Traveling with your whole family on an RV is truly an exciting and memorable escapade. But what does it take to go on full-time travel, transforming such a vehicle into your personal moving home? In this first part of their discussion, Julia Gentry and Travis Gentry look back on how they traveled across different states riding a fifth-wheel RV, settling down in Colorado, only to sell everything in their house to jump back to the road on a Class A RV. They detail all the things they love about living on the move and the challenges they encountered along the way, from their motor breaking down to Travis having an eye infection. The couple also reflects on how their travels as a family taught them not to give up on their dreams despite what other people may think. 

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Living The Traveler’s Life: The Ins And Outs Of Full-Time Travel

We are in Florida and I am excited about this topic because this is what I live for.  

I married an adventurer.  

We’re going to share our story from the beginning when it all started with a thought and how long it took us to manifest that thought but the process. We’re going to talk about the pros, cons, good, bad, what we would have done differently, and what we will never do again.  

We thought about what angle we could come at this topic with and then we were like, “Let’s do all of it in one show, all the things of travel.” Instead of the how-tos, lessons we learned, ups and downs, or ins and outs, we’re just going to talk about all of it in no particular order. We get asked all the time too, logistically, how does it work? Financially, how do you make it work? Traveling with four kids, homeschool, running businesses, and COVID, there are many different questions. We’re like, “We’ll do a show that shares mental, emotional, spiritual, tactical insights, and all of that.” This is for you.  

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Let’s start at the beginning, which is in 2007-ish.  

I forgot about that. That is way back.  

This is no joke. It started back then. In 2007, we started looking at RVs and I was getting unhappy with the job that I had. We were planning for 2008. In that spring, we were talking about we were going to hit the road. We were preparing, positioning, and doing some things. We had saved up some money. We went down and looked at all the different RVs, A-Class, trailer, fifth wheel. We had them hold an A-Class, do you remember that?  

I would’ve blocked that from my memory but that was the first time. We had it reserved.  

For 24 hours. 

We had to sign on the dotted line and we didn’t.  

Life started to happen in December that year. Little did we know what was happening financially in the financial market, in real estate. We were studying real estate, that was already something in the works. The boss came and said, “We’re going to cut your pay in half.” I was already looking to get out anyway. It didn’t matter. I said, “I’m going to put in my three weeks, whatever you need.” I like the company. I like the people I worked for. I did not like what I was doing anymore. It was a blessing in disguise. We were going to do it in March or April and he came in December and said, “We’ll cut your pay.” I’m not going to do the same thing I don’t like for half the pay. I came home and told Julia that. Through the real estate, we ended up meeting another couple.  

That idea of traveling the country in an RV, that picture went on our dream board. This was something that we shifted gears, we started working on our business, we got married, and all of those things. I remember the picture of the RV that went up on our dream board because, for years, it sat on our dream board. 

We started to travel in 2015 for the first time. We got into real estate, moved down to Nashville for six months, and then moved back to Colorado and did real estate. We started there again, getting married, having kids, the businesses. 

 

It’s important to say that we did well in real estate within the first couple of years because we hit the market spot on. We did well only to end up a $100,000 in debt in mom’s basement, losing everything and then some. Rebuilding took about a year and a half, which is the same time that we had Malakai and then we had Aslan. We rebuilt the American dream and we bought the house. We had the cars that we wanted and we had two kids. That’s when it started circling the RV. Having some of those things but not feeling free, that’s what I remember. I remember feeling like, “We learned our lesson in real estate that there’s more to this game than just making money.” There’s this mental game that it’s not just about making money. It’s understanding money, your limiting beliefs and why the heck we made hundreds of thousands of dollars and only to lose it. That was phase one. Once you rebuild, you’re supposed to be free when you have all of those things but we didn’t feel free.  

It took longer than a year and a half to rebuild. It was a couple of years that we were not doing great and then getting back into real estate. At that time, we’re doing some wholesales, fix and flips, and some buy and holds. It was a process of probably 3 to 4 years. Having the house, living there for almost two years, and then waking up and saying, “There’s got to be more and when will we be there?” That was the question that we’re like, “When is there?” That’s typically, “When I get there, then I’ll do this. When am I going to be there?” You keep pushing back that mark of like, “When I get there.” You get there and you’re like, “When I get there.” At one point, both of us were like, “Let’s go ahead and do it.” We bought a truck and a fifth wheel the first go around. That was our first experience of traveling with two kids in a truck and a fifth wheel.  

