Some may (and have) call it a gypsy lifestyle, a wanderlust soul or even afraid of commitment. I like to say I love a life of small & large adventures. The travel bug bit right after graduating college. I chose to spend six months in Australia living, working and affording travel up the Gold Coast before I dove into the “real world” with a full on career. I don’t think I knew it at the time, but even then I had a great appreciation for time freedom. I discovered that I would much rather have a passport full of stamps & an album of memories than “stuff” to fill my space with.Since then, I have traveled the country for about 10 years, roughly 10 months out of the year managing live events, nationwide. This means I am 100% mobile, all of the time. With the exception of about two months out of the year, this is considered my “off” season. Crazy to envision, I know – but, my norm is actually being somewhere no longer than two weeks at a time!
A lot has happened during this time…
found an industry that I fell in love with, met friends who became so incredibly close to my heart, have been present for more family memories than I could have ever made possible stationary, met my Luv, who we now co – manage together, lived (loose term) from one side of country to the other, learned to manage Crohn’s Disease without a stationary home base (no way in hell I was going to let that stop me), visited 49 states – many more than once, downsized from a 1,200 square ft. apartment to a 320 square foot Motorcoach, invested in a virtual business (because, well, we already do everything else mobile, so why not?!) and to think, those are just the highlights!
So, why did we decide to swap a brand new apartment for a bus?
Well, logically, it just made sense, when we weren’t on the road for work, we were traveling for pleasure! Yes, a bus is our version of a tiny home, all 320 square feet of it. We’d get home from a project, unpack only to pack again and head off on another adventure or to catch up with family & friends. Then one day, being the genius thinker that Eric (the BF) can be, he mentioned to me, “What do you think about living in a bus when we are NOT on the road for work?!” I looked at him, cocked my head to one side and attempted to gauge his seriousness level (I can be gullible, sometimes), yep, totally serious. I regained my breathe and managed to stammer out something along the lines of, “WHAT?! A bus, you have to be kidding me!” Well, low and behold, it turns out that this was no ordinary school bus that Eric had in mind – we’ll get back to that. 😉 We went about our lives; traveling the country all while Eric started the research process. He discovered many, many things about RVing full time, exactly what that would mean and started to explore the cost of being 100% mobile versus paying rent + utilities 12 months out of the year. During that time, we slowly started to wrap our minds around what it would mean for us to transition from a 1,200 square ft. apartment to a 320 square ft. bus. I, being an extremely visual person like so many ladies are, would often find myself in small galley kitchens on the road saying “OK, so, this is what it would be like, do you think we can handle it?” Visualization is KEY!
About a year after actually verbalizing the idea, we found ourselves exactly on the route to pass up a bus Eric kept coming back to in his research. We were enroute to Miami for a cruise, so we stopped before setting sail. The seller was extremely generous and allowed us to spend as long as we wanted getting to know the 40,000 pound beauty. And get to know her, we did – five hours and 150 pictures later, Eric and I had to continue on our way, but not without a wealth of information. A few more months had passed and this so called crazy idea was getting closer & closer to becoming a reality every day. The new phrase that was often tossed around was, “This is either going to be the BEST thing we have EVER done or the absolute WORST” really, there is no true in-between when you make a big move like this. We were very careful not to share the news with many people until we were 100% sure. Not in the effort to be secretive, but more so because we knew everyone would have their opinion and this was a life choice as a couple, we wanted to make without any influence before the purchase. Some may say that is just crazy, but that is what worked for us. Most friends & family understood this after the fact and were extremely supportive!
There was a bit more that needed to be done in the form of research & things that had to check out with the bus and of course thinking about how to downsize, where the bus would be kept when not in use and so on. You know, the nuts & bolts of actually how to pull this off, not to mention, when to make the purchase & pick it up, because remember, we already travel 10 months out of the year.
This brings us to the very BEST part….
It just so happened (again, ha, ha, funny how things work out) we were scheduled to be IN the same small city right outside of Orlando for an event scheduled a couple of months into the Spring. Ok, ok, we don’t walk around with a Magic 8 Ball (90’s child, whoop, whoop!) but we were not oblivious to the fact that the stars were aligning, perfectly for such a HUGE decision. The Tylar / Baus Team (yes, our friends may have given us this title ;-)) had made the decision that THIS was the bus for them, but, we still had to work out when & where in our schedule to make it happen. Work put us there. With that said, there was a small time frame to meet with the seller & write the largest check Eric had ever written in his life. Deep breathe. He woke up that morning with lots on his mind & chest, needless to say. We had every single emotion you can think of – excitement, amazing energy and a of course, a little nervousness. We went about our morning routines, half giddy, half who knows what! This is where it is important to mention that as freelancers, we choose what projects fit our skills & qualifications best. Before choosing the current project that just so happened to put us in that small town outside of Orlando, Florida, we turned down a different project. Eric, being the one with the heavy checkbook that morning had some silent conversations with the man upstairs and asked for ONE more sign that he was doing the right thing. We walked outside of our hotel to get in our vehicle to head over to the Coach Distributor and also in the SAME parking lot was the other vehicle we would have been driving if we accepted the first project. Fifty states, hundreds of thousands of cities, many, many hotels in the Orlando area and there it was. Talk about answered prayers. Not just a “sign”, but a brightly-colored, fully-wrapped Tour Vehicle sitting there delivering the answer from upstairs “I was going to put you here to do this no matter what. This is your bus, now go get it.” Could NOT believe our eyes. Our hearts fluttered, stomach churned with excitement and off we went to become 100% mobile.
The Day We Became Coach Owners!
The day we purchased our Coach we weren’t exactly able to take her (yes, our bus is a lady!) out right away. We had to wait patiently to hit the road with her as we had four more months on a work project to finish up. Remember, I mentioned that work put us in the place we needed to be at that time. When we wrapped that contract, we had exactly six weeks to pick up our new home, show her off to my parent’s (not after spending the initial night on the beach, though) on our way back up north, downsize & move out of our apartment, all while working out indoor storage when not in it. Whirlwind to say the least – but, such an incredible experience! I’ll post more about the process of downsizing in a future post. 😉
Pulling out from our Apartment for the FIRST TIME – 100% Mobile Lifestyle!!
With that said, welcome to the adventures of the Tylar / Baus Team. We made a vow that if this 100% mobile lifestyle ever became “too much” or we weren’t making more memories than ever, we would rethink our plan. So far, it has been the best decision we have ever made! Please feel free to ride along with us virtually, until one day, our paths cross and we can say hello in person! Questions, feel free to comment below!!
Fully “Hooked Up” for Night #1!
Flagler Beach, FL – First Night Spent in Motorcoach
Much Love,
XOXO
~ Renee