The author and her husband live in a camper van.
Courtesy of Chris and Sara Aho
My husband and I had been married for two years when we sold most of our belongings on Facebook Marketplace, bought a van, and hit the road to explore the world outside our doorstep.One year. That's what we committed to justify the cost of converting the van into a home on wheels.At the time, we were working fully remote as self-employed contractors. My husband, Chris, designed websites for a living, and I was working as a contracted event planner for a company 3,000 miles away from our home in Seattle. Our jobs were only restricted by WiFi availability, which in 2018 was already widespread and accessible pretty much everywhere in the US. So off we went.We drove through all of the US (including Alaska), through much of Canada, and developed a love for life on the road. One year has turned into a seven-and-a-half-year adventure with no plans of stopping anytime soon.We've continued traveling for yearsWe grew a life and a business that was sustainable while always on the go. We shared our stories on YouTube and Instagram, and our jobs slowly became about telling stories from the road.After we finished traveling through all 50 states, we decided to take our adventures a step further: we wanted to drive from the US to Panama along the Pan-American Highway.We loaded our 1988 Land Cruiser camper with the essentials and headed straight for the border, nervous and unsure what working and living internationally would look like, but ready to give it a go.