There were pros and cons to me about that setup. When you have two babies in the cab, that felt confined to me and hard because you had to go to the bathroom every hour, on the hour.  

Aslan was still in diapers. 

That was harder to travel. I had to go to the bathroom every five minutes. Let’s be honest, this is more about me than the kids. I loved the setup of our fifth wheel. I like that we could detach from the fifth wheel itself and have the truck. I liked the setup of the RV itself, the layout of it was great with kids’ bunk beds. That trip, to me, felt a little bit more like a vacation, which was great. We did that upper East Coast. 

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We’ll stay on the pros and cons and then we’ll talk about some of the experiences that we had. If you’re looking at a trailer, a bumper pole, you’re looking at a fifth wheel, you’re looking at an A-Class. They have medium B Classes or vans. That’s a big thing because they’re compact and you can’t travel with a bunch of kids. You can but it’s limited on space and size. The pro that I thought with the fifth wheel was because you maximize the whole space where the B–Class and A–Class, and those are the ones that you drive, this one you don’t. Both the trailer and the fifth wheel use the whole space, front to back, for living. The A-Class or B-Class that you drive, the front of it is for sitting and driving. You can flip the chairs and do things. The layouts are better in the trailers and the fifth wheel. The height-wise to the pro with a fifth wheel is that the ceiling heights tend to be taller. It feels more open. If you have 1, 2, or 3 slides, it makes it that much roomier.  

Looking back, it felt like a little home. I liked the setup of that fifth wheel because it felt like home when you walk in. You didn’t have exposure to the front part of an A-Class. We’re seeing a huge movement of tiny homes but that’s what it felt. It’s a tiny home on wheels. I liked that.  

It was easy to drive. It’s easy to pull. You can easily go 70 miles per hour and you don’t get the sway as much as if you do a bumper pole and a trailer. The pros are the layouts, ceiling height, and then towing it. The con is if you have to go to the bathroom, you can’t get up and go to the bathroom in the B-Class and A-Class. Any other cons that you would say? We looked for a long time. We looked at every model that was out there. 

I was amazed at how many there were, the add-on features and how nice they were. Correct me if I’m wrong, there’s a price to all of it, but I thought that the fifth wheels were also cheaper. I was shocked at the quality of them, the price of them. Had it not been for you, and this is where most people get stopped, the idea feels impossible. More and more, people are starting to understand that it’s not as hard or as challenging or as pricey as you might think. If we compare how much we spend in day-to-day life and month-to-month with all the things from our house to the gas to the food to all the activities, we spend so much per month in our day-to-day lives. I don’t think that I would have figured it out on my own without your help with how feasible it was. It’s a shift in where you put your money and how you spend your money. That was huge for me. To walk through that process of the numbers and how to make it feasible, it’s not as impossible as you might think. Granted, it still costs money.  

At each place, you can stay at the KOAs. They have a couple of other big national networks as you get discounts, it’s anywhere from $20 to $70 per night. You can boondock, which then you’re not hooked up to anything and you have to use your own generator. 

We did that a couple of times in the Walmart parking lot. We hooked up more than not because of the kids too. A lot of the KOAs, I was amazed at how much kid-friendly activities from big blobs to playground. That was a big piece for us. If you and I were to do it again, we would do more boondocking and get in the middle of nowhere. For us, we wanted to get out of the RV and let the kids have a place to run around and play.  

It was to see the places and the towns as well. The trailers and the fifth wheels are cheaper because you don’t have a motor. The A-Class is the stuff where you have a motor. We’ve done the A-Class and we’ll talk about that too. We had a huge truck and a brand new fifth wheel. We hit the road from Colorado. We went to see my sister in Oklahoma and then we headed out. 

On a Sunday. 

We were on the outskirts of Tulsa. The engine said that I could only go 20 miles per hour. 

 

We’re rolling hills. I remember thinking, “We’re speeding up and now we’re slowing down.”  

I didn’t want to turn it off. In hindsight, it would’ve helped. It was signaling that the motor was shot.  

