We Almost Didn't Go — And Why We're Leaving Anyway
There's something we need to tell you before we get to the part about the trip.
We almost didn't go.
Not in a passing-thought kind of way. Not "oh, wouldn't it be nice to settle down someday" — but real conversations, loan applications looked at, land prices researched. The farm we've been living on since January checks almost every box we've ever had. Space, quiet, community, soil. And with costs rising on everything — fuel, food, parts, campgrounds — staying put and homesteading for a while started to feel less like giving up and more like the smart move.
Five months in one driveway. Same view every morning. Same routine. It gets under your skin in ways you don't expect.
But here's what kept pulling us back.
The Road Has Never Stopped Calling
We didn't build this bus to sit still. We built it to explore communities that don't make the travel magazines. To uncover the stories held inside people in small towns that most travelers drive straight through. For all of the many adventures that are still just waiting for us to roll through.
At a certain point, Ben and I looked at each other and said the thing out loud: we didn't build this life to stay in one place out of fear of what might happen. And that was the moment the decision was made.
So we're going. In just 42 days, we’ll be pulling out of this driveway, and we won't come back for two years.
The Trip We Built This Bus For
This isn't a road trip. It's the road trip — the one we've been planning in our heads since the first week we started renovating our bus.
We're talking the Great Lakes loop, through the Upper Peninsula and up into Michigan's copper country. Then west to Big Sky — Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Glacier, the wide open of Montana. South through the Oregon Coast and Olympic Peninsula before dropping down through California into Baja for four months over the winter. We'll watch gray whales in Guerrero Negro in January. Wake up in La Paz. Spend time in the artist colonies and small towns that make Baja one of the most alive places we've ever been.
Then back north through Arizona's hidden gems — Bisbee, Jerome, places that stop you in your tracks — before New England fall foliage, the Deep South, the Gulf Coast, and eventually back home.
Two years of all the places we've ever put on a list and then driven past because the timing wasn't right.
The timing is right now - even if the current economy is trying to convince us otherwise.
What the Next 40 Days Actually Look Like
We won't sugarcoat it: the bus isn't ready. And neither, honestly, are we.
Brandi is hand-tiling a mosaic for the entry stairs — the first thing we see every time we walk through our own front door. It's tedious. It's impractical by most measures. But after four years of walking up the same ugly stairs, we want to come home to something that feels like us.
The dog crate situation is getting a full overhaul. (If you've seen recent videos, you know. If you haven't — don't judge us. It became the room you hide when guests come over, except it's in the middle of our living room.) Custom storage is going in. Counter space is coming back. Brandi's sanity may be restored.
Ben is doubling our battery storage — going up to 560 amp hours of lithium, roughly 13 kilowatt hours — which means four months off-grid in Baja actually works the way we want it to. We both work from the bus. Losing power mid-edit somewhere on a dirt road in the peninsula isn't a minor inconvenience. It's the whole plan falling apart.
And then there's the shower. Four years we've been putting this off. Brandi has been terrified of water damage — and anyone who's seen what happens when a shower fails in a vehicle knows the fear is valid. We're doing it anyway. Tile work in a skoolie, by two people who have never tiled a shower before. We'll document the whole thing.
On top of all that: mechanical inspection head to toe, extreme downsizing (five years ago we arrived home from Morocco with four suitcases and nothing you see in this bus — somehow we've collected an entire life), trip planning, taxes on extension, deep clean.
Forty days.
One Thing You Can Do
We'll be honest about the money side of this, because you deserve honesty and because we think a lot of people feel the same economic weight right now.
This trip starts at the most expensive moment possible. Fuel is high. Costs are real. And for the past few years, YouTube has been something we do in the background — because we're running other businesses, managing the build, living the actual life. We haven't been treating it like the asset it could be.
That's changing. We're committed to showing up consistently now — the projects, the countdown, the road in real time. And we're close to YouTube monetization. We need about 1,000 more watch hours. If everyone who's subscribed watched just one hour of our content, we'd cross that line.
Once we're monetized, the videos we make on this trip generate income while we're living it. That changes the math in a real way — it's what makes this sustainable for two years instead of something we have to cut short.
So if this channel has ever given you something — a laugh, a few minutes of living vicariously, a little reminder that the life you're imagining is actually possible — now is the moment. Watch an hour. Share a video with one person you think would love it. It costs nothing, and it genuinely moves the needle.
See You on the Road
The board is up. The clock is running. We're filming every week of this — the projects coming off the list, the chaos, the things that go sideways, and then the driveway pull-out on departure day.
And then you're going to see the road.
Great Lakes. Pacific Northwest. Baja. New England. The Deep South. The places most people drive past without stopping.
We'll be stopping.
Come along!