Holy fuckin A, that time we bought a camper and moved to Maine, amirite? What a fuckin thing to do. When we left Phoenix for good in August 2020, our start was to spend 6 months in the U.K. and that was fabulous! The intention was to continue on from the U.K. and slow-travel through Europe from there…if you woulda told me that our travel plans would get cut short and fast forward 18 months and we’d be buying a camper and moving to Maine - I mean just talk about a mind fuck, eh?

But fuckin A, here we are. Okay so - March 2022 we move to Maine, prior to that we had spent January and February at that baller ass house in Rockford where we spent the first month thinking we’d fucking buy a house there and trying to get a mortgage and whatnot, and the second month going - oh fuck, the market has gone to shit and we can’t get a mortgage what the shit fuckin hell are we gonna do?

It was pretty hairy there for a minute but it was sorta like what are your options? The rental market was fucked. Couldn’t get a mortgage so couldn’t buy. Can’t keep doing $2500 a month Airbnbs, jesus H. fuck. Didn’t have any family options like parents or aunties with room for us long-term. Didn’t have any friend options like that either. So what the fuck, right? Last year, after our travels got cut short, we had spent two months living on our friends schoolbus in Maine and while that wasn’t our dream house (can you say shitting in a shared bucket??) it was a feasible option. Not their bus per se (although we did think about that for a minute) but like our own rig that we could really make a home. Obviously insanely cheaper than a house, and auto loans (versus mortgages) are dramatically easier to get with non-traditional income.

First we started looking at buses online and then we started thinking well yeah that’s all well and good, but where the fuck would you put it? We didn’t want to like “drive around and see the country”. We were coming off of some serious travel and were ready to set up some sort of home base - so we wanted to get the most gigantic camper/bus/rig we could possibly find and set it up somewhere semi permanently. So anyway - getting it is one thing, but where to put it is a whole fucking nother. And again - very few options to speak of. Like actually 3, and two were kinda questionable. But one of the three was going back to our friends property in Maine. It was also not ideal (ticks and mosquitoes and harsh winters and and and) but the big thing it had going for it was A) it was a known quantity and B) our friends there are just the best ever. So I mean. Fuck, right?

We put feelers out with all three options though, just to see what our actual options were. And in the end it just all really came together with Maine. Our friends there - Rob & Amy - were funny. I asked Amy, “Hey so we’re thinking of buying a bus/camper - what would you and Rob think about us parking it there?” And Amy’s like, “Yeah, do it” and then she asks Rob - “Hey - Kris & Katie are thinking of buying some kind of R.V. and parking it here and living in it, what do you think?” And he was like “Yeah, sounds great.”

Like that was literally the entire conversation. Ha. And within a week we actually found an R.V.

Kris had been heavily researching all kind of different stuff and we quickly realized that buses are actually a mother fucker. Cuz you know - they ain’t meant to be lived on. But R.V.s and campers and stuff….well, they are. He found a make and model he really liked and then it was like - well mother fuck me, these things are scattered all over the goddamn country, like - how does this even work? We just bleed money flying around the country to check them out and then how the fuck do we get them to Maine anyway?? But then we found the make and model he wanted at a dealership 30 miles from our fucking friends house in Maine. Like, what? Too easy. They went and looked at the next day and by the following day we had officially financed it and set a delivery date - two weeks later. That was mid-February.

So. We checked out of Airbnb at the end of February and started the 20+ hour drive from Rockford to Maine, fuck my life. Our first stop was in Eerie, PA at this whack fuck B&B. Where I discovered I am fucking not into B&Bs. Just the whole concept of the host greeting you at the door and walking you to your actual room and then you have to get up at a certain time for breakfast? No fucking thanks, get the fuck away from me. I much prefer the anonymity of a hotel with a restaurant.

Anyway, the following night we stayed at a Holiday Inn in Massachusetts and that was way better. Just give me my keycard and leave me the fuck alone. Then we drove the last few hours to Maine. We stopped in Portland for shits because it’s so fucking cute and we ate some lunch and walked around and then headed another hour north to Waldoboro, where our friends live. Our camper was supposed to be delivered that afternoon, but the dealer changed it at the last minute and after some stressful emails back and forth, they agreed to deliver it the next day instead. Our friends had also arranged for us to stay across the street from their house at a really nice Airbnb where they knew the owner - we were allowed to stay there through the weekend We arrived on a Wednesday night) while we did the initial demo of the camper and got it somewhat habitable. That was a fucking miracle, holy shit. It was such a mother fucker to demo that camper all day every day for 5 days straight, but then to have that dreamy Airbnb to retreat to each night was beyond perfect. I MEAN CAN YOU SAY CLAW FOOT TUB??

