How I Respond When People Tell Me to Live in the “Real World”

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Recently a stranger commented on a blog I wrote about why we love RVing and said this:

“Personally, I think you’re just using it as an excuse to avoid living in the real world and taking some responsibility for yourselves.”

This isn’t the first time someone has said something like this to us, or asked, “When are you coming back to the real world?”

When people see two twenty-six-year-olds driving around the country in an RV, there is instant judgment placed on us. Obviously, we are rich, entitled, or hit some kind of lottery that enabled us to go escape “the real world” and travel full-time.

Of course, the truth is we aren’t rich. We work a typical 40-ish hour work week and unless Alyssa is hiding something from me, we have won no lottery. All of these factors make it a lot more fun to answer the question of when we’re going to live in the “real world”.

Short answer: Never.

I’ll get to the longer answer in a minute, but first I want to acknowledge why I think people ask this question in the first place.

Here are a few reasons I’ve come up with so far:

Reason #1 They have a limited view of what is possible.

Asking someone when they are going to return to the real world implies that if we are traveling the country in an RV, we simply cannot be living in the real world. I guess in their mind it is not possible for responsibility to coexist with travel (at least at a young age).

In this scenario, I simply walk people through how we earn a living on the road, how we’ve paid off $27,000 in student debt, contribute to a Roth IRA, and actually do quite normal things—we just happen to live in an RV.

This is usually met with a slight nod and glazed over eyes that say “Sure, that’s cute. But when are you actually going to come back to the real world?”

I think if you’ve believed in something all your life (i.e you should go to college, get a job, buy a house, have a couple kids, and then you’re successful, etc), it can be hard to process somebody going against these things. In the mind of many people we’ve met, living in the real world involves following the same, normal path as everyone else.

And in that way, we are far from normal.

Reason #2 They aren’t satisfied with their own life.

I’m convinced that some people ask this question because they aren’t happy with their own life decisions. They’ve sacrificed in their career, they’ve quit dreaming big, or they let go of all ambition.

I know this because I can see it in their eyes when they talk about the real world. In their minds, the real world sucks. The real world has a dismal future where Donald Trump has 10 more kids who all succeed him in office and take over the world.

The real world isn’t a place where you can travel full-time at 26. That’s too good to be true.

Ultimately, I feel sorry for these people. I feel bad for them because they live in a world of limited possibility. They live in a world where they’ve given up and accepted the status quo.

The status quo says you aren’t supposed to love your job, your house can’t have wheels, and to be normal you need 2.5 kids and a house you can’t afford.

Reason #3 They don’t understand that times have changed.

A little more than four years ago, Alyssa and I didn’t know living and traveling in an RV was a realistic lifestyle for us. I’d seen people who traveled the world, but those were expert photographers for National Geographic or successful entrepreneurs.

I was neither.

I didn’t know there was a middle ground, that it was possible for us to learn skill sets like video production from scratch and then monetize them for client work, all while RVing. We didn’t know we’d be part of a growing community of people who were already choosing to live, work and travel the country in an RV. We didn’t know that we could consult for companies like Winnebago, create a documentary film, or start a software business.

What first seemed impossible because it would be crazy expensive or out of reach, has become our new norm.

The truth is that you don’t have to break the bank to travel, RVs don’t have to be crazy expensive, and whether you start your own business or find a remote job, there have never been more opportunities to make a living on the road.

So, back to the original question: How do I respond when people ask me about the real world?

I tell them we have no immediate plans to quit traveling and settle down.

We’ve built a remote community of friends who we see and talk to on a daily and weekly basis. Our work is very much intertwined with our travels and vice versa. Plus, we’re making a great living while able to explore this amazing country. We’re doing most of the things that people do while stationary, but just happen to be traveling in an RV.

I don’t believe in doing things conventionally, just because that is the way they’ve always been done. I think it would also be a shame to have the opportunities we’ve been given in technology and industry and not take full advantage of them. Besides, who is to say what is the “real world” anyway?

It’s a lot more fun to create your own path than try to fit into everyone else’s definition of successful.