We finally decided to do this. We are outside of Tulsa. I didn’t understand Tulsa. I had no idea where we were with two babies in the car on a Sunday and anything car-related is not open. We get into a gas station and the engine of our truck doesn’t work.  

It still worked but we could only go 20 miles per hour. When you’re on a highway or any road, it’s hard.  

We could add another pro and con to the fifth wheel versus the A-Class. If you have an A-Class and you’re pulling a car, which most people do and we did, you have two engines. If your RV were to ever fail, you have another car. If you’re driving a fifth wheel and if your engine doesn’t work in the truck, you don’t have any other mode of transportation. That felt uncomfortable to me.  

Monday morning, I make some calls.  

At 20 miles an hour, we had to find an RV park in the middle of nowhere. It’s in the middle of summer in Tulsa. It’s hot. We had to wait a night to call someone to ask for help.  

We figure out what was going on. We had no clue at that time. I called a couple of places and told them what the sensor read or what it said. They were saying that the engine needs to be rebuilt. I took it to a dealer and they’re like, “The engine is shot. It’s going to be roughly $11,000.”  

Two weeks, they said originally.  

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They even said a week and a half or something like that, it wasn’t that long. 

It was long enough at that moment. You’re like, “We had just bought it and we started our RV travels.” We had stayed with your sister to have some fun. We have started the whole thing. $11,000, a week and a half or two-week delay in Tulsa, and no car, I was not happy.  

They gave us a rental. We were treading the water because Tulsa was not a place that we were looking to visit. It didn’t take a week and a half. It’s almost three weeks because they kept a piece or they had the machine things and they kept coming back and it was like, “This is happening for us.” Thank God, through our network, someone opened up their home to us and our family to stay at their house. Through your family, we had someone open their house in Tulsa. Your uncle allowed us to stay at his house at Lake of the Ozarks, which we probably wouldn’t even stop there. That, in itself, was awesome.  

If I could go back and redo these in any of our travels, this would have been a moment that I wish I could have gone back and redone. Often in our heads, we get stuck with, “It should look like this.” We had a plan, which was not to stay in Tulsa and it was not for the truck to break down. How often you were like, “This was not what I planned.” Instead of embracing a beautiful home and touring Tulsa and then Lake of the Ozarks, I remember being in a bad mood that entire 3.5 weeks and trying to be in a good mood. I was having to force being in a good mood. I even remember multiple conversations where I’m trying to get myself from should be to could be. Instead of saying, “We should be doing this. We should’ve been doing this. We should be here.” Instead of going, “What could it be? How can we make this fun? This is beautiful, it’s a whole little town.”  

I wish I could go back and tell myself that this is going to be a prerequisite for stop resisting and surrender. Have a plan but then let God direct it. Even if you get off course and even if something happens that you’re not planning, let go and have fun in what it is as opposed to what it should be. My resistance in those 3.5 weeks was brutal. Looking back at the pictures, the pool, and the beach, and all that with the kids were beautiful. I was stuck in this like, “It should have been this. It needs to be this.” It didn’t ruin it. That’s probably being exaggerating. 

You didn’t embrace it as much as you could’ve. 

I was in resistance to it. 

 

On top of that, I got a pretty severe eye infection. In the midst of that, I couldn’t see out of my right eye. First, I went somewhere and they said it was X. We then went to the Lake of the Ozarks. When we were there, it got worse. I couldn’t see, which messes with your mind. My eye is dying, something was wrong. I go back. He sends me to a specialist and then they find out what it is. They put me on these heavy doses of steroids and drops. I had to have my eye dilated for 2 or 3 weeks. On top of that, I was going through that situation too, which is scary at the time because I had no idea what is going on with my eye. I’ve never had eye problems. On top of the car and us figuring out where we were going, we were almost saying, “Let’s be done.”  

We were like, “How can you be done when we’ve only been to Tulsa?”  

We’ve been on the road for a week.  

We were able to go to DC, Pennsylvania, Boston and Maine. That was beautiful.  

Kentucky. 

Lexington, Kentucky blew my mind. I had a stigma in my head as to what Kentucky was going to be. The rolling hills, the green grass, and the beauty of Lexington were unreal to me. That was beautiful.  

We stayed right at an RV park that was by the tracks or one of the tracks. Portland, Maine was a super cool little town.  

