Just In Case You're Wandering - A Full-Time RVing Podcast
How Did You Start RVing Full-Time?
Recorded at Rodea Point, Oregon Coast
Brad and Becky podcast about full-time RV living while working from the road.
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Why do people make the decision to live full-time in an RV?
Many people choose to live full-time in an RV for the freedom and flexibility it offers. For some, it’s about escaping high housing costs or breaking free from routines that no longer feel fulfilling. Others are drawn to the adventure of travel, the simplicity of downsizing, or the chance to work remotely while exploring new places. It’s often a mix of financial, personal, and lifestyle motivations.
Episode 1: How Did You Get Started RVing (And Would You Do Anything Differently?)
Recorded at Rodea Point, Oregon Coast
In this first episode of Just in Case You’re Wandering, Brad and Becky kick things off with an unscripted conversation from the front seat of their car, parked along the scenic Oregon Coast. They reflect on the journey that led them into full-time RV life back in 2019 and how what started as a necessity quickly became a lifestyle they love.
From the chaos of downsizing in under a month to early rookie mistakes (like tire blowouts and soda explosions), this episode dives into the real, unpolished truth of what it looks like to live, work, and travel full-time from a fifth-wheel RV. Brad shares how his dream of a schoolie evolved, and Becky opens up about her doubts, craft-space sacrifices, and the surprising freedom that came with the shift. Together, they offer laughs, lessons, and insights into everything from choosing the right rig to managing telehealth and teaching jobs on the road.
Whether you’re dreaming about RV life, already living it, or just curious, this episode gives you an honest, funny, and sometimes chaotic look at what it really means to make the leap.
- Photos from Rodea Point and links mentioned in this episode are available below.
- Listen in, and if you have questions or want to share your own story, get in touch at brad@jicyw.com or becky@jicyw.com.
- Do you have a question or comment about this episode? Join the community discussion here!
This transcript has been generated automatically and may contain errors and edits for clarity and brevity.
Hanging Out at Rodea PointBrad
Hey there everybody. My name is Brad.
Becky
And I’m Becky.
Brad
And we are hanging out here today at a place called Rodea Point. It’s on the Oregon coast. It’s just a little north of Newport, a little bit south of Lincoln City. And we’re just hanging out in our car. Oh, did I say it wrong?
Becky
The opposite of that.
Becky
Yeah. It’s north of Lincoln City, south of—no, north of—you were right. Sorry, we do this all the time.
Brad
No, I was right. That’s OK. Yes. That’s one thing about RVing—we’re never exactly sure where we are at any given point. But I know we’re at Rodea Point. So wherever that is near Newport. And it’s one of our favorite places to come and watch whales. Yeah. It’s kind of like fishing. Are you really fishing if you’re not catching fish? Are you really whale watching if you’re not watching whales?
Becky
But there aren’t any today.
Becky
We’re watching for the possibility of whales.
Brad
Yes. But it’s a beautiful day. A little bit cloudy, mostly blue sky. Nice and calm.
Brad
We are recording from our car, so you’re going to hear some background noise. You might hear the waves crashing in. You might hear this dude next to me in a truck who’s not turning his engine off for some reason.
Becky
You might hear our dogs in the back seat.
Brad
Yeah, that’s fine. Scout’s in the back seat. A couple of little terriers that we love. They explore the coast with us and make a lot of noise sometimes—especially Scout, our little girl who snores like a freight train. So if she gets really relaxed, you’re going to get to meet Scout. But you might hear them shaking a collar or growling low-key at somebody walking by. So if you do hear weird noises, we’re not in a studio or anything like that. We wanted to be out in the world where we live our life on the road.
Brad
I’m sure this is going to be one of those episodes we look back at a year or two from now and cringe listening to because we didn’t know what we were doing. But we’re going to give it a shot and see how it comes out.
Brad
What I thought we’d do is frame each of our episodes around questions—either ones we see online a lot or that people ask us directly. So I haven’t really prepared Becky for any of these questions. And honestly, I wrote them a while ago, so they’re going to feel new to both of us.
Brad
Our big question today is: how did you get started RVing and what might you do differently if you were going to start again? That’s definitely the question I get asked the most. Like, how did you guys even start doing that? So, how long have we been doing this now?
