TravelEssary

TravelEssary: Q & A

• Jeremy and Misty Essary • Season 3 • Episode 4

Share episode

  We're the Esri family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. On this episode of Travel Esri, we are answering your most asked questions. Let's chat

welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode. As we answer your questions, the ones that are the most asked, the ones that people want to know about, I mean, this podcast is kind of what it's all about. It's about, you know, letting people know as much information as possible.

Things that you can do while you're traveling, or places you can go. That's inexpensive and so we have been asked a lot of questions and so we narrowed this list down to , a select few just so we give out as much information as possible and we answer the most asked questions.

' and before we get into our questions, we do have an exciting update for anyone who doesn't follow us on all of our social media. And that is we finally have our truck and our fifth wheel, and we could not be happier about it.

It finally happened through all the weight. If you are a Patreon, you definitely know what is going on. Um, if you want the most up to date information. Patreon is definitely the place to go to get all that. , YouTube channel will be kicking off here really strong here in the next couple of, , weeks. If you want to head onto our Patreon, it is only available for our paid tier memberships. We have three different options, but there's actually a quick little walkthrough of our fifth wheel. We did the night that we got it. So, um, if you want to go check that out, then head on over there, but if you just like to wait with everyone else, stay tuned.

I promise we will do a walkthrough on YouTube very soon. But you know, that actually brings me into the first question, and that is a lot of people have been asking, what kind of fifth wheel did you get? Oh, wow. Okay. So yes. How do we narrow this down? I mean, yes, we did get one specific one, but whenever we talk about all the other fifth wheels or everything that we've looked at, you know, we narrowed it down to, I guess, the.

I guess this could be answered in , multi-tier. And so how is it multi-tier? We got a very specific brand and model. We did. We got one that number one. Fit exactly our needs as far as living space and sleeping quarters, right? We went with a mid bunk that had a loft and that gave the kids their own spaces, and then of course that gave us a big, huge open living dining room area, and I must say I am loving it.

The second part is we went with what was affordable. We could have spent way more money than we did. Right, right. Our goal was to walk out of there with, um, paying cash for something. So we did go with the used model. We really were not interested in going with a newer model. You know, they depreciate way too fast, and we wanted something that wouldn't break our bank.

Yes. So overall we went with a Columbus. Actually the, the name is a whole lot longer than that. It is. Okay. So it's a 2018 Palomino Columbus Compass. There you go. 3 7 7 MB or something like that. Yes. It's a F 3 77 mb. Yeah, which is just a mid bunk style. Oh. Actually put a link to the floor plan if I can find one down in the show notes.

You. If you guys wanna check out the floor plan of what our RV looks like, then I will do that. So what's our next question?

Okay, so this one we have kind of answered in the past. We're not actually ready to answer yet. And several have asked, what is your monthly slash yearly budget going to look like? And we are not quite ready to share that yet. One, because we haven't hit the road yet. Jeremy is still working his, um, his normal full-time job right now and.

We wanna save that to a podcast that we can do all by itself and break those numbers down. But I will tell you we have ran through those numbers roughly, um, with all of the things that we have planned and all the research we have done, and it is a lower budget than what we currently have. For our normal day-to-day life, it'll fluctuate from year to year. And even the places we go, some of the activities that we do. But we definitely wanna break this down into, its own separate kind of answer, right? 'cause there is so much that goes into it, and I know everyone is very interested about the numbers. We have people in our own personal life, we have people at work, uh, people at church.

They're like, Hey, you know, how are y'all gonna afford this? I have cousins and uncles going, dude, what are you doing? Kind of stuff. Um, and just a lot of things that we have. Most of the answers, but until you get on the open road, right, you never really have that answer. Right? And like we did with our episode, how we afford to travel, I really wanna break it down for you guys, not just our budget with, but with tips and tricks to help save money while being on the road and doing this type of lifestyle.

