Thank you for visiting our blog! We are Dan and Jonell Anderson, and in 2013 we decided to throw caution to the wind and radically change our lifestyle. We sold our house, belongings (most of them!), quit our jobs and purchased a 5th wheel. We are too young to retire, so we will be working and traveling around this great country of ours.
Jonell has spent the last 10 years working at a level one trauma center as a CT Technologist, and Dan was a Math Teacher for 27 years. Originally we planned to work until “retirement age”, and then travel the country. But one thing Jonell learned over the years while working at the hospital was how quickly a person’s life can change through accident or illness. She has talked with too many people who were waiting until they had just the right amount of money, or were waiting for just the right circumstances before pursuing their dreams. And then “something” happened, and they were never able to fulfill those dreams.
Life is too short. For the past several years, we have been following several blogs, reading books and attending rally’s to talk with other full-timers. The one thing we hear over and over from other full-timers, is that they wish they would have started sooner. And many of them encouraged us to follow our dreams now, rather than waiting. So when Dan hit the “Big 5-0” in 2013, we knew it was time to pursue our dreams, and off we went!!
Currently we have no source of income other than our savings and the jobs we do on the road. As we begin to get a little older we do have IRA’s, investments, a pension, and Social Security to assist us with income.
We plan on sharing our experiences work camping, and playing tourist. We appreciate comments on our blog, and hope you will follow along on our journey! If you want to contact us directly, we can be reached at: liv2rv@gmail.com
Click on the link HERE to view a short eight minute video to learn more about us. This video is compliments of Chris and Cherie of Technomadia who interviewed us in January of 2014 while we were vacationing with a great group of RV’ers in Cedar Key, Florida.
Liv2RV 
Nice rig!
Have a safe trip. Mom and Dad
Looking good. Travel safe. We will see you sometime on the road “in the Heartland Section”.
Looking forward to following your journey! Can’t wait to see pictures and hear all about it! We’re excited for all 3 of you! ~The Kierzeks 🙂
Enjoy, can’t wait to hear about your adventures.
Thanks Jeanine! You too could be retiring soon!!
We are excited to keep updated on your adventures.
Thanks for visiting our site. Remember you can sign up to get email notifications when we make updates.
Mike and I both will be following your blog and keeping up with your adventures. Good luck and have fun!
Thanks for following along! Maybe we can be somewhere camping where Mike goes huntiing? We can all get together.
Hey kids, I found your blog through Phil and Rudee. It was nice to meet you last week and tour your lovely rig. You are doing a much better job of covering the territory than I am, I find it harder working the night shift; sleeping so late leaves little time to explore :-(. Maybe we’ll have time to visit longer in Florida this winter…Cedar Key isn’t that far from us. Come down to Crystal River one day and we’ll kayak with the manatees!
It was great meeting with you both. We would love to get together again and have more time to do something fun. Take care
You two are a true inspiration to a lot of the people who are planning to go full-time as an RV’er. I retired after 27 years in law enforcement and like Jonell, I have seen too much death and realized everyone waits until it is the right time, never knowing their time on this earth was up sooner that they thought. I planning a full time launch in the spring of 2015.
Thanks for posting the blog and again you are a true inspiration for us “too young to retire” crowd. Stay safe and take care.
Thanks for the kind words and for following our blog. Fear holds most people back from pursuing their dreams. Best wishes as you begin to follow yours!
Hello,
I found your blog on Word Press. We are heading to the Rapid City area soon and were wondering if you had an RV Park recommendation that would be centrally located to all of the great sights to see in the area. We are in a 40 foot motorhome. Thanks and looks like you guys are doing it right! Traci Miller
http://www.todayisoursomeday.com
We have a 40′ fifth wheel and we stayed at Heritage Village Campground. It is a basic no frills campsite located about a mile south of Crazy Horse Memorial and four miles north of Custer. There are numerous other campgrounds between Rapid City, Custer and Keystone that would accommodate your rig. However, it would be hard for us to recommend any one of thse campsites over another since we did not stay at any of them. There is so much to see and do in the Black Hills and Custer State Park you probably won’t spend much time at your campground other than to eat and sleep. The scenery is beautiful and you can check out some of our other blogs to see what activities we would recommend.
Hi Dan and Jonell, can’t wait to read through some of your adventures! I’ve been couchsurfing and volunteering for the past two years between part-time work, but am attacking seasonal work in earnest this year in our National Parks. Looking forward to getting to know more in this community! Happy Travels!
Thanks Donna – we will be working in West Yellowstone this summer and plan on spending a lot of time exploring Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.
Hi Dan & Jonell, We want to start a blog for our trip, Started a Blog with WordPress, but is very confusing. Any thoughts on how to really get going with it? Don’t know if you remember us, but we are in Brian and Annette’s Bible Study.