Becky
Let’s see…
Brad
2019?
Becky
Right before the pandemic.
Brad
2018… right before the pandemic hit.
Becky
So 2019.
Brad
Yeah. So we’re five, almost six years in now.
Becky
Six years.
Brad
Yeah. And for the first couple of years, we were stationary. I was going to say stable, but I’m not sure we’re ever stable. But yeah, we were stationary because we both had full-time in-person jobs, so we had to be. But about two and a half, three years ago, we hit the road and have been traveling full-time ever since.
Brad
So that’s just a little bit of background on who we are and what we’re up to. Let’s start by talking about the spark. Where did this idea first come from? What made us even consider living and working from an RV?
Becky
I think this answer is going to be really different for each of us.
Brad
It is.
Becky
For me, it was absolutely necessity. I had gotten a job offer that required us to move to the southern Oregon coast. And Brad got a job offer that also required us to move there. And if you’re familiar with that area—or anywhere along the Oregon coast—housing is a problem. We couldn’t find a house. We couldn’t even find an apartment to rent. Nothing. So we jokingly said, well, what about just an RV for a little while?
Brad
Couple of months, maybe?
Becky
Yeah, tops. And then we’ll have an RV we can travel in, you know, since we like to travel anyway. And then, well, one thing led to another. We bought the RV and actually figured out we really liked it. Which for me is shocking. I never thought I would be an RV person.
Brad
Yeah. It was not shocking that I liked it. It was shocking that you liked it.
Brad
I had been dreaming about tiny house living for a long time. I thought I’d someday build a schoolie—a school bus converted into a camper. That had always been my dream. I even went and bought a bunch of…
Becky
I was just going to tell the story of you making the foam core board schoolie model. Yes. This is what he does when he gets really, really into something. We’ve been married a long time. I’m used to it.
Brad
Yeah. So I had it all 3D built. I was going to figure it out. But there were two main problems. One, we had no money to do it. And two, we had no place to do it. We were living in an apartment and didn’t have access to a shop or anything. So it was never going to be a reality. Just a fun little pipe dream.
Brad
But when the opportunity came to move into an RV, I thought, well, it’s not a schoolie, but it’s the same kind of vibe.
Becky
That portable concept.
Brad
Yeah. So I was all about it. I was really excited to do it.
Brad
The second question here, we’ve already kind of talked about. Was this lifestyle a dream, a necessity, or something in between?
Becky
It started out as a necessity because we had to have a place to live since we had jobs.
Brad
So again, I’d answer differently. It started out as a dream. And because it was a necessity, Becky got on board. So I guess it was something in between, right?
Becky
I guess if you put them both together. I should preface that by saying I actually really do enjoy traveling. I always have. I used to have jobs that required me to travel more. I really liked that. So it wasn’t that. But I’m also sort of an artsy, craftsy kind of person, and those take space. So the idea of giving up my craft space or dedicated hobby space was tough. Painful, actually. But ultimately, it ended up all right.
Brad
Yeah.
Becky
So anyway, more about that later.
Brad
Yes, for sure. We’ll get into that. I don’t know if it’ll be this episode, but there are a lot of sacrifices that come with this life. But it also comes with a lot of benefits.
Becky
Our friend in the truck is leaving.
Brad
So maybe it’ll be a little bit quieter now. Good manners 101—when you’re sitting at a beautiful overlook enjoying nature, don’t run your truck full time.
Becky
Turn off your car. We want to hear the waves and the seagulls and all the sounds.
Brad
One other question here about kind of the spark that got us into it is the working thing. A big thing we’re going to talk about on this podcast is working from the road.
Brad
A lot of people out here are retired. They don’t have to worry about Wi-Fi. They can move any day of the week and go anywhere. That wasn’t us, right?
Becky
Yeah. We don’t work-camp or anything like that. I mean, there are lots of people who do that. They go from job to job or work for the state parks and things. That’s not what we do at all.
Brad
So did we already have remote jobs and then decide to live in an RV, or were we trying to figure that out?
Becky
It sort of happened… I mean, it happened for you first. The pandemic helped, which sounds weird to say, but it did. As a lot of people figured out, the pandemic made people realize, oh wait, I don’t have to go to an office to do my job. I can do it from home.