There’s no better crab. My cousins asked me, “Have you guys ever been up to Maine?” I was like, “Yes.” If you’re going to do a family vacation, Portland, Maine is beautiful. The history, culture, and the food, everything tasted better there. Their crab will ruin you. Anytime you have crab anywhere else, you’d be like, “What is this?” 

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It’s fresh. 

I love Portland, Maine.  

One of the lessons, specifically on that, if you are going to do a fifth wheel or a trailer, get a new truck.  

Don’t go to New York.  

We almost ran out of gas outside of New York.  

Are you suggesting that the investment in that is worth that? 

Get a new truck or a used truck that is not from Texas and used as a work truck. Whoever had it before used to tow and pull stuff.  

Was it a diesel?  

It was a diesel.  

Would you suggest a diesel?  

Yes, I would.  

In an A-Class or a truck? 

The truck. The A-Class, we’ll talk about that separately. In a truck, yes, if you’re going to tow. We had a lightweight one, it was 29 feet. It wasn’t huge. They come gigantic where you have to have a dually and diesel. I’d recommend a diesel truck, for sure. In hindsight, looking back, it was a truck out of Texas and it was a work truck. They used it for towing and hauling stuff and that’s what happened. I got it inspected, had someone look at it, but unless they did a specific test, they wouldn’t have known that the motor was done. I would have opted for a new one. It doesn’t have to be brand new but a newer one that wasn’t used for a work truck or towing anything. Anything else specifically on that leg of our journey? 

DC was also cool. If we’re thinking about things to see, Lexington was one that I don’t think I would have ever put on my radar but it was beautiful. Noah’s Ark was an amazing experience and excursion. DC was cool to see it. If you haven’t seen the Capitol, you can feel the vibrations there. To me, that was cool to see and to get to go by the White House. In Portland, Maine, you have to do a vacation there. That was such a cool spot. We didn’t stay long but I could have stayed there longer.  

 

We went to Hershey in Pennsylvania. 

That’s it. If not, I’ll circle back around. That’s all I can think of.  

We talked about Lake of the Ozarks, which is worth seeing. We did that and we continued on for another two months and then we went back to Colorado. We bought a house and we’re going to fix it up. Two days before we’re going to move into it and 2 or 3 days before Christmas, the house caught fire. That shifted things. Instead of moving into that house, we went to Phoenix. We were waiting with the permits and the county and stuff. We went down on vacation. We’re like, “Let’s go down to Arizona.” 

I was six months pregnant with our third at that point.  

We went down to Arizona and we’re like, “We don’t have to be in Colorado.” We love new places. We like warm weather. We’re like, “Let’s move down here.” Within a matter of a few weeks, we found a house. We finished the house that we were going to move into, sold it, and moved down to Arizona.  

We packed up our entire house, sharp left-hand turn to Arizona. Even when we got done with the fifth wheel travel, I had always had in my head that A-Class experience.  

That was the picture on our vision board. 

The fifth wheel, to me, felt like a weekend thing or a week trip. It never felt like home to me. It always felt more of a weekend adventure ride. What I would encourage people with is that if your dream, that itch doesn’t go away, there’s a reason. The problem with that is you keep circling and you spend energy thinking about it. You’re finally like, “Do it or don’t.” So much mental and emotional energy and not doing it kills the soul, those things that are in you and God-given are the desires of our heart. Looking back, it was all perfect in the timing. I wish we hadn’t waited long because the energy it took to think about it was worse than the process of doing it.  

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There’s no perfect time. There’s always something that will prohibit you from living out your dream or desire. Whatever is in you, there’s always something.  

Based upon where our life is now, that whole process was a metaphor for things to come. For me, it wasn’t about the RV. For some people, maybe that’s what you’ve been thinking about, doing an RV. More and more people have been inspired by our journey. We’ve talked to many people that have done it now because we paved the way for opportunity. It’s like, “If the Gentry’s can do it with three kids, I can maybe try.” I’m excited about talking more about this one because it was a metaphor for things to come. It was a mental and emotional preparation for some of the things that we’re doing now. If it’s in you and it doesn’t go away and the desire is still there and you keep wrestling with it, give in. Say yes to it. That was my lesson. 

