Getting started with longer duration adventures and how you work from the road...

[Aaron Lee]

So my wife and I have a crazy idea. We want to sell our home and downsize much of what we have. With no mortgage debt, this will allow us to move to an area, live there for a few months, explore all the area has to offer, and then relocate to another area. The other option would be to live nearly full-time (3-6 months at a shot) on the road.

As I see it there are a few hurdles that we need to cover right off. First we have to get the house sold and get rid of the ancillary debt we hold. Second, we need to decide if we want to just move to an area and rent a house for a period of time or if we want to live out of our vehicle for a period of time. Third, we have to figure out how to finance the whole mess.

The first two questions are still up in the air but will be somewhat dependent on the last question.

I work in IT and have worked from "home" for about 12 years now. I've frequently worked from other locations using my cell phone as a hotspot so working remote is a relatively easy thing for me.

The one gotcha I have is with relation to "state residence" and taxes. For those that that have done a stint of working from the road, how do you deal with employers needing to know your "residence" for state income tax purposes? Do you simply keep a PO box or small property in a state and claim that state as "home"? What if you have no real home base?

Thanks!
Aaron

 

[USStrongman]

We are working towards that also. We will use our sons address as "home" which is where we live currently, in Texas. Avoids state taxes that way. I too work from home and have for about 9 years as a contract employee. We are not 100% certain how we are going to do it but are thinking we will rent short term housing and drive to each new destination... until we go overseas. Thailand, Korea, Japan are the most priority followed by Peru and Argentina. South America I will want to drive it and have read several books about peoples travel from NA to SA. For Asia, we will more than likely buy a vehicle there and sell when we leave. Travel by road is way more exciting, especially when you have time.

 

[Aaron Lee]

We are working towards that also. We will use our sons address as "home" which is where we live currently, in Texas. Avoids state taxes that way. I too work from home and have for about 9 years as a contract employee. We are not 100% certain how we are going to do it but are thinking we will rent short term housing and drive to each new destination... until we go overseas. Thailand, Korea, Japan are the most priority followed by Peru and Argentina. South America I will want to drive it and have read several books about peoples travel from NA to SA. For Asia, we will more than likely buy a vehicle there and sell when we leave. Travel by road is way more exciting, especially when you have time.

Thanks for the response!

Using a relatives address sounds like a reasonable solution to the residence question if we don’t end up keeping a small home base somewhere. I guess I’d just have to research each state we want to visit to see how long I could be there before having to declare residency.

My wife and I visited Peru for some mountain climbing in the Andes about 10 years ago. What a fantastic place! I would love to go back but I really need to learn more Spanish beforehand. :)

I’d also love to go to Japan. I’ve been to India twice and would love to go back and explore northern India and Tibet.

 

[oneleglance]

look at the RV forums, from rvnet to cheaperrvliving there are lots of full time people who use North Dakota or Texas as "residency" states for taxes.
Since you already work from home then it is just a question of an unlimited data plan for times you don't want to use free wifi.
I recommend a Weboost cell booster and rig top antenna, it really does help as I have done work on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and in pretty remote areas of New Mexico.
Assuming you want to be "overland style" vehicle based vs a class A RV

My recommendation is to test run it before you sell the house....save up and budget for a month somewhere and do either an AirBnB or extended stay furnished place. Your cost will be higher than your future life but you will get a feel for what it is like.

Depending on your hometown you might even prefer to rent your house (use a property management company, the cut they take is worth you not having to worry about anything) vs selling. As you test things you could do a 6 month to 1yr agreement to make sure you like being a digital nomad.

 

[Aaron Lee]

Those are all great ideas. I think the plan to sell the house will continue regardless but that's just to give us freedom. I will definitely check out those sites. We do own a toy hauler and a large truck so an extended RV trip is totally doable and easy to back out of if we don't like it. I've done a lot of reading on the Weboost systems and have a friend who has one. I've also wired our toyhauler with internal and external wifi adapters but a cell booster would augment that nicely when there isn't any wifi to "borrow".

I'll check but I suspect there's an advantage somehow for using TX and ND for residency. I'll have to read up on that now.

Thanks again for the feedback and ideas!

 

[Dilldog]

Respect to you for having the fearlessness to pursue this lifestyle. I don't think I could, I enjoy the security of a home and solid job too much. Good luck with the adventure!