Becky
So that’s kind of where things changed for us. I’ll tell my half and then you can tell yours, because yours is a little different than mine.
Brad
Yeah. It wasn’t really the pandemic that got us into the RV, right? The pandemic hit maybe a year into… I want to say stable again. What’s the word?
Becky
A year or so after. Yeah.
Brad
About a year into stationary living, and we were really thinking, here we are sitting on wheels—why are we not moving around the world? We were looking for the opportunity. We were ready to go remote. But it seemed… remote. It seemed like it was years down the road before we could make that work. And then the pandemic hit. And one of the very few good things about it was that it opened up a lot of work-from-home opportunities.
Becky
Yeah. Remote work.
Brad
So I’m a high school teacher. I was able to move out of my brick-and-mortar classroom into an online school, and that’s still what I do. And I love it.
Becky
Yeah. I worked for a hospital when the pandemic hit. My part of the office went remote because I was supporting medical staff. I’m not a doctor or anything, but I was in that department. So I was able to work from home. That allowed me to go back and finish my graduate degree, and do what I really wanted to do—which was be a mental health counselor. So I took the opportunity to finish grad school, and when things started to open up, I started working in the mental health field.
Becky
Now I work for a company that allows me to do all my services via telehealth. I don’t have to be in an office. I just have to have a dedicated quiet space, which we can talk about later—how we make that work in an RV. But it works.
Brad
That is a big question we get—how in the world do two people work in separate areas in an RV? Because she’s doing things that have to be private, right? I can’t just sit there and listen while she’s doing a therapy session. So how do you separate two working arrangements?
Becky
Right.
Brad
In a 300-ish square foot fifth wheel. We’re not in a Class A.
Becky
I guess we should also say we have children, but they’re adults. They don’t live with us. We could not do this if we had little kids. I couldn’t do my job this way if we had young kids, for sure.
Brad
Yes. For those of you doing that—who are you? How do you do that?
Becky
You’re amazing. I can’t even imagine doing it with kids, but hats off to those of you who do.
Brad
This next question. Were you feeling stuck, stressed, or just curious about something different when you got into RVing? To set the stage a little, we were… I went back to college in my 40s. We both did, to get degrees. I became a teacher. So we were living in a three-bedroom apartment.
Becky
We were in a house then.
Brad
You’re talking about in Newport or in Corvallis?
Becky
Well, you’re talking about in Corvallis. Yeah.
Brad
Yeah, I went to University of Oregon, I mean Oregon State University! Oh my gosh. I know, maybe I need to drink something.
Becky
He doesn’t drink coffee either, folks.
Brad
So when it asks, were we feeling stuck, stressed, or just curious, I think for me it was all of the above. I definitely felt stuck renting, like we would never get out of that loop with the housing prices and everything that was happening.
Becky
Yeah. And we were living on the coast then too. So it was just not feasible to buy a home. It was crazy expensive. And we weren’t entirely sure we were going to stay where we were. We’ve always kind of wanted to explore the coast a little more. Definitely the state, and the country at some point. But we just weren’t quite sure. So I would say it was definitely a blend of all three. Stress was a big part of mine, which prompted the job move. But yeah, definitely all three. And curious, for sure.
Brad
I’ve always felt like a house—even just renting a place with a year lease—felt like an anchor. Like you were stuck in that place. I don’t know if everybody feels that way or if that’s just me.
Becky
I didn’t, but yeah. Apartments, not so much. But we’ve owned homes in the past.
Brad
Even an apartment is a bit of an anchor. You’ve got to give notice. You’ve got to find another one. You’ve got to pack up all your stuff and move. It all has to work out.
Becky
And we don’t have that anymore. Our only anchor is whether the truck is connected to the trailer and it starts.
Brad
Yeah. There’s a story there we’ll save for another day.
Becky
All is well, though. All is well.
Brad
What did we want more of when we decided to go RVing? And what were we hoping to leave behind?
Becky
Oh, I think that goes with the last question.
Brad
How so?
Becky
Because I wanted—once I realized how much I actually liked it—the freedom that it gave me was something. I love that every three weeks or so, our surroundings change. They’re familiar, because we’ve been to some of the places before, but it always feels like someplace new. I love that. And I forgot the second half of the question already.
