HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Heath and Alyssa Padgett’s first time in an RV was a honeymoon trip across the country, now six years later, they are raising a family on the road.
They are among several families at this weekend’s Tampa RV Show who are living out of them full time.
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“The whole idea is we wanted to kick off our marriage with a fun adventure,” said Heath.
The couple soon figured out they didn’t want to live anywhere that doesn’t move from place to place.
“Sitting still for even just a few weeks we still felt that wanderlust as people say and we wanted to keep traveling,” said Alyssa.
They decided that the RV lifestyle isn’t just for baby boomers, it’s for millennials, too.
“To be able to move your whole life out of a house or out of an apartment onto this home on wheels is a very foreign concept to people,” said Alyssa.
Forty-nine states later, they discovered that life on the highway is actually pretty affordable.
“It was something like $5,000 cheaper for the year compared to paying our rent in Austin,” said Alyssa.
They said the key was finding jobs that allowed them to do all their work in the six-foot space between the living room and bedroom.
“Remote work has been on the rise for a long time, you can work from anywhere that you have a good internet connection,” said Heath.
When it comes to raising a child in an RV, these parents said a loving home is a loving home, it shouldn’t matter if it has as steering wheel.
“As long as we can give her a safe environment to grow up in and be able to continue traveling and seeing the country we thought why not get back on the road,” said Heath.
Heath and Alyssa have a podcast on their RV adventures called "The RV Entrepreneur." They also wrote a book titled, “A Beginners Guide to Living in an RV.”
The RV show is being held at the Florida State Fairgrounds until Sunday.
