Let me start by saying Hello! We are Richard and Whitney Marshall and thank you for visiting our blog. We currently live in Dallas, Texas with our french bulldog, Rosie, and we recently tied the knot! Like most newlyweds, the question “where are we going to live?” was one of the first of many decisions we had to make about our new lives together.
This question seemed to have an easy answer. Get married, buy a house, then have some children. That’s the normal order of things, right? That’s what I’ve always been told, so in the months leading up to our wedding we started house hunting. What we found wasn’t a house but another bigger question, what did we really want our lives to look like?
So we and sat down and put aside what we thought our lives should look like and instead focused on what we wanted them to look like. We noticed we kept coming back to wanting more quality time together and wanting the flexibility and freedom to travel more. A house, or anchor, or money pit (just a few of the names that we refer to it as) would not bring us that. Instead, I quit my job soon after we were married and we started looking for a van to move into and travel the United States in. We have always been very interested in the tiny living movement and with the recent explosion of van life we thought this would be a good fit.
Then reality set in. I applaud anyone who has figured out how to work and also travel 365 days out of the year and I hope we reach that one day. But, as of right now, we realized that it will have to be a balance of travel and Dallas for us. Richard owns his own company and while it gives us a lot of freedom, he does need to be present in order to keep it growing.
This meant we would travel part-time and stay put where we were the rest of the time. Luckily, we are in a small duplex so the transition back and forth to something smaller will ideally be less of a challenge. This also meant that sprinter van life was out of the question. Have y’all seen the price tags on those? If this was not going to be our full-time home we could not spend that much. Enter travel trailers. Y’all these things are so cool and affordable! We started our search by going to an RV show and holy cow you wouldn’t believe how pimped out some of these things are! How someone could pull some of these suckers behind a truck I don’t even know. After trying out every single size and pretending to eat breakfast at every single table we came across the Riverside Retro collection and we were in LOVE. They have all of the retro charm that we love in a vintage camper, but with all the new amenities. This meant only having to do a few cosmetic updates. We found a dealer and that was that. We knew with a little paint and TLC this camper would be our perfect adventure mobile, and we named her Red.
Again, let me end this with a big thank you for visiting! Please subscribe to our blog so we can take you through the remodel of Red and then off on our adventure with us starting July 7, 2018! We will be bringing you remodel ideas as well as travel and camping tips! Oh and of course adorable pictures of Rosie for all you dog lovers!
Such a cute little camper! I love those Retro’s! I follow along in your IG (I’m @designdelights) and love her new interior paint job, especially how you added a touch of red. Traveling part time is just as much fun. We do that to, but live in our 30′ travel trailer full time. Our schedule seems to be 2.5 months of travel, then come home for 4 months, save money, see our people and then go out again. We still love it so far since we’ve only been doing this for one and a half years. We still have so much to see. Happy Travels!
Hey Melissa! We would love to eventually do exactly what you are doing! When you are not traveling do you stay put in an RV park? Our biggest challenge living in our camper, when we aren’t traveling, is that we don’t know where we can actually live in it while still being in Dallas..
Hi Richard and Whitney,
It’s been a little work to find places to park since it is limited around the Seattle area as well. To save money we didn’t want to pay for an parking space at home while we were traveling, but then it’s been difficult to find a place again when we get back because the RV parks around here fill up fast. When we are staying put at home we have stayed at a variety of places. A mobile home park that has RV spots, the driveway at my deceased grandparents house until just recently, because the house sold and now we are staying in a backyard that has RV hookups that we happened to find on Craigslist. We love it because it has a fenced yard for our dogs and is quiet and peaceful. I just kept looking and looking daily until I found it. It would be nice to have our own permanent spot to come back to, but we aren’t sure what we want to do yet.
Hi guys,
Cannot wait to start reading your post. You will be living out my dream and those of several other people. Remember when you head east come through Winnfield and visit. Uncle Bo has put up more party lights on the deck and we will boil up some crawfish and shrimp. Please be safe and careful. ❤️ Chris & Bo
We have had people ask about the quality of Red since we got her and we couldn’t be happier! The inside is built out by the local Amish in Indiana and each trailer goes through extensive testing for leaks. So far we haven’t had a single problem and the overall weight is pretty light!