So yeah - we got settled at the Airbnb and then fuck me raw but it snowed like 8 goddamn inches that first night after not having snowed in weeks. So that made for the perfect delivery the next morning! Hahahahaha. No but for real, it was a shit show. That next morning, the morning of delivery day, we trudged across the street to our friends house to see the state of things and to see how bad it was in the spot where the camper was supposed to go - spoiler alert: it was fuckin bad. Our friends have a plow guy, but he comes just whenever the fuck, not like on a schedule, so everyone was sweatin’ whether he would beat the trailer delivery. We all started shoveling just in case the plow guy didn’t come in time. That was fuckin fun holy hell. Then the plow guy ended up coming, but when the trailer actually arrived everyone quickly realized we had holy shit underfuckingestimated how big the trailer was and how much room the delivery guy would need. I have the whole delivery journey documented in an Instagram highlight, ha.

It was kind of a fucking disaster. I mean initially the fucking guy couldn’t even get it up the driveway. He had to park on the side of the (semi busy 50mph) road in front of the house and undo the jacks because they were raking against the asphalt as he attempted to get up the driveway. So the first hurdle was him actually just getting up the fucking mild incline of the driveway. And then it was like - jesus mother fuck he just had no room to turn around and get the trailer in place. Also he was young and inexperienced, which did not help.

Amy ended up calling the plow guy to come back and plow some more space. He did and we gave him $58, all the cash we had on us, and in the end, two hours after the delivery guy pulled up, the camper was officially in its place.

That first afternoon was just sort of everyone assessing the camper and us seeing it in person for the first time and kind of deciding what we even wanted to do to it. Our (new to us) neighbor came over and we met him and he’s a handy man type guy and also an actual electrician, so we wanted to see what he might be interested in doing. I remember initially I wasn’t even sure I wanted to paint at all because the grey walls weren’t that bad. I am ultimately glad we painted everything white though. It’s so much cleaner and nicer and more modern. But I would not have done it if it just me and Kris. It only worked because we had the neighbors help.

It was delivered on a Thursday and we spent the next 3 solid days working morning to night to just get it even remotely to the point where we could at least sleep in it. And we did. It was fucking nuts. I’ve never done anything like that in my life, it was so much work.

And the work continued for weeks obviously even after we started sleeping in there. Then our shit arrived from storage in Arizona and that was its own shit show. What a mind fuck it was to see all that crap we’d had stored for so long. I was so fucking glad I got rid of so much and sold so much before we left Phoenix and that I was really thoughtful about every single thing we chose to store. Initially it was like - is this worth carrying down two flights of stairs from our condo in 110 degree heat in Phoenix? That’s enough to make you not want to keep a mother fucking thing. But in the end, it all fit in one small U-Box that my dad just packed for us in Phoenix and had shipped here.

So yeah. It was a few weeks of living in shambles and just getting everything sorted and getting settled. I made a highlight here and here on Instagram just tracking the progress of the first few weeks. We also went around and recreated all of the photos from the original listing of the R.V. to show before and afters:

And here’s a fun little video walk through:

I’ll do another post about what’s it’s like living on this fucking thing after a few months of actually doing it, including the fucking toilet/pissing/shitting drama (why are my blog posts always about shitting? The post about living on the bus last year is basically just a post about shitting and pissing). But for now I just wanted to capture the initial settling in. It’s so different than when we were here last year living on the bus because at that time there were no neighbors, except for a shitty one at the house next door. But this year - that shitty neighbor sold to an awesome couple with no kids and 15 alpacas. And across the street moved in the hysterical handyman guy and his wife. And also Amy’s friend from Phoenix moved here and bought a house literally on the same street just a few houses down. Turns out she’s my goddamn filth twin. What are the chances? And Amy’s other friend now lives on the bus! So it’s like a whole goddamn compound and there’s always something going on. It’s such a stark contrast to traveling and living in Airbnbs and not having any stability or social outlets or anything. That was fucking rough.

It’s really fucking cute around here and I think this is the best possible option we could’ve come up with for right now. It’ll do just fine while we hunker down and rebuild and get back to where we want to be.

And in actuality - I could see this camper making a fine home base for some time - I’d love to just get back to the point financially where we can be here seasonally. Like - spend spring and autumn in Maine and spend the summers and winters traveling. On previous stints of long term travel, we’d have to sublet our house in Phoenix….and that was its own can of worms. But yeah - the camper is a great base, we’ve decked it out to be super comfortable and adorable and obviously it’s here on our friends property - so if we left for months at a time it’s perfect because we can leave our car and leave our whole set up and have a real home of our own to come back to - which is what we’ve always wanted.

That Time We Bought a Camper and Moved to Maine {March 2022}