, there are too many to name.   On Facebook, we enjoy connecting with the other African American Fulltime RVers which we created to connect with other people of color and for giggles, others that RV/Camp on TikTok.

 

What does the future look like?

We are excited for our spring/summer/fall travels and will be travelling to nine different states and connecting with family and friends along the way.  We will be attending our first big RV meetup, visiting Yellowstone National Park, traveling the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest.  

We are currently awaiting the release of a video we completed with Roadtrippers, Thor Industries and film by Ambient Skies, it was an amazing experience. In addition, we just became Keystone Brand RV Ambassadors for 2021.  We're so excited to be working with such a big company and looking forward to showcasing more of our Keystone Fuzion 427 - toyhauler.

We do not see our lifestyle changing anytime soon, we are already booked out until 2023.  A dream of ours is to RV across Alaska and to expand on our travels abroad.  There is so much to see around the world and we want to continue to do more with less.

We don’t really have any short or long term goals, being retired we have learned to relax and “go with the flow”.  If we want to do it then we do it, if we want to relax, we relax.  Living this Full Time RV lifestyle has really changed our views on life and we are enjoying every moment.

 

Is there anything that you need that you can’t find or anything you are seeking help with? 

With the internet and connections we've made, we usually find the answers to our questions.  Our biggest obstacle is finding enough time in a day to do everything we want to do and searching for that new hiking trail, paddle boarding, roller skating, wine tasting and brewery locations.

 

Rapid fire questions

 

What are the top 3 RV essentials that you couldn’t live without?

• Washer and dryer was a deal breaker
• Reverse Osmosis - must have clean fresh water
• Our Nespresso Coffee Maker - start your day off right with a nice cup of Coffee.

 

Top 3 favorite places you’ve visited?

• Oceanside, CA 
• New Orleans, LA 
• Upper State Michigan

 

Where are you now?

We are currently in Northern California for Warren to officiate a wedding for our friend's son and visit with family and friends.  We also take this time to take care of our yearly check ups. Then it is time to hit the road for spring/summer destinations, we are excited Robin’s sister and brother in law will be joining us for our trip to Yellowstone.

 

How long do you usually stay in one place?

During spring, summer and fall we stay 2-4 weeks.  During the winter, we stay for 6 months in Arizona but travel as much as possible with or without the rig while we are stationary.

 

When did you first start RVing?

June 2017

 

Are you full-time or part-time RVing?

Fulltime and loving it.

 

How many weeks have you spent in the RV in the last 12 months?

12 months

 

What kind of vehicle/rv/trailer/setup do you have? 

• 2020 Keystone Fuzion 427 toy hauler
• 2013 Chevy Silverado 3500 LTZ Dually

 

Where can we go to keep up with you and your adventures?

IG:  parents_unleashed

Facebook:  parents unleashed

Twitter: parentsunleash

Youtube:  parents unleashed