That’s such a great point. We’re talking about the RV and the travel. It’s also moving from one state to another, from Colorado to Arizona. It could be that you don’t want to travel in an RV but you want to live somewhere else. When we were in Austin, we were like, “We’re originally from Colorado.” They were like, “I would love to live in Colorado.”  

Travis was like, “Why don’t you?” 

Whatever it is for you, if you want it bad enough, you’d get a new job and you figure out how. 

You’re in Austin and you tell people, “I was in Phoenix.” They’re like, “I’ve always wanted to live in Phoenix.” We were in Austin telling people we’re going to Florida and they’re like, “I’ve always wanted to go to Florida.” There’s nothing special about you and I other than we’ve figured out how to make it happen. I will give you credit for that because I don’t know that I knew in me that I have that innate ability to figure things out. We all do as people. I saw my identity as a controller as opposed to figuring it out. I want to control my environment. I don’t have the makeup to figure it out. I would say that is a gift that comes naturally to you. It’s in all of us if we’ll use the gift and instead of going, “I live here because I’ve always lived here.” If you want to live there, figure out why you want to live there, and then what do you need to do to make that happen?  

Go try it on. Go on a vacation or Vrbo. We were in Arizona for about ten months and that’s when it came up again. We still keep talking about traveling in an A-Class. Let’s do it or let’s please stop talking about it.  

 

It was. We went out to lunch and this was after we had Nixon. We have a four-month-old baby, our third baby, and we were wrestling with it again. I remember at lunch, we went and talked about it and it was like our come to Jesus moment that we were like, “This is exhausting.” I’m more tired of talking about it than having the courage to do it. That’s when it was like, “Pick your heart.” They’re both going to be hard. To never do this dream and to never manifest it is going to be hard. Also, doing it is going to be hard. We’ve got three kids. One is getting ready to go into kindergarten. I remember that lunch, we looked at each other and though it was a dream, we wanted so bad saying yes. It was the hardest thing that we did until we did it and there was such a release in finally saying, “Okay.”  

Through this process, it’s not about the thing. After we decided like, “Let’s do this. Let’s get an A-Class.” We were up in Denver. We flew back there for work stuff and I found a Jeep. That was the first step because we were going to tow the A-Class with the Jeep. We bought a Jeep and drove it down to Arizona.  

Here’s Travis’s great idea and I would suggest doing this at some point in your life. This was life–changing for me. Travis was like, “I have an idea about what to do with our stuff.” We had a house full of stuff.  

A 3,200 square foot house. 

 

We had bought a lot of brand–new stuff because we moved to Arizona. We bought a lot of furniture because we had gotten rid of some on the other travels. We were moving into the new house so we were going to get new stuff. We got there and spent a couple of thousand dollars on new furniture. Travis did a little bit of number crunching. His big idea was, “We should sell everything and do a living estate sale because we’re alive. Let’s sell it all.” That was one of the first times for me that I had started to find identity in the stuff. I had started to find my safety, insecurity, and stability in the stuff. I’m not suggesting that it’s not good to have a home base at some level. There are reasons that we like having some things that helped. I had started to be wrapped up in my safety, security, and stability in my stuff. When Travis came up with this great idea, I was like, “Okay.”  

Not knowing how this would be or turn out, I posted it on Craigslist. I took some pictures of our stuff so they knew it was nice stuff. I put pictures and did not put the address of the house because I knew that would have been bad. You would have people knocking on the door and see if they could get in sooner. I said, “I’m going to put signs on Saturday morning at 9:00 on where to go. Go to these cross streets and then follow the signs to where the house is.” As I was putting out signs, there were cars already parked and waiting for me to go put those signs up so they could follow. I had put a sign up and drive to the next area. You turn and then another corner. People were following me.  

You posted it online because they beat you home. Don’t you remember?  

I did not post online.  

How did they beat you home? Remember, you came home and the house was full.  

At that time, I had told a couple of them, which I shouldn’t have. They were like, “Where is it? We’ll go park there.” They parked and knocked on the door. I was probably halfway through putting out the signs. I said the address to a couple of people. From the first sign and then I come around the corner, there are cars lined up and then following me.  

