There’s a strange sense of confusion when you tell someone you plan to break the norm. If you’ve ever deviated from the traditional path of living–whether it’s in your job, your lifestyle, or way back in high school–you know the feeling.
Even the most supportive people in your life exude a sort of quiet uncertainty about your choices. They could love you to death, but they rarely understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Hanna and I are familiar with this feeling. If you’re reading this, you probably are, too.
We’ve always done things a little bit differently. From school (hello, I have a Master’s Degree in Poetry) to our jobs (we started our own business), we’ve always bucked traditional wisdom and forged our own path. Now, we’re doing it again by choosing the nomadic lifestyle in 2025.
Things to know:
We’re hitting the road full-time in 2025, and it feels like it was a long time coming. Our personalities, individual and joint travel histories, and desires for our lives make this seemingly significant step feel like the most natural decision we’ve ever made.
Full-time travel in 2025
Travel is in our blood - a brief history of our journey to now
The adventurous side of life has always appealed to Hanna and me, both individually and as a couple. Before we became an item, we traveled in our own ways. These individual adventures set the stage for a relationship that would have a bit of wanderlust at its core.
I found myself returning time and again to the mountains of Western North Carolina, chasing the vistas and camping alongside babbling streams. I was driven by the feelings of freedom, independence, and childhood nostalgia. For generations, my father’s family put down roots in the Appalachian mountains. While they had a deep history in Old Florida, his family always seemed called to the mountains. He passed that down to me in the form of a longing for mountains always tugging at my heart.
Exploring the many forest roads of Western NC.
Hanna traveled, too. Her father was in the military and spent years in far-off places. That bold spirit of adventure was passed down to her, and she explored places like Alaska and Costa Rica with her family. She is a brave and passionate person who has traveled the US in a Mazda 6, done work-trade on Orcas Islands, and otherwise lived a life largely unbound from the traditional structure of Western society.
Once we (finally) became a couple, our traveling picked up pace dramatically. We camped in Walmart tents beside lakes, bought Jeeps, stayed in rooftop tents during snowfall, and ended up living in a truck camper for four months in 2023. While this is an extremely condensed version of our evolution to this point, it speaks volumes–we have proven to ourselves over the course of several years that travel is integral to who we are and what we love.
Embracing the adventurous life together as fresh-faced youths.
Starting a business - how we can work on the road full-time
Back in 2017, Hanna took a leap of faith. After doing breaking news at a couple of news outlets in Florida and a brief stint in a marketing position at a small business in St. Pete, she decided to strike out on her own. She left the less-than-stellar job she was working and started pursuing freelance writing projects.
She got her start on Upwork, a popular freelance site, and found herself working for pennies on the dollar. She would spend hours transcribing podcasts and other audio files, only to get paid next to nothing. Heck, her first client took the work and dipped, not paying her at all!
I could write a book about the things I admire about Hanna, and at the center of it all would be her sticktoitiveness. She is a persistent person who will fight for what she knows is right. As my dad would say, “She’s not stubborn; she’s determined.”
Long story short, she worked her tail off, and her career as a freelancer started to blossom. Toward the end of my time in grad school, I started helping out part-time. When I graduated, we both took on the freelance world with the reckless abandon that only young, spirited, and a little bit naive people can.
An early brand shoot we did for Boundless Copy.
Now, we operate a full-scale business. We have retainers with clients, have worked with massive corporations and small businesses, and have grown Hanna’s dream into a company that supports both of us. Are we rich? Absolutely not. But we work for ourselves, and that’s worth a lot more to us than a few extra bucks.
Because our work is all digital–copywriting is our bread and butter–we can work from just about anywhere with an internet connection. It’s truly a blessing, and we don’t want to take it for granted. That’s another reason we’re hitting the road–to enjoy this beautiful world the best we can while we’re able to work remotely.
We’ve tried to settle down - restless souls and a historic housing market
For a long time, Hanna and I have fought against our nature. We’ve tried to split the difference, spending time in one location for six or eight months, then traveling for the rest of the year. We’ve also attempted to purchase a house (a few times). Neither of those routes has worked out well for us, and we’re starting to take it as a sign.
Since I graduated from grad school in 2019, we have mostly followed the formula of renting an apartment somewhere we like, calling that home base, and doing one or two substantial (month+) trips a year. The downside of this approach is obvious–it’s expensive, and there is nothing to show for your rental payment when it’s all said and done. Half the time, we were paying for somewhere to live, and we weren’t even there.
We have also flirted with home ownership. In fact, we’ve tried to purchase a home a handful of times in the last few years. It started with a tiny house, which we actually bought. Due to some issues with the property, it became a money pit and a massive headache, so we cut our losses and sold it. We then made offers on two other, more traditional homes. Neither worked out.
We never stopped searching, but with these downfalls and rising prices and interest rates, we have felt deterred from continuing to seriously consider home ownership–at least for the time being. Throw in the fact that buying a home is expensive–no matter how you slice it–and we knew we’d have to put off future travels for quite a while. No thanks!
You only get one shot - doing life our way
In the midst of yet another stressful conversation as we attempted to buy a home, Hanna and I had a good old-fashioned come-to-Jesus moment. We paused, looked at each other, and came to the conclusion, “Hey, we’ve always done things our way, and it has worked out just fine. We don’t have to buy a home or settle down just because it’s ‘what people do.’ We can live life the way that makes sense to us.”
There was a sense of peace that followed that realization. Traditional wisdom says that there’s a logical order to life. You proceed through the steps sequentially, and each phase corresponds with your age or where in life’s progression you currently are. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and we didn’t need to abandon our unique approach to living that has, by all accounts, worked out pretty well for us.
This conversation was tied to something else I had expressed to Hanna just days earlier. There is a constant battle within me that tries to balance making the most of every moment we have together with the urge to provide for her financially. I tried to summarize this with the following question:
“Is it better to leave you with a heart full of memories or a bank full of money?”
More memories like this, please.
As a kid, I was very sick. I struggled for years with an illness, ended up undergoing two massive surgeries, and am truly blessed to be here today. While I am (by my standards) entirely healthy now, there is always a nagging voice in the back of my head that reminds me tomorrow is never promised and questions what my life expectancy really is.
I don’t want to spend my days squirreling away money in hopes that we find stability and can one day travel with complete financial freedom. I want to make the most of our one shot to experience life together, and I want that time shared to be as beautiful and raw and memorable as humanly possible.
I want to live while I’m alive, and travel is an essential part of that shared experience for Hanna and myself.
Hitting the road - we’re going, and you’re coming with us
I know this blog has been a bit meandering and long-winded. If you’ve stuck it out this far, thank you so much!
In the coming weeks, I’ll dive into the logistics of how we plan to travel, some of the deeper motivations that inspire us, and our process of selecting the (hopefully) perfect camper for us. We’ll share stories from the road, post pictures and videos on social media, and do our very best to take you on our adventure with us.
Thank you for being part of this journey!
But this isn’t just about us–it’s about you. Already, the outpouring of support, excitement, and knowledge has been incredible. We’ve learned an unbelievable amount from experienced full-timers on YouTube, through Instagram, and in real-life conversations. With every comment, howdy, or little wave in a campground, our community grows, and we love that.
So, don’t be shy. Drop a line below, shoot us a message, and join us on our journey. We couldn’t be happier to have you.
- Riley + Hanna