Jeannie & Dean
Hi Jeannie and Dean
Great to hear from you! WordPress can be a challenge, because there are many things to set up. And they always seem to be changing things. The site now looks nothing like it did when I first set up our blog.
I do know several people that have set a blog with Googles Blogger. Sounds like it is easier to use. They don’t have as many features from what I have heard, so this may be a better option for you.
You can find more information from this link.
https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/1623800?hl=en
Just plan on spending an hour or two setting it up for the first time.
If you want to use WordPress, go under their support tab, and they will have many topics to read.
Let us know what you end up doing. We would be happy to help you out. Wish we were coming home for Christmas, as we could get together and work on this.
Feel free to ask any questions.
Have a wonderful Christmas!
Dan and Jonell
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Love your blog, your dog and your photos. Speaking of photos, would you please consider allowing me to use one of your buffalo photos for a small Kansas Day project?
Stacy you have our permission to use some photos. If you want, I can email the photo. Thanks
Dan and Jonell
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My client is ecstatic. He was in awe that I could find such a perfect image for our purposes. I was able to pull one off the web that is suitable. If you would like to see a proof of the end product, send me an e-mail and I’ll zap a pdf file over to you. Thank you for sharing your lives and your photos.
Peace!
Happy Birthday Dan… It’s 12 o’clock here which means another digit is added to your grand total. Hope you find a great place in the Tetons to celebrate….
Hi,
We are excited to see how successful you have been with your RV lifestyle, of course, I’m referring to Makena…ha ha. We are planning on going on the road in a year and so thank you for taking the time to keep us informed on your progress.
How far in advance do start trying to secure your next workamper job? Whether it’s with Amazon or a campground.
Thanks again for the blog and much success,
Rick & Ruth Holcomb
Thank you so much for following along on our RV journey! We generally try to secure our summer work camping positions a year in advance. We prefer to find positions where you receive a paid RV site along with pay for all hours worked. We also look for these positions in areas of the country we would like to explore. We have thoroughly enjoyed our last four summers exploring the Black Hills, Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park. As far as Amazon is concerned, we apply in January or February for a peak position that usually starts in October or the beginning of November.
You can go to our website, liv2rv.com, and use the search feature to look back on our past summers or to find out about a place that might interest you. If there is any other questions we can help you with, please let us know. We hope all goes well with your preparations to hit the road! 😀😀😀
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Hello! I’m really interested in your journey and wondered if you have a youtube channel?
How are you enjoying your 5th wheel?
How have you dealt with the healthcare on the road issue?
I’m trying to estimate a monthly budget and would love to know of any unanticipated expenses you’ve had to deal with?
Thanks again for sharing!
Hi Ken
We do not have a You Tube channel. We are enjoying the 5th wheel. We decided on it since we would be in a spot working for several months at a time. It just works out well for us. There is no right or wrong decision on what to full-time in. We know many people who are happy in travel trailers, as well as Class A and C vehicles.
Budgeting is a very important consideration. We followed Howard Payne’s expenses on RV-Dreams website. When we are Workamping, our expenses are very minimal, as the job usually includes your site for free or minimal cost. So our expenses are insurance (health and RV/truck), groceries, gas, laundry and entertainment.
We have insurance through Progressive, as they cover full-timers. Health insurance is through Florida Blue (on the ACA marketplace). The cost depends on your anticipated income. It works out well for us, and many others that we know on the road.
What you spend now on groceries is what you will spend on the road. Laundry averages about $30/month for us.
We have not had any ‘surprise’ expenses so far. But we do have an emergency fund, which I strongly recommend, for everyone.
Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for following along!
Take care
Jonell
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I’m Steven. I just retired in November, at 54, with a pension. Found your video on YouTube, and it’s very inspiring. Before I retired I decided to head in the direction you two have, and have been reading and researching, so finding your video was both comforting and informative. I will soon be selling my house in California, already have a toy hauler, and will upgrade my truck after selling the house. Anyway, glad to have found your blog, and look forward to keeping up with your travels.
Thanks Steve and congrats on the beginning of your new lifestyle!
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Hi Dan and Jonnell, you might not remember me, but I worked with Dan at Lancaster Middle School way back when. I have enjoyed reading your blog and am happy for both of you to enjoy this adventure. I retired 6 years ago and we winter in Destin, Fl and we are back in WI now. We love FL and the wonderful adventures we have taken while we stay there. Enjoy your trips and if you’re in Fl in Jan., Feb, and first part of March, look us up. Dick and Carol Caley
Dick and Carol:
Thank you for following along with our blog and congratulations on your retirement! We remember you very well and hope all of the Caley’s are doing well. We will definitely look you up if we are in the Destin, Florida area during one of our future winter stays.
Take care and go Flying Arrows, Jonell and Dan
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Greg mentioned you two are roaming USA in an RV. Awesomeness!!!! Looking forward to seeing your adventures.