023: The Wandermires- Taking big risks to live their dream life in an Airstream!

Published by This Indulgent Life on March 11, 2020March 11, 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Welcome back!

This episode with the Wandermires has been a long time coming! We filmed this back in 2019 right before I moved back to the states from Hong Kong and it has just taken us a while to get everything back on track!

I’ve also pivoted the business since then and this is one of the last purely “Family travel” podcast episodes! While I adore traveling, and it’s one of my pillars of effective parenting, I realized that parenting and motherhood were always coming up. And the area that I seemed to help mommas was always in parenting. So you get what you ask for lol!

From here on out the podcast will be geared towards giving you the tools, strategies, and encouragement to help you parent with confidence and create a life filled with joy and peace.

Be sure to join the FREE Facebook group helping mommas with littles parent with joy, peace, and confidence! I have weekly lives, tips, articles, encouragement, and fun all for free! www.facebook.com/groups/thisindulgentlife

Who are The Wandermires:

They are a family of 3: Kendra, Amanda, and Clark, their 5 yr old son. They also have a fat cat, Reese. Before going fulltime, they were living in Dallas, TX where Kendra worked as an environmental engineer and traveled the majority of the year. They were feeling the stress of the city and life, so they sold everything and bought an Airstream, all within 3.5 months. Now, they’ve been on the road for about two years while Amanda homeschools Clark from the road and Kendra continues working as an environmental engineer.

Don’t forget to check out Kelsey of Positively Delighted’s episode on what it was like to grow up Road School!

Prefer to watch the interview?

How to downsize:

The Wandermires doing homeschool outside looking at sea kelp.

Start with your closets and clothes. They’re the areas that tend to collect the most stuff. And keep going through it. Then pick a room and start there. Ask “have I used this in the last 3 months” If not then put it in a donate, sell, or trash pile. Sell items on Facebook marketplace. It became a revolving door of people coming to pick things up she ended up with a calendar just for sales. Don’t forget the spaces you don’t see often like basements and attics.

Life on the Road:

They try to plan ahead, but there are usually weeks they don’t plan for because they can’t decide on anything. But that flexibility always ended up being perfect timing for when they needed flexibility for work, health, or family. You can find them on BLM land, state or national parks, and anywhere nature abounds! They typically stay 1-2 weeks in a new area and love exploring non-touristy places, local shops, and local dining options.

The Wandermires, hand-in-hand around a large redwood.

When it comes to Clark and being able to socialize, since they don’t typically stay in a campground, they haven’t found it difficult at all. For one, Clark is a social butterfly and so when they go to playgrounds, libraries, and even the store, Clark is reaching out. But even more than that they intentionally went to an Escaper’s Bash when they first started so they could meet other people doing this. They often meet up with those friends and camp together so their kids, and the adults, can play together! And the added bonus is that they’ve been able to keep him out of the drama and bullying that tends to happen when the same group of kids are together all day every day.

Kendra still has to work a typical 9-5 job so they don’t travel as fast as others might. But they find it’s a calmer travel pace and they aren’t having to look for a new grocery store every trip.

How full-time traveling has changed The Wandermires:

Even though they always have had to rely on each other because they didn’t live around other family, traveling has given them the time to rest and enjoy each other. While Amanda was able to take Clark with her to work, they still needed to do all the normal life stuff, church activities, meeting with friends, and all the things. So they never felt they had the time to just be together fishing, reading, watching a movie. They had originally planned on traveling for a short time, but since have realized they can’t imagine giving this up. They may even decide to become expats one day!

They’ve also learned resilience and flexibility! When things go wrong they’ve learned to just make things work. They had a heater go out and they had to wait to get it fixed which changed up all their plans. And while it was disappointing in the immediate, they later realized how fortunate they were with the little turn of events!

Their advice:

Do your research. Go to Youtube and watch videos by Less Junk, More Journey, Keep Your Daydream, Long Long Honeymoon and so many more.
Start where you are. If that’s a tent going camping on the weekends of a small camper over the summer, just start where you are don’t try to compare to others who’ve been doing it a while.
TAKE THE RISK!