Before we get into this amazing travel couple, I found Lauren and David on Instagram and saw that they travel in a bus which is such a dream of mine. Their bus is stunning and I hope you are inspired by this couple as much as I am!
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Who are you guys?
Hey there, we are Lauren and David Robinson. We don’t have any kiddos, but we do have a fur-child Archer, who we love oh so much. We have also been married for almost six years, but together for 10; and in those ten years we have traveled to 11 Countries, and over 20 states! To further our traveling dreams and goals we sold our house about a year ago, moved into a 37 foot school bus and headed out to travel the country!
How often do you travel?
We currently live full time in our bus, but our work schedule still dictates how often we move. Lauren works contracts for her job, that usually last about 3 months- so during that time we will be stationary, but still make plans to travel to nearby destinations. When Lauren is not working we have the freedom to be more mobile and will travel to multiple destinations, only staying at each place between a few days to a couple of weeks. Places we attempt to travel to, during Lauren’s time-off a contract, are mostly National Parks and nearby cities.
Due to the pandemic we have not traveled out of the country in quite sometime. Our last “big trip” was to Puerto Rico for a week, back in April 2019. And our last trip together, out of the United States, was to Banff, Canada in September 2018. Lauren did however also take a solo trip to Guatemala in August 2019, to do medical mission work. Before March of last year, and since our Puerto Rico trip, we were very busy with weddings and traveling across the U.S. to participate in those, so we didn’t plan any big out of the country trips. Between the two of us we were in six weddings total!
How do you afford to travel?
Lauren works as a Travel ICU Nurse, which is why she works contract-style work. David works remotely as a Ski Expert, selling skis and related outdoor gear, with a company called Curated. Travel Nursing has allowed us the luxury of making very good money during the 3 month contracts, which we are able to save to fund our adventures for the remaining year while she’s not working. Lauren usually works 2-3 contracts per year, which leaves at least 3 months out of the year to travel. David on the other hand can work anytime he wants, completely making his own schedule. Since David is working throughout the year his income is a bit more steady and funds day to day needs and normal monthly expenses.
What is your best travel story?
Our best travel story is probably our Honeymoon! Most people thought we were crazy, but for our honeymoon we decided to backpack around Europe for 17 days. In that time we traveled to 13 Cities within 8 Countries. We usually rented an AirBnB (since it was our honeymoon after all) but we did also have the occasional hostel stay, as well as slept on a couple of trains! We each carried only one backpack, and had the absolute time of our lives.
Where is your favorite place?
This is so so tough- I honestly don’t know if we can answer this! We literally fall in love with every place we go. We absolutely love the mountains though, so really anywhere in the mountains we feel right at home, to the point that we will most definitely “settle” somewhere and create a home-base surrounded by Mountains. It would honestly be the dream if we could live near Banff, Canada- but being U.S. Citizens we are very much in-between Montana and Colorado right now. All that being said, we have seriously talked about owning property in Puerto Rico as well. We are very much NOT beach people, but we absolutely fell in love with Puerto Rico, it just felt like “home” and we felt more like ourselves than we ever had, up until then. I guess only time will tell!
Advice to Someone Traveling?
Go with the flow! It never fails that something doesn’t end up going as planned. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t make a schedule or have some kind of structure for your travels, but definitely always have a back up plan; and a back up to your back up plan! Weather won’t cooperate, locations may be closed, your AirBnB (etc) might cancel on you (thankfully we don’t really have to deal with this since we take our bus with us), and more things may go “wrong”. However, as long as you accept that things may not go as planned, and can do your best to be calm and relaxed about it, you will always continue to enjoy your travels and have a blast no matter what you’re doing!
Thanks Lauren and David for sharing!
To find out more about Lauren and David, you can find them at the links below!