RV living, Travel Stories & Nomadic Lifestyle How-To Tutorials

Are you dreaming of RV living or sailing the oceans, or perhaps wondering what it would be like to travel full-time and live a nomadic lifestyle? We are Emily and Mark Fagan, and we’ve been there and done that! Back in 2007 we left convention behind to live a life of adventure on the road, and this website is filled with inspiring travel stories and articles about everything we’ve learned along the way.

Full-time RVers with puppy living nomadic lifestyle and traveling in Montana

Emily and Mark Fagan with our puppy Buddy in Montana.

OUR MOST RECENT POSTS:

For thirteen years we traveled full-time by RV, and for some of those years by sailboat too, and we’ve been sharing our travel stories as well as our cruising and RV lifestyle tips on this website ever since we started.

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Sunrise in Kansas

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Sunset in Nova Scotia

We have enjoyed several fabulous rolling and floating homes during all these years of travel, and we changed rigs and modes of transport as our personal dreams and ambitions evolved.

2022 Genesis Supreme 28CRT Toy Hauler

Our current rig for seasonal travels: 2022 Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler and 2016 Ram dually truck

Arctic Fox 860 Truck Camper towing Polaris 900 RZR

Our previous rig for seasonal travels: 2005 Arctic Fox 860 camper on a 2016 Ram dually truck
towing a 2017 Polaris 900 XC RZR on a flatbed trailer

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Our (former) full-time rolling home: a 2007 36′ Hitchhiker fifth wheel and 2016 Ram Dually truck — in Utah

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Our (former) floating home “Groovy,” a 2008 Hunter 44DS, in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez

Our travels have taken us throughout North America, from Canada to Mexico, RVing scenic back roads and byways and sailing Mexico’s Pacific coast. This blog brings our wealth of knowledge to you.

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Grand Teton Natiional Park in Wyoming.

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A rainbow over saguaro cactus in Arizona

From RV tech tips and RV lifestyle tips to cruising tips and travel stories, from full-time RVing ideas and pointers to a vivid glimpse of what goes into RV living, we give you the tools you need to plan your escape and live the dream of a nomadic lifestyle!

Our goal is to inspire you, to lift your spirits with fun travel stories, and to share our tips for how we’ve lived the dream of traveling full-time by RV and sailboat in an exciting nomadic lifestyle.

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Barns and mountains in eastern Oregon

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East Quoddy Head Lighthouse offshore from Lubec, Maine, and Campobello Island, New Brunswick

OUR STORY IN A NUTSHELL

We began our full-time RV travels in 2007 in a 27′ travel trailer. We criss-crossed the US in that RV for a year and then upgraded to a 36′ fifth wheel. (You can see our progression of trucks and trailers at this link: Our Rigs for Full-timing (also in the menu)).

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Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia

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Horseshoe Bend in Arizona

At the beginning of 2010, after nearly 3 years of full-timing in our RV, we bought a sailboat and took our travels to the sea. For the better part of the next 4 years, we cruised our 44′ sailboat Groovy up and down the entire 2,000 mile Pacific coast of Mexico, spending the summertime hurricane seasons traveling in our trailer in the US while Groovy waited for us in Mexico.

We sailed from the US border to the Guatemala border, and visited almost every Mexican port in betwen, including the Sea of Cortez. We also headed inland for some of our best adventures, taking public buses on long journeys to see Mexico’s magical colonial cities and visit the mind-blowing Mayan ruins way down south in the jungle.

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Conception Bay in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez

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Las Hadas in Manzanillo, Mexico

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Catching dinner.

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Sunset in Zihuatanejo, Mexico

In the summer of 2013, we did the infamous Baja Bash, sailing Groovy uphill against the wind and waves from Puerto Vallarta back to San Diego. For the entire 1,200 mile journey we were in tucked in the sweet spot between two hurricanes, riding the coattails of one and being chased by another!

In early 2014 we said goodbye to our beautiful sailboat Groovy for the last time, and returned to RV living full-time. In 2020 we put roots back down again and returned to living in a stick-built home and embarked on summertime RV travels with a truck camper.

Sailing into the sunset

We loved Groovy and cruising Mexico but we were excited to return to living exclusively in our RV.


You can learn the rest of our backstory before we became full-time travelers on our About Us page (in the menu too). For a thrilling overview of our first ten years of full-time travel — chock full of gorgeous photos — check out these two posts:

In our nomadic lifestyle we have both discovered and nurtured a deep love of photography, and I (Emily…the author and webmaster of this site) have pursued my lifelong love of writing as well.

