Inside the RV: Meet Kerensa and Brandon

I’m always so curious about other RVers. Every time I walk around an RV park or campground, I just want to know each and every person’s story. Are they here for the weekend? Do they full-time RV? What’s their RV look like inside?

But since I run a business and have a toddler, I don’t always have time to get to know every camper around me. That’s why I came up with my series, Inside the RV. This is an interview series I’ve been doing for over a year where I interview other RVers and get to know all about them and their decision to go into full-time RVing.

Check out all the interviews I’ve done here. 

And watch my video with Brandon and Kerensa below! (or keep scrolling to read!)

Disclosure: Some of the links contained below are affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase, I would receive a small commission (at no cost to you). 

https://www.facebook.com/thevirtualcampground/videos/1862610207091320/

Meet Kerensa and Brandon!

This week I got the opportunity to know Kerensa and Brandon of RV to Freedom better. I was thrilled they agreed to the interview, as they are very busy and successful RV entrepreneurs.

I first learned about them in November 2017. I saw a cute little graphic on Instagram advertising an “RV to Freedom” course. I clicked through to the sales page and holy cow! These people, whoever they were, had it going on! They had created a complete and thorough course on how to transition into the full-time RV lifestyle. It looked amazing.

It also stirred up a little competition in me, as I was just about to launch a similar product, the Full-Time Freedom Bundle.

Anyway, I knew they were people I wanted to get to know so I immediately friended Kerensa and we started chatting a bit here and there. I recently asked them for the full story to share with The Virtual Campground.

Here it is:

Kerensa and Brandon! Please, tell us about yourselves!

Our traveling family consists of the two of us (Kerensa & Brandon) and our two dogs, Lucy and Kona. At one point, we traveled with two cats, too! So no kids, but lots of fur.

(Hope they have a good vacuum!)

What brought up full-time RV life to you? Why did you decide to adopt this lifestyle?

We were looking for something different, almost like a way out of of the normal 9-5 life we were living. We were pursuing different paths when we had a realization. We were happiest when we were on the road traveling somewhere, anywhere.

It didn’t matter if it was a road trip to visit family or out camping in our pop-up. Brandon said that’s when he saw me smile the most and look truly happy. How sad is that? I never felt unhappy with him or our life, but he could see what brought me true happiness.

At that point, we decided to look into this full-time RVing thing.

So I gotta ask, what kind of RV did you settle on after the decision?

Well, we currently have a 30-ft gas motorhome (Newmar Bay Star). BUT, this wasn’t our first full-time rig.

We started out with a 40-ft diesel pusher motorhome, but found that it didn’t suit us. Although it was beautiful and had a ton of room for a party full of friends, we had to make compromises in other areas that became our priority.

We decided to switch to a smaller RV, so that we could be more nimble and fit in more spots.

We also wanted to add solar to our boondocking arsenal, so we wanted a solid roof- something we questioned on our old RV.

We stayed with a motorhome, which enabled us to keep our Xterra as a tow vehicle. We got the Xterra to get us farther off the beaten path, so we really didn’t want to give it up.

So far this combination has worked out well for us and we’re quite happy with it.

So not only did you downsize from your home, then you downsized rigs. How did you do it?

Downsizing is probably the hardest part about going full-time.

When we started this process, we lived in a high rise building outside New York City. In the past with a house, we used to have occasional garage sales to get rid of things, but that wasn’t an option there.

We accumulated so much stuff in what really was a short amount of time. We had to pay to haul all of it to a house we rented in the year prior to us leaving.

It seems like a big waste now.

Once there, we really started trying to go through it. Honestly, we just conquered one room at a time. Since we had a year, I would make multiple passes over items and ditch more each time.

As the leave date gets closer, it’s amazing how much more your mind is ready to give up!

Our garage became so full of things, we decided to just have an estate sale to get rid of it all at once. We had other things that needed attention and it was a relief to have someone else deal with pricing and selling it.

Wow! Great advice. And how long ago was that?

We left in January of 2014, so it’s been over 4 years now.

That’s quite a while. How have your full-time RV plans evolved?

I don’t know if we ever really had a true plan, but our style has evolved.

We had heard that many people burn out their first year trying to move too fast, so we purposely tried to travel slower staying at least a month in each spot when we started out. By the second year, that became too slow for us and we sped up our travels.

Now our stays are really dependent on circumstances and plans. Sometimes we’re making very short jumps of less than 100 miles and stay a few days.

Other times we’ll stay longer if it’s somewhere we really want to explore or if we just need to stay still.

Two weeks does seem to be a sweet spot for us.

We also use to plan month long stays to save on campground fees. Now, most of our time is spent outside of campgrounds boondocking. Or moockdocking when around family or friends.

And after 4 years, how do you afford this lifestyle? Has that evolved too?

Originally, we folded our corporate careers into consulting gigs and that funded our travels.

We also wanted to work in the RVing realm, so I started an online marketing company with a friend focused on the travel and RV industries. And of course, we started RV to Freedom. RV to Freedom is all about helping others achieve their dreams of full-time RVing.

It’s what we love to do. We host a Facebook live talk show once a week, and also put on webinars and have created a course to help others join the full-time RV lifestyle.

Most recently, we started working with Escapees RV Club as it was another way to help RVers. We’re passionate about RVing and helping other RVers, so it’s become our focus and where all the hustle goes.

Despite RVing being your passion, there’s got to be low points. What’s the hardest part about full-time RV life?

The hardest thing for us is doing major projects.

You often need a time and place for this type of work, neither of which are readily available. We have to find a place that we can sit for the amount of time necessary and that usually means not boondocking, our preferred camping method. And while we carry some tools with us, we don’t have a garage with saws and more readily available.

We’ve put off some projects for this reason. We’ll get to them soon, though. We’re up for the challenge.

I love your enthusiasm! Now let’s hear the best part of RVing for you guys.

The best part about RV life for us is being in charge of our own lives.

We can decide where we want to go, when we want to go, and how long we want to stay. If we need to go home to help out family, we can turn our wheels and do it.

That wasn’t an option when we lived far away and had limited vacation time.

It sounds like RVing really was your path to freedom. What else have you gained from this lifestyle?