I have the three littles with me who, at that point, are 7 months, 1.5, and 3. Nothing is marked yet because in my mind, “We’ll have time.” We’ll say, “How much do you want it for?” In my mind, it will be one person and how much do you want it for? We didn’t have a gauge. The door knocks and I opened the door and there were people. Now, they’re in my house and, all of a sudden, it is like an auction, “How much for this?” One guy is going, “How much for that? How much for this? Will you sell this and how much?” Both kids are in my legs and I was like, “$150. How much would you take for that?” We’re like, “Do you have extra cash?” Some people were like, “Keep the change.” I’ve experienced nothing like that before. 

It was crazy. It was probably a four-hour process and 90% of our stuff was gone. 

At one point, we were finally like, “Let’s get the kids out of this house because this might be traumatic at some point.” People were taking their stuff.  

The couches, the TV, everything, the only thing we had, which was probably a 5×6, was a small little trailer with personal stuff that we kept.  

 

It was fun getting rid of stuff too. I remember asking Travis because we were only going to keep the things that were special to us and are irreplaceable and what we would put in the RV. I had seventeen vases and I remember looking at Travis and being like, “Should I keep one of these?” He was like, “Julia.” I had 120 gift bags. I didn’t realize how much we had consumed, even in a year of being in Phoenix, how much stuff we had, how much we keep that we don’t need, how much we grab on to from an identity perspective. It was gnarly for me to watch that process happen and to feel the blood was going from my head out my toes and watching people walk away.  

For me, it was the complete opposite. It was freeing to not be bound to the stuff knowing it’s replaceable. Watching all of it cleared out within a matter of four hours was such a freeing experience of like, “Stuff does not define me.” This house or where I live doesn’t define me. After that process of purging everything, we went back up to Colorado to bring that small little trailer full of stuff. We put it in my parents’ house in a closet. It was that little of the stuff. We didn’t even have the RV yet. We were still searching.  

Talk about faith. 

We’ll get one at some point knowing that we were committed. I found one but it was off of good resources, the RV trader. They have new ones and used ones. I found a gentleman that had an A-Class but it was in California. We negotiated with him over the phone and booked a one-way ticket out there.  

Faith requires you to do crazy things too. You have to slow this process down. This is how you move in faith.  

What I would say on that is commit. Burn the ships when you make a commitment on certain things. We could have bought all new stuff and rented or bought another house but it was like, “No. We’re committed. We’re doing this.”  

We knew that we needed that. Sometimes when we give ourselves an exit strategy, we go straight. It’s going to get hard or we’re going to doubt ourselves or it’s going to seem crazy. Most of the time that you’re doing something that you’ve never done before, it feels illogical, it feels ridiculous, and you feel crazy. Other people are like, “You’re doing what? I could never do that.” There’s so much opportunity for other people’s doubt or other people’s unbelief to get in the way. For us, we knew at some level that if we don’t go all in, we’ll find a way out. Looking back, that was smart because it continued to lead us to the next step and the next step.  

To your point, we had done so much research. We had sat in many RVs. This was ours. When this RV popped up, you knew a good deal. There were a couple that we could have jumped on to. You had done so much research that once you were even understanding the measurements and the style and where things were placed, we could envision it because we had done this many times. Not only have we visualized it, but we also physically walked the process many times. When that one popped up in California, you knew it was a good deal. You understood the layout. We had even sat in similar layouts. It was one of those things that were still a step of faith but it’s a faith with your research. It’s such a fun process.  

I booked a one-way ticket out there. He was an older gentleman, super nice. He and his wife lived in it but it was too big for them so they downsized. He picked me up at the airport. We went and looked at it. The next day, I bought it and started driving back to Colorado with it.  

Here was my experience, this was another game-changer. I remember waking up and knowing that Travis was sitting in our dream. This a cool moment and it wasn’t about the RV. We were in our dream now. I remember calling you and going, “How does it feel? Tell me everything. What are you doing and how does it feel? Give me all the things.” I don’t know what I was expecting him to say but it was the most profound answer because you were like, “I don’t want to say that it’s a buzzkill but I’ve been here many times before. I’ve played this out many times in my head before. I’ve already been here.” This is the process of dreaming. This is why visualization is powerful. When we can visualize it and see it before it happens and we play it within ourselves over and over again before we take the step to do it, when you finally do it, you’re like, “This feels normal to me. This feels natural to me. I’ve been here before.” I hung up the phone, I was sitting in your parents’ office, and I remember going, “That’s key.”  