So we are going to put that one on a shelf. I wanted to address it though, because it has been asked. Dozens and dozens of times. It's probably our second most asked question. Yeah. As far as how much is this gonna cost you? Mm-hmm. Because it all comes down to the numbers and everyone wants the numbers because then that's how they kind of judge , their own life and , their lifestyle to see if mm-hmm.

It's doable for them. So this goes along with our next question I, we've had multiple people ask, is Jeremy retired? And the answer to that is a big fat note. No. So there are a lot of people that they work a lot of their lives and they do retire, and this is just kind of their, retirement plan mm-hmm.

Is just to travel around and go to different places. So I am not retiring. He's not retiring, we're retiring. He's still currently working . His normal job here in the town where we live. 'cause we haven't left yet. We're not quite ready to share what we will be doing income-wise. , That is something again, we wanna share at a later date.

, we have it planned and set up and ready to go. For the most part, I feel like it's really hard to share until we're. We're doing that, but um, Jeremy will yes, absolutely be working not near as much as he is now. And then I will be doing things as well and we will share that when the time comes.

But the answer is no. We are way too young to retire. Way too young to retire, not quite financially to that place. You know, , if we win the lottery. Yeah, well, we'd have to play the lottery first, but if we won the lottery, then yeah, we could totally go and retire and, and live a, a comfortable life within our means.

Yeah. We have three kids still at home. We're not retiring anytime soon, but. , The whole job process , is not very complicated. A lot of people are like, oh my goodness, what are you doing? Have you told your boss? Have you had conversations with coworkers? Yes, I've had a lot of conversations. Uh, my boss was actually the second person we told, uh, before even my parents knew, or before any family knew.

Mm-hmm. My boss knew because I wanted to be transparent, and that's one thing that I, I highly suggest . Be transparent with , your boss, let 'em know.

It's like, Hey, we have plans coming up that could affect things, you know, here. Where we work. They've been gracious, they've been very good to me and I don't wanna ruin anything with them. So the process of, I guess, retiring, quitting, mm-hmm. Moving to another job, uh, will be a slow process.

, Not slow process . It's gonna be a process because I want to leave them in the best shape that I possibly can without just burning bridges and. Cutting ties. So yeah. But no, Jeremy is only 43, 43 years old. Yeah. Not retiring. So another question we've been asked, um, on social media and by so many relatives and friends who we have talked to about this, is they wanna know what is our biggest fear about hitting the road and being away from home?

Where do we start? Didn't we just do like a whole podcast on this? Not one specifically that answers like our biggest fear. Okay. I have one. So Misty has one and I have one. So I guess we have two, but , we have , our own individual fears mm-hmm. Of, of doing what we're about to do. Yeah. So what's yours?

My biggest fear is fear. Something happening to an immediate family member of mine, . And me not getting there in time to say goodbye or something like that, or being, you know, two or three days away from family like that, that would be my biggest fear, which we know it's a probable thing, you know, it's something that could absolutely happen.

But I mean, we're gonna leave our parents, our siblings, um, our oldest child, a grandchild, like. , Hundreds of miles away. We're gonna be gone for most of the year. And if something extreme happens to them, me not being right there, I mean, that is something that I, I don't know if I'm fearing, but I'm dreading because it's something that we've never had to deal with before.

We've always been close to family close. Like we, neither one of us, other than what your extent to Iraq have ever lived. More than an hour away from our parents. Right. So, I mean, everything. Even my extended family, uh, cousins, aunts, uncles, they all live in Texas. Yeah. Now granted that could be a 10 hour drive one way or the other.

Yeah, no, most of mine do too. But being multiple days away whenever we have relatives that are not in the, the best of shape mm-hmm. That it could be something, a three, four hour ordeal. Yeah. And , we just don't have that option with the potential in time. Right. With the potential of. Maybe not being able to leave the fifth wheel anywhere, which means we have to tow it back, which means it would to go slower.

