Ever since we started No Home Just Roam back in 2017, I’ve been meaning to create an FAQs page in case readers had questions about our 5 year, 50 state road trip.
I initially put it off because I figured once the road trip was underway, we’d have a better idea of what people actually wanted to know. After all, FAQs stands for Frequently Asked Questions, so I thought there would be some things we’d be asked frequently.
Sure enough, there are questions we’re asked a lot:
Do we travel in an RV?
How can we afford to travel full-time?
What’s been our favorite state?
What are we going to do once the road trip is over?
Don’t you get tired of traveling all the time?
What’s it like being around each other all the time?
There have also been slightly more random but equally interesting questions, like “What do you do with all your seasonal items?”
With COVID-19 rearing its ugly head, our road trip is somewhat paused. We’re still roaming, but not like we were. We used to move every 5-7 days, but for now we’re spending a month or so in one location at a time (check out this post for more information on what’s happening right now, including our current travel plans, how COVID-19 is affecting our finances, etc.).
Seeing as our opportunities to explore an area are greatly reduced to next-to-nothing right now, it means we have a little more time on our hands. Shae’s been filling hers with teaching, while I’ve been working on my various websites. There have been a number of projects I’ve been putting off due to not having enough time, so one benefit of staying home (well, staying in the same place in someone else’s home or a hotel!) is that I now have time to work on those.
That’s where you come in.
Your Questions
One of the projects I’ve been wanting to work on is to finally create an FAQs page for this site. We have a fairly good list of questions we’ve been asked over the last few years, but wanted to know if there’s anything that you’ve always wanted to know about.
Is there something about our 50 state road trip you’re curious about? Maybe it’s logistical. Maybe it’s personal. Maybe it’s random. Whatever it is that you’ve wondered, there’s a good chance that somebody else has wondered it to.
So if there’s something you want to know, please let us know in the comments below and we’ll include it in our upcoming FAQs section
Love reading your blog and Frequent Miler! Your blog reminds me a little bit of the journey that our friends Mike and Edie did a few years ago. They traveled around the US using last-minute timeshare rentals and Priceline finds and had a lot of fun. Their blog is here: https://www.fulltimetimeshare.com/. Might be some ideas for places for you to visit in the future. They hit almost every State capital and Presidential library. We met them via their blog when I offered them some food suggestions, and although we live on opposite coasts, we have become friends IRL-in fact, we were supposed to meet up in Florida at the end of March until the pandemic squashed those plans.
Posts that I would love to see:
1. What is typically in your take-along travel pantry? I think that you have written a little bit about this already, but an outline of what essential staples you tote along would be great.
2. Recipes/things to cook in a hotel kitchen.
3. Dealing with loneliness/missing family and friends while traveling. I know that you have each other, but is it hard not to have other friends and family members around?
4. What tools do you use to plan the next few stops?
Highly recommend a read of your entire blog to others looking to travel vicariously right now.
Awesome, thanks for all the suggestions. I’ll try to address those in the FAQs, but they’re also great ideas for separate blog posts as I can imagine some of my answers will be a little more lengthy!
What if you need to have your teeth cleaned or you need to see a doctor – what do you do?
Will you be extending your trip due to the virus, or try to stay less days in each place to make up the time?
Great questions, I’ll include those in the FAQs – thanks!
Hi-Really enjoy reading about you all and your trip.
I’ve seen a couple of videos of you in your car, and is it just me or are you driving a foreign car with the steering wheel on the right side? I am going back reading your posts so maybe you’ve talked about it.
Sending my best-be safe.
Thanks for reading and watching! The video is due to the way Facebook Live displays the video – when using the front camera on our phones, it seems to mirror the image which makes it look like we’re driving on the opposite side of the car even though the driver’s side is on the left.
Do you have an “official” address for things like taxes, car insurance/registration, etc? How do you make that work and how did you choose that state?
Do you have your mail forwarded? If so, what service to you use and how well does it work?
Thanks!
Good questions – thank you! I’ll include information about that in our FAQs.
I was wondering if / how you check out the local areas before booking hotels & Air BnBs, so you don’t end up in shady areas? Thanks Jeanette
Thanks for the question – I’ll include that in our FAQs. Just to answer quickly here now – with hotels, the brands we stay at are usually in an OK part of town. We certainly don’t stay in luxury hotels, but Hyatt Places, Holiday Inn Expresses, Residence Inns, etc are usually located in a safe area. If they aren’t, that would usually be reflected in their ratings online, so we’d be aware of that beforehand. I can’t think of any hotels we’ve stayed at for the most part where we’ve had any concerns about safety.
As for Airbnbs, we usually only book properties that have had at least 5 reviews and their ratings are pretty much always 4.75/5 or more. I also check reviews as if a property is in a shady neighborhood, that’ll usually have been mentioned.
We did have one time where we booked an Airbnb in Vermont and looked it up on Google Streetview once we had the address. It looked really dodgy from the outside, so we cancelled that straight away. That was a property which only had one review, hence why we usually stick to properties with more reviews than that!
Thanks that’s great 😊 Hope you’re having a lovely birthday 🥳
I am – thank you!