It’s almost when preparation meets the opportunity, preparing and looking and manifesting your dream. This started in 2007 of that idea.  

You’re like, “I’ve been driving this thing since 2007.” 

I can drive it with my eyes closed.  

UFC fighters say that all the time in the fight, sometimes they’re like, “I blackout but I’ve done this many times. I’ve done these moves many times. I’ve seen myself winning many times.” That is huge because part of when we start to manifest our dreams, while we can sabotage it, is that the unfamiliarity of it is big that we feel like a fraud. We feel like, “I’ve never been here. It doesn’t feel safe. It doesn’t feel secure. I feel like a fraud.” We tend to sabotage it. When you’ve been there, when you visualize it, when you believe it at a gut-level, when you let God lead your steps, when it starts to happen, even though I’ve physically never done this, I’ve mentally, emotionally, spiritually done this many times. 

This can be in not just travel, it can be in any area of your life, physically, mentally, spiritually. Go to the place and allow yourself to dream. Some people are like, “I don’t know what my dream is or my purpose is.” It’s the thing that won’t leave you alone, that’s what it is. At a simple level, that idea, that desire is uniquely yours and that’s your purpose. That’s your dream that you should be pursuing. On that, what I would say is be careful and cautious of who you get input from. We had people say, “That’s such a great idea because of the age of the kids.” It was hard with the age of the kids. We also had people say, “Why would you do that with the kids at that age?” What I would say is protect your dreams, protect your ideas, get input, get feedback, that’s wisdom. Also, make sure that who you’re getting input has the fruit in their life to make that valid for you.  

You’ve said this a couple of times, your dream is like a seed and if that’s not fully planted, and the Bible even talks about this. It’s able to take root. Any storm can uproot that thing before it’s able to take roots. It’s not because the dream is not substantial, it’s not because the dream isn’t yours, but because you didn’t do the work to get that thing rooted. When someone judges it or questions that, it uproots that thing. To your point, if someone’s coming and giving you wisdom about your dream based upon you, God has downloaded it for you. The resources that God has given you, the capacity that God has given you, is different than when someone says something like, “I could never do that.” Good, because that’s not your dream to follow. That’s not yours. That’s an opinion. That’s a bias.  

Opinions and biases will kill dreams. An opinion is my opinion but it has no bearing on the dream that’s on the inside of you. I would caution both sides of any party. If someone’s coming to you, you have to be unattached and unbiased, and non-opinionated because it’s not about you. It’s about the dream that’s on the inside of someone and going, “How can we talk about this in a way that’s going to cultivate that dream manifesting and not destroy it?”  

A different way to say it is don’t let someone else’s truth become your truth. It is true to them but it may not be true for you.  

Another word could be, don’t let someone else’s fear be your fear. Don’t let someone else’s doubt be your doubt. Don’t let someone else’s dream be your dream. 

Just because it’s true to someone, it doesn’t make it true. We’re traveling in a 37-foot A-Class RV. 

With a full fridge. It’s a full, actual, normal-sized fridge. 

Which was important with bunk beds. This one had two slides. It was a gas one. We opted for the gas one because it was cheaper and it was less maintenance. You could get it serviced in a lot more places. 

 

We were a little bit gun shy because of our experience with engines. People buy diesel because it’s long-term. We knew that maybe this wasn’t going to be crazy long-term.  

Also, going up in overpasses. Depending on what you’re towing, you can tow more with a diesel. We had a four-door Jeep that we were towing, which I knew the RV that we had was sufficient.  

I love everything about the A-Class. I loved being in it. I loved the huge windows. To us, this was a manifestation of a dream. I loved that the kids could go to the bathroom. I loved that we could buckle in the seatbelt and they could play and color on the tables. I love that I could get up. I love that I could cook them lunch if I needed to. I loved the flexibility that we could pull over and take a nap and didn’t have to get out of the RV. I loved the roominess of driving instead of being in that truck and they were right on top of us. I loved seeing you in that chair. I loved the experience of driving in that thing. 

It’s a different experience. Especially when you’re driving to new locations, that experience is different than a trailer or a fifth wheel. 

I loved that part. I thought that was great.  

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