We have both grown tremendously as photographers — photography has become a truly shared passion for us — and this website is a fun testament to our improved techniques and maturing artistry from 2007 to the present!

For tips on how we learned photography and the gear we use, visit our photography page (also found in the menu).

Over the years we have published our photos and travel articles extensively in various print and online publications.

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Sedona Arizona

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Las Vegas, Nevada

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Zion National Park, Utah

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Bryce Canyon, Utah

PUBLISHED WORK

We have published over 200 feature articles in the major RVing and Sailing magazines, and 34 of our photos have appeared on magazine covers in the RV and sailing industries. We’ve also created a video guide series for cruising Mexico.

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Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada

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Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, Canada

In 2017 we began authoring a column on the back page of Trailer Life Magazine showcasing our photos of special places we’ve been.

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New York’s Watkins Glen State Park impressed me so much I featured it in my May 2017 Trailer Life Magazine column!

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A wild lovebird in a saguaro cactus in Arizona



RV LIVING and OUR NOMADIC LIFESTYLE

In our nomadic lifestyle we have lived almost exclusively off the grid on solar power. In our RV living we like to “boondock,” that is, camp independently on America’s gorgeous public lands, away from campgrounds and RV parks.

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Camping in Utah

In our sailing life we “anchored out” in bays and coves rather than staying in marinas.

Hunter 44DS sailboat anchored in Mexico in our nomadic lifetsyle-min

Anchoring out on Mexico’s Costalegre

In our years of full-time travel, we spent a total of 4,308 nights living off-grid on solar and battery power: 3,495 nights boondocking in our RV and 905 nights anchoring out on our sailboat. This unique nomadic lifestyle has taught us a lot about how to live simply and frugally, without “hookups” to power or water. We continue to avoid campgrounds and RV parks and boondock 100% of the time in our truck camper travels.

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Morning mist in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona

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Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

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Deer in eastern Wyoming

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A mountain bluebird catches breakfast in the Black Hills of South Dakota

NAVIGATING THIS WEBSITE

With over 1,000 articles on this website, there is a ton of info for you about RVing full-time as well as cruising tips for sailors. And there are plenty of travel stories for armchair travelers too.

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The “golden hour” at dusk in South Dakota

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Crater Lake National Park in Oregon — It really is that shade of blue!

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A surprise September snowstorm in Colorado

To get yourself oriented so you can easily navigate to the articles that interest you, please visit these links which explain how the website is laid out:

RVers Start Here! Cruisers Start Here!

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Taking a break from photographing Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

WHERE DID WE GET THE NAME FOR OUR BLOG?

We are perpetually wandering off the well-worn paths of other travelers.

So, years ago, a friend sent me an email referencing Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken after he read my post about why we are pursuing this travel dream. Reading his heartfelt note, I realized the poet’s sentiments matched the theme of our travels.

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What an inviting road to go see the fall foliage in Colorado!

The final lines of that famous poem, written so long ago, ring true for us today:

Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

Perhaps you are at a crossroad in your life. We hope that if, like us, you decide to follow the many roads that are less traveled by, it will make all the difference for you too.

As John Irving once noted, “If you are lucky enough to find a way of life that you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”

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A rainbow breaks through the rain and fog in Montana

Have a look around, and if you like what you see —

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— Emily and Mark

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Two very happy campers at Banff National Park, Canada

Below are some of our most POPULAR POSTS (also in the MENUS above)

Buddy - A Journey in Spirit - The story of an event that changed our lives forever.

ARTICLE INDEXES
  • RV Tech Tips Articles - A one page index of links to all our RV Tech Tips, RV Upgrades & RV Maintenance articles.
  • RV Lifestyle Tip Articles - An index of links to all our RV Lifestyle Tips (finances, boondocking, major repairs, work/jobs, etc.)
  • Solar Power Articles - Overview and tutorial articles for how to design and install solar power on an RV or boat
  • Product Reviews - An index of links to all of our Product Reviews
RV UPGRADES, SYSTEMS & TIPS MONEY FULL-TIME RV LIFESTYLE GEAR STORE
  • Gear Store - A list of the goodies, equipment and gear we've found useful in our RV lifestyle!
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On the roads less traveled in Utah 🙂

Summary
RV living, Travel Stories & Nomadic Lifestyle Tutorials
Article Name
RV living, Travel Stories & Nomadic Lifestyle Tutorials
Description
RV living tips, travel stories and nomadic lifestyle tutorials by RVers and sailors living the dream of endless travel in a fifth wheel trailer and sailboat since 2007.
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