Nathan and Marissa Moss were living the American dream in Cookeville, Tennessee — or so they thought. Four-bedroom home? Check. Steady paychecks? Check. Two young kids? Check.
But one morning, before Marissa left for a 13-hour shift, she realized that she would miss her young daughter waking up — and would return home after she went to sleep.
“I remember leaving in tears,” Marissa recalled. “That’s when we decided that if we let go of all that overhead and just simply live below our means, how much more freedom and time that would open up.”
That’s when the couple made a drastic decision to ditch the life they had built in exchange for something they believed offered more freedom: RV living.
Nathan and Marissa are not alone. Today, around a million Americans live in RVs full time. From 2005 to today, RV ownership has jumped from 7.9 million to 9 million Americans in 2019, according to a recent report.
In the age of high-speed WiFi, many single millennials have been opting-out of the traditional workforce over the past decade, choosing the digital nomad life over the traditional 9-5. Typically, this lifestyle has only been accessible to single nomads. But recently, entire families are picking up and changing course.
When the global pandemic hit in 2020 — ushering in a new age of economic uncertainty — RV living became even more appealing to many people. And the shift to digital technology over traditional offices, plus self-isolation, made the transition easier for those looking to take the leap.
“We were living this American dream and then realized that it wasn’t our dream. It was a beautiful dream, but it wasn’t ours.”
Nathan Moss
How to make the transition
One of the biggest challenges in the transition to RV living? Downsizing. We have a consumer culture, and many families may find that they have a lot of stuff. For many families, this means they must part ways with a lot of their belongings.
“We look like we’re whimsical and we just fly by the seat of our pants and don’t have any plans,” she said, but nothing could be further from the truth. It took them a whole year to downsize.
There are other important factors to consider, too. The biggest one being finances.
Before hitting the road, Nathan and Marissa were forced to rethink their expenses. When you live in a physical home, many of these normal household expenses are fixed. On your house, “your mortgage is fixed. Your insurance is fixed. The upkeep, for the most part, is fixed,” said Marissa.
That can be a plus, but it also means there’s a lot of overhead with a house — and not much flexibility.
RV living, on the other hand, minimizes overhead, which can result in significant savings.
Not only is there no mortgage, but impulse purchases are no longer an option — simply because there’s nowhere to put anything that’s not essential.
Social media
Nathan and Marissa decided to follow the steps of many others, and share their experience online, capitalizing on the broad interest in RV living. The lifestyle has spawned a massive online community on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, where people can share photos, videos, and advice for fellow #vanlife nomads. For an alternative lifestyle, RVers have garnered a massive following — in 2020, there were more than 7 million posts on Instagram tagged #vanlife.
Nathan and Marissa have embraced that lifestyle. “Let’s film what we’re doing with our life on the road,” Nathan said. It started with catching fish in Alaska, which was where Marissa first learned that she was pregnant.
It’s been about merging work and play, and providing a way to share what they’ve learned from their experiences, the couple said.
“When we go on a hike, it might be a hike we have to film,” said Nathan. “And so we’re filming the hike with the kids, trying to show the value to our audience of how this high can be good for a family to hike with kids.”
Through these social media videos, the couple are providing a road map for other families who want to escape the rat race, too.
“Home is where you park it”
After seven years of being on the road, Nathan and Marissa are now full-time “adventuring” with their kids. When work is harder to come by, they are able to adjust their expenses.
In the end, they define success as “just being able to play with my kids. Like if I get too busy to play with my kids and spend time with my kids, I’m just too busy,” says Nathan.
It also has made them reconsider the real meaning of “home.”
“When you RV, you say home is where you park it,” said Marissa, “which is such a unique perspective. We can pull our home up and be on the beach for the week or be in the mountains for the weekend. Home is wherever we are — wherever our family is.”
Nathan and Marissa aren’t sure how long this RV living dream will last for them. But it has forced them to become much more aware of what they truly want and need — and what they can live without. “We ask: Does this add “journey” to my life? Does this give me more adventure? Does this allow me to play with my kids more?”
There is no single way to do this, Marissa said.
“We want to make an impact on the world. And if you can combine making an impact with making an income, that was our American dream.”
Marissa Moss