Hi!

Craig · Apr 25, 2014

Hello, my name is Craig. I'm new here to the VanDweller forums but not to living a life style of constant traveling and camping. My wife and I first discovered cheaprvling.com about a year ago and I've been a silent but lurking fan of Bob's since then (I know, sort of creepy, right? LOL!), learning all I can from this site. The amount of information here is incredibly invaluable.

We've constantly moved from place to place around the United States never being able to sit still for too long. The open road and true FREEDOM is what we love more than anything else. We're huge fans of camping and traveling and hiking. We blog about our misadventures and dream of that one day when we can get out and do it permanently (right now we still have about 7 years until our youngest is an adult. After that we plan to go out on the road permanently.)

I'm a Fine Artist/Illustrator who has done quite a bit of work in independent comic books. I'm currently an undergraduate at the Academy of Art University studying for a Bachelor's in Art Education.

It's very nice to meet you fine folks on these forums. With any luck maybe we'll run into each other on the road sometime

Simran · Apr 25, 2014

Welcome to the madhouse! How are you traveling and where do you stay?

Craig · Apr 25, 2014

We got really lucky and found a really really nice mobile home for right now in northern Indiana to purchase outright for $1700. It's right on a lake and is very nice and the property taxes for all of last year were only $28. So we figured this could be a good emergency home base plus a place for our children to live later in the future if they so choose. We were traveling with a 1967 Shasta camper trailer but eventually she needed to be retired. So we're working toward getting a new one within the next few years while we wait for our youngest to grow up. Once we go out again we want it to be permanently, so we're taking time to enjoy our children while they grow for these last seven years we have with them before they become adults. It gives us a good amount of time to prepare to go full time in our camper in the smartest ways possible.

Belinda2 · Apr 26, 2014

Welcome!

akrvbob · Apr 27, 2014

I had a little bit of your situation. After a divorce I lived in a box van and my kids came over and stayed with me on weekends. I put in bunk beds and had a generator so they could have TV and play on the Playstation. We spent a lot of time at parks and outdoors! I think they enjoyed it. After 6 years my youngest wanted to live with me instead of his mom so I moved into a house. I had to wait another 3 years until he was old enough to be out on his own to get back into a van.

I say that to encourage you to include your kids in your mobile lifestyle now. You have a great situation with the mobile on a lake but maybe try to get your live-in rig as soon as possible and take the kids out in it as often as possible. And until you get the rig, go car-camping and be outdoors all you can. I think camping and experiencing nature is one of the most important things a parent can do for their kids. The more you are out the better off you are too.

Just a thought!
Bob

Patrick46 · Apr 27, 2014

I agree 100% with Bob.

Traveling with our kids was somma the best times we ever had as a family.

By the time my kids were 5, they'd all been on long cross-country trips in our van. Later, when they were teenagers, we got a Class C, and did a ton of great traveling in that with 'em too!