Destined to Roam: My Story

My Beginnings

Growing up, I was a military brat and missionary kid with a case of chronic homesickness. I was the only child you could find being dragged by her ankles around the Louvre and Parthenon. There was nothing more that I wanted than to become a permanent fixture to a sleepy town tucked away somewhere in the South.

At the age of eighteen, I was jaded, already dealt several bad hands and ready to build something stable. I moved to Tallahassee, Florida to pursue a career in cosmetology. With my hair a different shade of the rainbow every month, it felt like the logical deduction. Despite that, I still found myself out of place and unfilled in my classes. À la Grease, I quickly became a beauty school drop out, stumbling around the city without a clue of what to do.

Struggling & Awakening

About two years later, I was living in a perpetually filthy townhouse tucked away in a section 8 neighborhood. I wasn’t on section 8, but I bargained with the landlord to let me stay there low-rent in exchange for installing new flooring by myself. My only income was in fleeting part-time work and questionable gigs, so I didn’t mind the odd job for the opportunity to avoid homelessness.

On this particular afternoon, I had just woken up and was sweeping up the broken glass bottles on the floor after a night of partying. Despite being a firm atheist, I still regularly listened to Elvis Presley’s Peace In the Valley album. It reminded me of the stability of the quiet South that my heart was always craving. Somehow, the gospel crooning hit me differently that day.

Before I knew what my hands where doing, I found myself on the phone with my dad asking him questions about the Bible. Everything I had believed in spun around all at once; what I thought was logic suddenly flipped into idiocy as I fell into the real truth. There is a God, and He loves me. Not only that, but He had been watching my aimless bumbling for all of these years. In glorious awe and desperate embarrassment all at once, I knew I had to make quick changes.

That same month, I enrolled in Tallahassee Christian College and Training Center to uncover more truth. Despite being raised in church, I realized that what I heard in Sunday School lacked the depth that I needed. I had so much to learn about what God expected of me, and I craved that knowledge.

Self Development

I volunteered at the Christian college and my parents kindly helped me move into a safe apartment complex in town. Between getting my education, trying to recover the shambles I had left my life in and anxiously trying to spread the gospel to everyone who looked my way (whether they were willing to listen or not), my time was occupied. Despite that occupation, I still needed a stable job.

After a year of praying and countless failed interviews, I realized I hadn’t done the one thing I dreaded; confess to the people in my life that I was struggling to find a job. The same day I begrudgingly opened up about my problems to my friends, they were solved. I was offered a job at a local print shop a few hours after my transparency.

I worked at the print shop for four years, from 2019 to 2023. I received real-time education in graphic design, web design and marketing. I even got to know one of my coworkers, who I coincidentally crossed paths with many times at college; my now husband, Matt. He had been working at that print shop since he was seventeen years old and was a graduate of the same college.

Craving More

With four years of experience under my belt and seventeen under his, Matt and I found ourselves ready for change. While the job had been good to us, there was nowhere further to grow. The “stability” I always dreamed of, I finally had. Unfortunately, I began to realize that it felt more like monotony; and I hated it.

It wasn’t that the things in my life weren’t good; they were fantastic. I loved my job, I love Tallahassee, I love Matt. The problem was that it was the same thing, every day. It felt like living in Groundhog Day. I could move to a new city and get a new job; but wouldn’t I just feel the same way again in a few years?

After Matt’s own life of consistency, he was feeling the same way. We were tired of our own materialism, insane rent prices and selling hours of our lives to someone else just to keep our heads above water. We found ourselves dreaming about being self-made, operating our own lives, seeing the world and getting out from under all of the “stuff” that the world tends to throw on you.

One way we thought about doing that was moving into an RV. Let’s be real, though; my family went through several RV’s in my life. They’re expensive, break constantly and heavily depreciate in value. From there, we looked into “van-lifing”. It felt better, but premade vans are exorbitant and we lacked the time to build our own. That led us down the rabbit trail of wondering what we could tow with Matt’s Hyundai Tucson.

Finding Ourselves, Together

In October of 2022, the 13ft Scamp fell into our laps. They’re affordable, long-lasting and towable. Best of all, we wouldn’t have to buy a new car. We found Elsa and Barron’s videos on YouTube, giggling about how silly it would be to try to pull off living in such a tiny (but cute) space. There was no way.

As we kept pushing through the days and feeling more miserable by the second, the idea of the Scamp still loomed in the back of my mind. Was it really that silly? Matt and I never cared much about our belongings; he already chose to keep most of his possessions in one backpack. I loved my thrifted nick-knacks, but I would let anything go for a life that wasn’t this anymore.

I began sifting through Facebook Marketplace for used Scamps and joining all of the online forums. On December 4^th of 2022, I found a seller asking $18,000 for a practically untouched 2019 Scamp 13ft only a few hours away in Pompano Beach, FL. By that afternoon, we were on FaceTime, looking at what we both knew would be our new home. The only issue is that we weren’t married yet, and didn’t want to live together until we were; and the seller had other interested buyers.

After four years together, we knew we wanted to get married; we had conversations about it for the last two years of dating and planned to marry sometime in 2023. Would it really hurt to bypass a big wedding for the sake of moving into our new dream life together? We both quickly knew in our hearts the answer to that question.

By December 18^th, 2022, Matt proposed. On December 23^rd, we were married in a private ceremony at the Leon County Courthouse. December 30^th, we drove to Pompano Beach and picked up our new tiny house on wheels. We left our jobs on February 28^th and moved into our trailer full-time in March 2023 with some money in our pockets from selling our possessions and the road in front of us. We rescued our dog, Koda from a neglectful owner that same month.

The Present

We now travel, blog and create content on social media and YouTube. I still pay my half of the bills with graphic design, but I aspire to spread education about how to get started as a nomad and share my life experiences with you full-time. We don’t yet understand everything that is cut out for us, but we’re going to continue walking in faith and pursuing our calling.

If you’re reading this because you’re feeling the same burnout of monotony, maybe an outside-of-the-box lifestyle is meant for you, too. Follow along with my life and sign up for newsletters to receive educational tools on how to start seeing life as a journey again.

Thank you for reading and following my adventures.