It us so long to get home. It'll home take us more time. Right. I. Um, which also brings me to kind of my biggest fear. Of course, the one that everyone wants to know about and the one that we talk about the most is financial.

We get somewhere, something breaks, something happens. We don't have that cushion anymore. You know, we've always had family around, so if something happened, maybe not financially. Yeah. But none of our family are like loaded or anything. Right? Not, not, well maybe not financially, but somewhere to go, you know?

Yeah. Somewhere to go. I have a lot of relatives that RV a lot, uh, so they know the ins and outs. They all have vehicles. So if we needed to get from point A to point B, you know, if we needed to get from one campground to another, in Texas it's not that big of a deal. Mm-hmm. But if we go to. North Carolina, or we're in Washington, they're not making that trip and I wouldn't expect them to.

Right. , You lose that safety net. And that's one of my biggest fears. But I know that other people do this all the time. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's so many Facebook groups, there's so many people on YouTube that it's, I mean, people do this for a living.

I know it's doable, but facing the unknown and just kind of taking that leap is just without that safety net is, is just a fear. Yeah.

Okay, so another question we've been asked is where do we plan to go when we travel? Yes. This one, this is a good answer. I love this. Good question. It's a good question and it's gonna be a great answer Anywhere we want. Exactly. It's everywhere, anywhere. I know that's so broad. Everywhere is not an answer, but really it is because it, it is an answer in the lower 48 especially.

Oh yeah. There's. There's a handful of places that we're not interested in, like, which would floor some people, there's a handful of places we're not super interested in, but we wanna go everywhere else. We want to go everywhere. And the places we're not interested in are really cities. It's not states.

Yeah. And so we can circumvent those cities and still enjoy that state. Mm-hmm. Um, without having to get into all the dos and don'ts and where we want to go or whatever. But , the most direct answer is we'll stay local for a little bit to do some test runs, some test drives, to make sure.

We're 100% ready, nothing's gonna fall, break, anything like that. Yeah. We wanna get our checklist of setting up and taking down done. And we wanna, you know, we wanna get become pros at it before we get too far away from family. Right. And then the first trip, I guess, first little area, the direction we want to go.

So we wanna head east. Mm-hmm. We've been east a couple times and east is absolutely beautiful.

So, uh, we'll definitely Head East, but after , that initial East Run, I mean, anywhere we want to go really? Yeah. And , that's the beauty of being in rv, right? That's the beauty of being mobile. Yeah. Is you can go wherever you want to go or wherever life takes you.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, if we head east and a hurricane comes in, well now we're heading west. Pick up and go, and so we can go anywhere we want to. Mm-hmm. So that's just the beauty of it. Oh, that reminds me, we survived our first storm in it today. Yes. It was nice actually where we are though, we are under a big giant metal awning.

Yeah, we're we're covered. We're we're 95% covered. I feel like we've got it really easy right now. I did enjoy the rain hitting the outside of the metal. I don't know, there was something very soothing about it. It was kind of nostalgic, like when you're a kid and you're in a car and it's raining and you have no worries 'cause you're not the one driving.

That's what it reminded me of this morning. Yes, it was wonderful. Okay, next question. Um, so we've had, I. This is one question with multiple categories, but I feel like there's only one answer People have asked how much clothes were you able to keep? How many toys was Jasper able to keep? Were your kids able to take all of their items that they wanted to?

How much kitchen stuff were you able to keep? So I think I just kind of summed it up all into one. Um, we were able to keep a lot more than we thought. But maybe not as much as we wanted. That is a really good answer. I mean, you have to imagine we went from 2,400 square feet down to, I haven't done the final math, but I like four something, but I think it's somewhere around 4 50, 500 square feet.

Yeah. So we went down to. Almost a fourth or a sixth for the most part, , we were able to keep a chunk, the only place that really how to downsize that I would've preferred not to have to have downsize so much. Was the kitchen. Kitchen, yeah. Yeah. Without any question whatsoever. 'cause I am, I like to cook.

