The Minimal Millennials: Traveling Free, Together

We always have loved to travel. We actually got to know each other by just traveling together, so when we had the idea and finances to purchase and convert a Sprinter van, it just seemed like a no-brainer.

Our Lives Before Full-Timing

Before traveling we both worked for an Ed-tech startup called Lumerit Education. I, Christian worked in Education Sales and Aubry worked in Marketing & Social Media. Aubry’s job has always been remote so her job didn’t change when we went on the road, but I took a big pay cut to be a part-time contractor doing similar sales work with the same company. We are just now leaving our jobs at Lumerit and are focusing full time on our Social Media platforms and on our web design business Matney Design.

Just Be Free

I really love the periods of time where we truly don’t have any responsibilities and are able to go to a national park and just disconnect. We’ve done this in places like the Badlands, Redwoods, Mt. Rainier, etc. It is just such a freeing and amazing experience and something we want to do more and more, but we work quite a bit so we end up being in cities very often. All of our favorite experiences are really tied to the people we’ve met though. It is so cool to be able to meet someone and be flexible enough to spend a few days in a row with them or to drop everything and go on a crazy camping trip.

Staying Connected

We have Verizon’s Unlimited plan and connect our computers to the wifi hotspot. It is amazing! We are able to stream movies and do just about anything we need to just from our hotspots and we don’t have to pay for internet. We also have more family members on the plan so now it is about $50 per month per person.

Working and Keeping to a Budget

I’d highly recommend the Verizon Unlimited Plan for working full time. It has been huge for us. We are usually in coffee shops a few days a week working, so we have to pace our time between nature and being in civilization. We really jump on every fun money making opportunity we find and that has led us to some unique income streams and diverse ways of making money on the road.

We are fully out of debt and have paid off our rig, so our monthly bills are pretty much just our insurances (van, life, health, renters) and we have a separate checking account where all of those monthly expenses pull from (about $600 per month). The reason that we keep that checking separate is that we always keep it at about $600 and we know that any other money is available for spending after we do our savings. Having automated our finances has made money on the road exponentially easier.

Keep on Moving

We plan to be on the road full time until it isn’t fun anymore! Our next crazy adventure is with some YouTube van life friends of ours named Eamon and Bec. We are spending a month and a half in Central America traveling from the Yucatan to Panama. Should be amazing! Follow our YouTube channel to keep up with us as we VLOG the trip!