Why We’re Traveling to All 50 States of America

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Today’s guest post is by Hudson and Emily of hudsonandemily.com (Yay another couple who uses their names as their URL!) I have a soft spot in my heart for other couples who decide to take 50 state road trips, so I asked if they would share why they decided to embark on this big adventure together!

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“Think of the stories you want to tell someday, then go out and live them.”

This motto of ours motivated us to quit our jobs, buy an old RV on Craigslist, and travel to all 50 states of America.

We’re about four months into that journey and have already learned so much about who we want to be, what we don’t know (lots – especially when it comes to RV mechanics!), where we’d love for our lives to take us, and how blessed we are to live in this beautiful country.

But the biggest question we get asked is WHY.

Flashback to 5th grade: we grew up 15 minutes from each other and met on a field trip at the most romantic of all places (a sewage plant)! We started dating at 16, and our freshman year of college came up with this dream: if we get married, what if we buy an RV and travel the country?!

After getting married in 2012, we moved from good ol’ PA to a DC/Baltimore suburb. We really enjoyed where we lived, our jobs, and the friends God blessed us with there.

So why quit our jobs, why sell our stuff and renovate a 312 square foot “home”, and why intentionally choose to postpone buying a house and having babies like most normal couples who’ve been married 5 years?

Quitting the path to “the American dream” – and following a new path (literally) to our true American dream of traveling to all 50 states – took a lot of intentional planning and saving. And it still isn’t easy…just keeping it real here, we’ve:

• burst almost all the pipes in our RV (note to self…winterize earlier next year!)
• backed into/knocked over a stop sign (guess that’s what backup cameras are for, whoops)
• gone many nights without showering (current record is eight)
• broke down in the middle of nowhere by the World’s Largest Ball of Twine (but who else can say they’ve spent the night by the World’s Largest Ball of Twine?!)

To quote Heath & Alyssa (in this post): “We simply made a conscious choice to pursue a life of adventure together, even if that meant failing miserably and looking a bit ridiculous in the process.”

Thankfully, we’ve learned to laugh at ourselves along the way (even if it’s after freaking out that a tornado is about to hit us). And, as my sister reminded us, everything in life is either a good time or a good story. And we wouldn’t trade that for anything.

So back to the WHY.

We’ve both always enjoyed traveling. We love spending time together. And we really want to experience this amazing country we’re so blessed to live in.

Sure, it might not have been the best financial decision to quit our jobs at 25. But why wait until you’re 65 to start living your dream?

Life is so short, and even if it means waiting an extra 10 years to retire, we didn’t want to look back and regret not having taken this trip sooner. We were especially reminded of that when Hud’s dad, one of our biggest encouragers, unfortunately passed away from a heart attack. As hard as that has been, it also was a good reminder to not wait until we’re retired to live our dreams.

So we’ve chosen to really assess: What are the stories we want to tell our grandkids? Will it be the days we sat in an office staring at the clock, or the day we bungee jumped and did a straight 130 foot freefall?

RV life is always an adventure and sometimes we just look at each other and laugh because we know nothing about RVs. But we love spending 24/7 together and it’s amazing how much our RV feels like home even when it’s in a random parking lot (which is almost every night).

Full-time RVing around the country has been such an incredible experience. Here’s a little snapshot of the past four months…

• Swam with sharks
• Realized how much we used to take showers for granted
• Drove a Lamborghini in the Rocky Mountains
• Met some of the nicest people
• Survived North America’s tallest ropes course
• Been reminded daily that Google Maps is the bomb dot com
• Randomly met country duo Florida Georgia Line
• Learned that sometimes the coolest places truly are off the beaten path

Although this adventure may not always be the easiest or most secure, we are so incredibly grateful for the memories it’s allowed us to make. And each day, we try to remind ourselves to slow down and “think of the stories we want to tell someday, then go out and live them.”

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