I'm a cook person and I had to get rid of so much and. It's just like now I'm like, well, now I don't have this and now I don't have that. Now I don't have this. I'm gonna have to get creative. And yeah, so that part wasn't super fun for me. That's , probably the part with the least amount of storage space is the kitchen area.

And we could put stuff all over the rv, but I don't want my kitchen stuff all over the of E. We already have like. Larger appliances under our bed and stuff. I'm not going to just put that everywhere, but Jasper was able to keep most of his toys. We didn't keep a lot of the big ones. I don't want them all over our tiny rv, um, because we do have that big open floor space, which the reason we wanted that was so Jasper could have a play area.

, The rug out of his nursery fit in there perfectly. And so we have that laid down with all of his toys, , in a one toy box that he has. And, , a couple of his floor pillows, things like that, that he can play on. He's got a pretty decent sized space to play. Ariel was able to fit everything she kept up in her loft area except for.

Her purses and the cords to her electronics. Justin found a spot for everything. Well, everything that he kept, yes. I mean, yeah, everything that he kept, I don't know if he's gotten rid of anything since we started moving in. No, he hasn't. Yeah. Like all of us, all of us have, have in, in fact, we, we've had to downsize again, or we just realized we didn't want it as much as we thought we did.

Right. Like Ariel kept a bunch of throw pillows and stuff because they were on the couch that was in her room, and now she's like, I don't need this pillow. She got a new pillow. She doesn't want all the throw pillows. And we got rid of them this morning. She was done with them, so. Right now I'm actually in the process of loading our pantry. And it's a challenge, I'm not gonna lie, because it's, you know, those deep wide shelves. , I think I've found some creative solutions. Um, right now most of it's on the floor and I'm in the process of putting it up into the pantry.

But I'm excited to show like our final, our final walkthrough. Definitely be on the lookout for our walkthrough, because I think we got really creative. , We're finding new ways and new ideas almost every day of how to make things fit. Yeah. Um, we actually have some space left over right now. Mm-hmm. That we don't want to put things in it yet. Yeah. We don't wanna fill them because we wanna be able to, you know, if we find things while we're traveling, we wanna be able to be like, okay, hey, I have room for this.

Right. Or if we need something, then we're able to, to take that with us. Yeah. And not have to a one time purchase. Hopefully something that will last a while. Right? Another question that we've been asked by about four or five people is how long do you plan on doing this? So this is a multi-tier answer and with only one, one true answer though the Oh, so there's a missing answer and there's a ger answer.

Okay, let's start with mine 'cause it's simpler. Okay? We don't know. So. There you go. That is true. We don't know the plan though. And , you always hope for the best and plan for the worst. Mm-hmm. So the hope is until we just physically can't anymore.

Right. , The worst is a year. So. Like if, if what? We just hate it. I can't even imagine that. Yeah. For some reason we hate it. Some for some reason, financially we just can't do it. Mm-hmm. I mean, it, it's kinda like podcasting. You know? You, you get past your first season mm-hmm. And then you, you, you really start kicking off and doing your things.

It's just like that in, you know, and any kind of life changing thing that you do. Mm-hmm. If you can get past the first year, they always say, if you can get past the first year of marriage, you know, you're. There's a good chance you're gonna make it. So I thought our first year was pretty easy.

It was, , I think everyone has seasons in their life and you really never know when that season changes until it's time for that season to change. Right. And so we are definitely planning for at least a year. I, but it could be 30, it could be 30, somewhere between a year and 30. , That's the answer. There's just so many factors that go into some of this, and while we can give short, small answers, the big answers are still to come even for us. Yeah, because I don't think anything is just like a simple, you know, no.

Yes. Our last question's not really a question, so it's a comment, kind of sarcastic question I guess, that someone asked.