Brad
What were you hoping to leave behind?
Becky
I wanted more flexibility, more time for just us to be together. We’re one of those weird couples that actually like spending most of our time together. I say weird because I talk to friends who are like, I couldn’t do that, I need space. And I do need space sometimes too. But I’d rather have him in my space. So it works great for us. And what was I hoping to leave behind?
Brad
If anything?
Becky
Oh, definitely things. I think… just complexity. Which sounds funny because RV life is anything but simple. But at the same time, it’s really simple.
Brad
True.
Becky
Because of its minimal aspects. We have limited space, so you can’t take everything you own with you. If you have everything you own, it’s got to fit. So it’s mindful.
Brad
And the complexity we left behind was short-term. Do you remember the upstairs neighbors we had in that apartment in Newport?
Becky
Yes.
Brad
Just the loudest neighbors ever. It was so stressful. We couldn’t get away from it. Now, we sometimes have loud neighbors, but…
Becky
Yeah. We’re like, when do they move? Look at the tag on their trailer. What day do they leave? Who leaves first?
Brad
Yeah. At the most, it’s going to be a few weeks, and then they’re gone. And if it got really bad, we would just move.
Becky
We can go. So you’re not stuck. Definitely freedom.
Brad
Yeah, for sure.
Brad
Let’s talk about actually making the decision, which we said was kind of forced on us in a way. But did it take us a long time to decide, or did we jump in fast?
Becky
Nothing takes us a long time to decide. That’s one thing you’ll learn about us. We jump in headfirst, and we never stay still for too long.
Brad
Yeah, that’s true.
Becky
I think we’ve been married for over 30 years. And where we live and the careers we have… everything. We’ve always just jumped. I think our family wouldn’t know what to do if we were actually the same every single year. About every four or five years, something changes in our life and we pull up stakes and do something different.
Brad
Yeah.
Brad
That’s why I laugh when I keep saying stable instead of stationary, because we are not. We were not.
Becky
Stable. No. I forgot what the question is though.
Brad
Did we jump in fast? We jumped in so fast.
Becky
Oh, so fast. We literally downsized and sold probably 90 percent of our stuff in… what was it, less than a month?
Brad
A month. Because we had to move, right? We had to get out of our apartment. I had to start a new job. People talk about preparing for a year to get ready to go RVing, and we literally fire-saled everything.
Becky
Yeah, we both had to be there.
Becky
We didn’t have that kind of time.
Becky
That being said though, we had been downsizing consistently ever since we moved back to Oregon.
Brad
Well, just because we were moving to smaller and smaller places.
Becky
Right. But I think even though we didn’t know that’s what was happening, we were sort of being prepared. We kept getting rid of things every time we moved. And we still had a lot to get rid of, don’t get me wrong.
Brad
Yeah, even then, it’s amazing how much stuff you have. When you have to get rid of virtually everything, like all of your furniture, it’s just… it was amazing how much we had. We got rid of stuff on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. We had a yard sale. We started giving stuff away to neighbors. I think we stocked that whole Goodwill store for a month.
On the right: What it looked like inside when we moved it all in!
Becky
Yeah. Things you don’t even think about. Goodwill started to know us by first name.
Brad
Yeah. I honestly thought Goodwill was going to cut us off. Like, that is enough stuff.
Brad
What were our biggest fears starting out?
Becky
For me, there were two fears. One of them wasn’t really a serious fear, but I thought—OK, we have a really good marriage. What if this screws things up and we find out we really don’t like being around each other as much as we think we do?
Becky
That wasn’t a super serious fear, but it was a little bit of a worry.
Brad
Sure.
Becky
The other thing was just like… am I going to lose myself in having to change my life so much?
Brad
Oh, you mean like with your art?
Becky
Like with my art and my crafts, the things I enjoy doing. Am I going to have to become this sort of minimalist hermit that never gets to do the things I love? And that hasn’t happened.
Brad
Yeah. Virtually everywhere we’ve lived, she’s had some kind of scrap room—either dedicated or something else. Scrapbooking, painting…
Becky
Arts and crafts. It’s morphed over the years, but yeah, that was hard. That was hard to give up. So that was my fear. What about you?