 

[Aaron Lee]

Thanks for the encouragement! Nothing has changed yet. :) Unfortunately, my current job won't "let" me move to another location which is why we would want to rent something small locally. For the short term, if we maintain a local presence, my current employer won't really know or care if I'm working from the road.

My wife and I visited Alaska for our 25th anniversary a few years ago and enjoyed it greatly. We really want to go back and explore more but to do it right, we feel we need to live there for a while. My dad and grandpa were welders and worked together in Seward repairing one of the docks immediately after the big quake. We got to go see that dock while we were there. It was so cool to see that piece of our family history and to imagine them welding pilings during aftershocks.

I also have a bucket list item to go see the arctic ocean like @Lifestyle Overland did and so amazingly showed in their video series. Kevin's cinematography is better than many motion pictures I've seen!

We love hiking and being outdoors but our current situation (house, debt, commitments, stuff) limits our ability to go at a moments notice. As such, we don't get out like we want to. We're both not getting any younger and want to be able to see as much as we can while we can.

 

[Wilbah]

Very cool. Best wishes implementing this. It's already been said but having "residency" in a no income tax state would be key. Good luck!

 

[wvjeeper]

Thanks for the encouragement! Nothing has changed yet. :) Unfortunately, my current job won't "let" me move to another location which is why we would want to rent something small locally. For the short term, if we maintain a local presence, my current employer won't really know or care if I'm working from the road.

My wife and I visited Alaska for our 25th anniversary a few years ago and enjoyed it greatly. We really want to go back and explore more but to do it right, we feel we need to live there for a while. My dad and grandpa were welders and worked together in Seward repairing one of the docks immediately after the big quake. We got to go see that dock while we were there. It was so cool to see that piece of our family history and to imagine them welding pilings during aftershocks.

I also have a bucket list item to go see the arctic ocean like @Lifestyle Overland did and so amazingly showed in their video series. Kevin's cinematography is better than many motion pictures I've seen!

We love hiking and being outdoors but our current situation (house, debt, commitments, stuff) limits our ability to go at a moments notice. As such, we don't get out like we want to. We're both not getting any younger and want to be able to see as much as we can while we can.

The Arctic is on my list as well. Hell, there's a lot on my list. I just wish I had the ability to pack it all up and go.

 

[Prerunner1982]

The one gotcha I have is with relation to "state residence" and taxes. ?

Not just taxes.... vehicle tags/title/insurance...conceal carry permit...etc.

 

[MMc]

Check in with Home on the highway on facebook. They have been on the road for quite awhile. They travel 6 months and post up 6 months, they have done the Pan American, and live on the road.

 

[LtShorty]

look at the RV forums, from rvnet to cheaperrvliving there are lots of full time people who use North Dakota or Texas as "residency" states for taxes.
Since you already work from home then it is just a question of an unlimited data plan for times you don't want to use free wifi.
I recommend a Weboost cell booster and rig top antenna, it really does help as I have done work on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and in pretty remote areas of New Mexico.
Assuming you want to be "overland style" vehicle based vs a class A RV

My recommendation is to test run it before you sell the house....save up and budget for a month somewhere and do either an AirBnB or extended stay furnished place. Your cost will be higher than your future life but you will get a feel for what it is like.

Depending on your hometown you might even prefer to rent your house (use a property management company, the cut they take is worth you not having to worry about anything) vs selling. As you test things you could do a 6 month to 1yr agreement to make sure you like being a digital nomad.

We have friends that are full time RV’ers. They just made Florida their home state. They said it was best for them because of tax reasons. They said South Dakota and Texas were similar. There are services out there that gather your mail and foreword to your location. Our friends said they will even open the mail, scan it and email it.

 

[Aaron Lee]

Thanks for all the feed back on this! We definitely have some decisions to make. We will be looking into this in detail after the new year as we start to look at taxes.

Thanks all!

Merry Christmas!

 

[MMc]

You want the auto plates to match the Dls lience

 

[Hourless Life]

Hi Aaron,

We're Eric, Brittany, and Caspian Highland. We've been fulltime travelers for quite some time. We'll be starting 7th year without home or property in 2020. And we're doing it with a toddler in tow now. Your OP sounds like exactly where we were when we first started this crazy life.

We sold everything in 2014. Bought an RV and a Jeep and have been on the road ever since. At one point we sold our first RV and lived out of the Jeep in Mexico for a bit. We actually planned to live out of the Jeep for all of 2019. But dear friends of ours were selling their RV which was the exact make and model we were looking at for what we call "Basecamp." So we purchased it in March of 2019 and have been traveling with Basecamp and Guardian (our overlanding Jeep) ever since.