I wanted to address. Okay, so they said, so you're only gonna see the four other people that are in the RV with you for the whole year, and that is a no. Um, we have multiple means of, and I'm doing air quotes because I, as a homeschool mom, I hear this word all the time. Socialization that we, um, we have planned and that we will come across.

A big thing is that we will be going to local churches for services and things like that, and having our kids participate in their. Youth groups when we're in those areas, so we will, we will build friendships in, you know, these different communities and we do plan on repeating if it's somewhere we like and we build bonds, we do plan on repeating, um, visiting those places as well.

Um, as well as the system, you know, that we're gonna be staying in a lot of the parks and things. We're gonna be going to, they have community events. Like on a weekly basis that they do that we will be involved in, , we plan on getting involved in community events in those communities that we talk about all the time in those towns and cities and counties, things like that.

I have major plans of hooking up with other. , Full-time families who do things like this, sometimes they'll actually plan three or four months and travel together so that , their kids can have friends and the, you know, the moms and the dads can have friends and company and stuff that they can travel with and have experiences together.

And then of course we do plan on coming back home some of the time of the year and being with our friends and family. So are kids getting lonely? Um. Honestly, they might be socializing, socializing, socializing. That's a hard word. Sometimes they might be doing that more than they did when they were younger and we were in the house homeschooling all day.

That was an excellent answer. My answer's a little bit different. Okay, so , if you're one of those people that. Always wanna stay home. You don't wanna socialize, you just wanna live your life. Mm-hmm. Then yeah, , that's all we're gonna see. Yeah. We're not those people. Right. So we like getting out there, having conversations with random strangers.

Different churches, um, getting in involved or asking questions from mm-hmm. , Their either visiting bureau or even to the city about activities or events that are going on. I mean, because we just want to not only be involved, but we want to know what's out there, what opportunities do we possibly have.

And by doing that and just talking, you're gonna make friends, you're gonna make acquaintances, and. By doing that, I'm actually going to meet more people than I do in my public sector job now. Right? Because it's always the same circle of people, right? Like you rarely meet someone new. It's always that same circle of friends and family and coworkers, right?

And we've made friends over social media that live in different places that we're gonna go visit as well, that we're gonna go talk to. And then, like Misty said, we. Always have plans to get back to our roots. Mm-hmm. Maybe not every year, but as much as possible that we can kind of swing it, because we do love our family.

Mm-hmm. And we love our community. We love our church, we love our circle that we're in right now, and we don't wanna lose touch with those people. But the way that social media is right now, the way that technology is, I mean, you can stay in contact with people all the time. It's not like you're back in the 1980s or 1990s anymore where you know, you hope that you catch 'em at home or, you know, they answer their, their landline.

Yeah. Not to mention we like each other. That is true. I don't mind. That makes a huge difference. My family is the only one that I've seen the whole week. I love my children. I love my husband. We have a good family dynamic. Um, you know, there was a point during the whole covid nonsense where we got quarantined for two weeks in our house with this, just us and the kids, and we made a grand old time of it.

Did we go stir crazy? Yes. We were ready to get out of the house at the end of that time, but you know what, we were okay. During that time too. Yeah. It's, it's not like we're gonna be locked into the rv RV lock our kids into a little 400 square foot space. So if someone needs a break, they can go out on the park or they can go play, or you know, they can go outside.

So there's things to do besides just lock away and look at the five same faces all the time. Mm-hmm. We have enjoyed, um. Listening to all of the questions and reading the questions that people have been asking it, it helps us know where our listeners' minds are in the whole process. Like what, what are things we need to talk about more that we maybe have not addressed enough?

So keep your questions coming and if we can answer them during our podcast, you know, we will try to do that as much as possible.

, I've really enjoyed getting into the minds of our listeners , in relating to our full-time travel.

So join us next week. We will get back onto our regular schedule. We're gonna talk about living with less and experiencing more.