Brad
Mine was—and still is—breaking down.
Becky
I laugh because it’s so true.
Brad
Yeah. And I don’t just mean the truck and the RV. I mean our bodies too. There’s some physical labor involved in keeping an RV up and moving it around. So I worry about the truck breaking down, the RV getting water damage, and I worry about our bodies breaking down. How do we move this thing if we reach that point?
Becky
That’s true. I don’t think about how often you have small panic attacks when I walk down the stairs.
Brad
That’s true. We’ve both taken at least one spill down some stairs since we’ve been doing this. We survived it.
Brad
This question is kind of funny. Oh yeah, sorry, you’re getting the real-life sounds of us needing to get a little air moving through the car. It is a gorgeous day here. It doesn’t even matter that there are no whales, because it’s beautiful.
Becky
Yeah, get some more air in here. It’s gorgeous.
Becky
That’s the only drawback to a podcast. You can’t see what we’re seeing. It’s that gorgeous blue-sky kind of day when the water is like the perfect shade of aqua and teal blue. It’s just gorgeous.
Brad
I think what we should do is take some pictures from the places we record and then put them on the website. So yeah, the website, in case you’re wondering, is jicyw.com, which stands for Just In Case You’re Wandering. I’ll have a page there for each of the podcast episodes and we’ll upload some pictures of where we’re hanging out. And our dogs, so you can get to know them a little bit, stuff like that.
Brad
So check that out.
Brad
Here’s the ridiculous question. How did you prepare—financially, emotionally, logistically—for a mobile life and remote work?
Becky
As fast as we could.
Brad
Or the way I’d answer it is, we didn’t. We just jumped right in and figured it out.
Becky
Yeah, that’s how we do pretty much everything. We’re just like, OK, we’re going to do this, and there we go.
Brad
Yeah.
Becky
And then we figure it out.
Brad
Yeah, and it worked. Somehow. That’s been our life. We try it, and it works.
Becky
I think that’s why it works, because we’ve done it so many times with so many other things.
Brad
Yeah.
Becky
Everything we’ve ever done, including just getting together. We were nineteen. We were really young.
Brad
Yeah, oh absolutely. Getting married, and yes, eloping to Reno, Nevada. No, Winnemucca. We didn’t even make it to Reno. Winnemucca, Nevada.
Becky
We didn’t even have that much money.
Brad
So when she says we jump into things without thinking a lot, she’s not kidding. But they tend to work out.
Becky
Well, I think we had the skills to do it by this point in time. It was like, whatever. We’ve done this. This is not a big deal.
Brad
Yeah, decades later.
Brad
Let’s talk about the research phase. As short as it was, we did do some. We watched a lot of YouTube videos and things like that.
Becky
We did.
Becky
We still watch a lot of YouTube videos. Sometimes now it’s to make fun of the content. I don’t know if I should say that out loud.
Brad
Yeah, absolutely. This is going to be a very honest look at RVing and the RV world.
Becky
If I never hear about Command hooks and wire baskets again, I’m OK.
Brad
Yeah. Every YouTube video acts like they’re the first ones to ever discover Command hooks. Like it’s going to revolutionize your life.
Becky
Truth is, half the time they fall off the wall and don’t do what they’re commanded to do.
Brad
There’s something about RV walls that they just don’t stick to very well.
Brad
Were there myths you believed about RV life or working remotely that didn’t hold up?
Becky
Not about working remotely. I’ve had other jobs where I worked on my own. We’ve owned our own businesses over the years, so I didn’t worry about that. Other than wondering if it was going to be sustainable. Like, is it going to go away when the pandemic is over?
Brad
Right.
Becky
And I don’t want to say the pandemic is over, because I don’t know that it ever really is. People are still dealing with COVID, with long COVID. Anyway, different topic, different podcast.
Brad
Not one we’re going to do.
Becky
No. But yeah, I worried a little bit about whether remote work would continue. I still worry a little, but not as much.
Brad
What myths did you believe about RV life?
Becky
Oh, way more myths about RV life. In my head I either thought, oh my gosh, we’re going to be like the Clampetts, and people are going to think… so that’s what you do, huh? I remember when we first got the RV, I didn’t want to tell anyone we lived in it. I wasn’t going to tell anybody.
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