There are many things to consider and I'm happy to be a resource for you. Because we travel fulltime, I'm not on the forums as much as I'd like to be. But you can always email me at jeepsiesblog@gmail.com with any questions if I don't get back to you here, though I'll try.

As far as domicle, you'll want to consider Texas, Florida, and South Dakota which seem to be the best for fulltime travelers. As far as mail goes, there are several forwarding services you can look into. We personally chose a UPS store with a box. It is a more expensive option, but they go through everything for us and ship what we want and need to any address we send them. We also run several businesses so we use it for business and write it off.

As far as Internet, make sure you have redundancy. We carry ATT and Verizon for our work while on the road. The beauty of the lifestyle is that you can work from anywhere with an Internet signal. We've actually suffered through work with our laptops on our laps on the beach in Cancun. It's rough but someone has to do it right?

This lifestyle is doable and more importantly you can thrive doing it. It isn't for everyone. We see a lot of fulltimers, do it for a little bit and then decide it isn't for them. But we also see a lot of folks whose eyes open up to the wonder of the life.

Let me know if you have any questions. We're happy to help. We maintain two blogs that have a lot of information. Our RV blog is RVWanderlust.com and our Overlanding/Jeep Blog is Jeepsies.com

Hope that is helpful to you and Merry Christmas! Hope to see you out on the road. ~ Eric, Brittany, and Caspian

 

[Aaron Lee]

MMc,

Thanks for that reminder. I was vaguely aware of the need to keep the DL and plates in the same state but some states are really hawkish about that. I know in Oregon, they want to have the DL and vehicle registration to also have the same address. It comes in to play when it comes to emissions testing. Some areas (where I live for example) are outside the boundary for required emissions testing. It was a common practice 20+ years ago to register your older vehicles with friends or relatives in a non-emissions testing area if you lived in one. Now that's very hard to do.

Jeepsies,

Wow, thanks for all the information and the offer to bounce questions off you. I will likely take you up on that. I'll check out your blogs in the meantime. We have a bit of work to get knocked out before we can take the first real step. We're excited about the possibilities and can't wait to see where the next chapter in our lives leads us. We love to travel and we love to hike so this may give us much greater opportunites for both. We also both volunteer a bunch for local organizations (SAR, CERT, Fire Dept, ham radio club, etc.) so that's something we'll have to give up but perhaps it will open us up to volunteering where it's needed most (after a natural disaster perhaps).

Cheers all!

 

[Hourless Life]

MMc,

Thanks for that reminder. I was vaguely aware of the need to keep the DL and plates in the same state but some states are really hawkish about that. I know in Oregon, they want to have the DL and vehicle registration to also have the same address. It comes in to play when it comes to emissions testing. Some areas (where I live for example) are outside the boundary for required emissions testing. It was a common practice 20+ years ago to register your older vehicles with friends or relatives in a non-emissions testing area if you lived in one. Now that's very hard to do.

Jeepsies,

Wow, thanks for all the information and the offer to bounce questions off you. I will likely take you up on that. I'll check out your blogs in the meantime. We have a bit of work to get knocked out before we can take the first real step. We're excited about the possibilities and can't wait to see where the next chapter in our lives leads us. We love to travel and we love to hike so this may give us much greater opportunites for both. We also both volunteer a bunch for local organizations (SAR, CERT, Fire Dept, ham radio club, etc.) so that's something we'll have to give up but perhaps it will open us up to volunteering where it's needed most (after a natural disaster perhaps).

Cheers all!

Man, you already hit the nail on the head. The two hardest things we personally had to give up for this lifestyle are our "home church" which we still visit a few times a year when we pass through Texas for all of our doctors and dentist visits, vehicle registration etc, and volunteering. There are opportunities to volunteer out on the road, but it is the community aspect that we miss the most. Like any decision, there are always sacrifices. The question is whether the sacrifice is greater or less than the reward. Some good stuff to have a real discussion with your family about before you enter this lifestyle. All my best, ~ Eric

 

[Aaron Lee]

Thanks Eric,

I know we've not really even thought about our "home church". For us, this is a little more literal as we've hosted a small group study in our home most weeks for nearly 10 years. That's definitely something we'll have to put some serious though into. Appreciate the feedback and Merry Christmas!

~Aaron