Neighbor to Dustin, Meg has been traveling the US with her family for the last seven months. She shows us how it is not only possible, but how it can be quite enjoyable, educational and fulfilling.
It is possible to live in an RV full time AND not work a Just Over Broke J.O.B. Learn how to successfully travel the country being successfully unemployed with Meg Brunson.
How This Became a Reality for Meg and Her Family
The transition was more of a 2-step process for Meg Brunson. She had previously been a service coordinator for adults with developmental disabilities.
During this time, her 3rd pregnancy was a traumatic, awful event where she nearly lost her life. This was when she told her husband that they needed to figure it out and she wasn’t going back to work.
It would just be too hard after what she had gone through.
Meg began trying anything she could like direct sales, network marketing, and crafting but couldn’t find a thing to consistently bring in money. Then, she started a blog.
She had started a local mommy blog for parents to find fun things to do with their kids with a focus on things that were free and affordable. At this time, she called it a successful venture.
Meg leveraged her social media to grow the blog and pretty soon bloggers were asking how she maximizes her social media and Facebook ads. A couple years later, Meg interviewed for a job at Facebook.
She felt that she almost didn’t get it because her educational background was criminal justice and had never worked in actual marketing.
However, the work she was doing for her blog, and how she was able to leverage marketing ads, she had the experience and skills she gained from her self-directed studies and entrepreneurial endeavors.
She got the job at Facebook, but not in Silicon Valley. She worked at a satellite office in Phoenix. That was three years ago.
That is about the time Meg met Dustin. They lived down the street from each other and their daughters are friends.
She decided to go on her own and leave Facebook where she became successfully unemployed. She felt that when she went back to the corporate world, she thought she was healed.
She felt that the trauma had been healed and that maybe she could resume normal productive work. This is how she, and a lot of other people, are raised to think.
Normal work, like the 9-5, is the only way to go. It only lasted a year. Around Thanksgiving, Meg had one kid in kindergarten who had a play at school. She recalls going in to request the time off and she had only accumulated 1.67 hours of PTO.
In that moment, she realized she didn’t want to parent that way and didn’t want to do life that way. She was grateful for the newly acquired level of skills she got from Facebook.
So what she did was leveraged the skills to enhance the path she was on. Meg recalls thinking, maybe she jumped into the RV life sooner than she should have but her and her family have made it work.
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How Meg Brunson Affords the RV Lifestyle
After Meg left her job, she was able to travel the US, just like she had always wanted. Meg feels there isn’t a lot of fear until she actually jumps into something.
But she built her business for 2.5 years so that her income was sustainable. However, her husband is more logical and did not think it was a great idea. He had all the fears that Meg did not.
Once they jumped, they just had to push through and difficulties they faced.
Meg continued working on Facebook ads and helping other companies with theirs, too.
She believes that having multiple streams of income is important. Most of her income comes from one-on-one work with people or companies who want to leverage and grow their business with Facebook.
How she does this is she just takes over the marketing for them. They have little to do with the process so they can stay in their zone of genius. Some of the other things she did are less one-on-one so she can spend more time traveling with her family.
Currently, her and her family have been to 30 states and even went to a conference in San Diego focusing on Facebook marketing.
How RV Living Works for Meg’s Family
Being location independent is important to Meg and her family. Her husband is a stay at home dad so they balance each other out.
She is able to focus on building her business while trusting him to take care of taking the kids places and keeping them busy if she needs to work.
Meg notes that they are actually saving money by traveling. They have their RV so what came next was all of the planning.
Steps to Prepare for RV Living
Step 1: Soak up all of the information before jumping in
Meg decided to join a group called Full-Time Families on Facebook. The group consisted of other families who RV full-time. She spent about one year in the group just soaking up all of the information before making the choice to jump in.
At first, Meg confesses she didn’t like the idea of camping or dealing with the bugs. However, she wanted to travel but couldn’t fathom traveling with a family of 6 paying airfare and lodging.
So, with that, the idea of RV travel was more appealing and a more cost effective way to see travel in the U.S.
Step 2: Do your research
Meg and her family went to numerous RV shows. The first one they went to was in October and purchased their RV in June. At the shows they would just walk through a bunch of different rigs and set-ups.
Meg and her husband decided to bring their kids to the RV shows to try it out because ultimately they would be a part of it.
They thought about maybe buying a bus style RV but ultimately chose the trailer with a floor plan that suited them and was far more cost effective than the bus option.
They now have an SUV they all fit in that tows the trailer nicely. During this process, they weighed a lot of options based on weight risks, the size of a 5th wheel, towing capacity and more.
Step 3: Try it out on a small scale first
Meg didn’t want to take off indefinitely without making sure they knew how everything worked. So they did a trial run on a 3-night trip to the Grand Canyon, about three hours away from where they live.
From her research, Meg remembered inclines can be an issue so the air conditioner has to be turned off to avoid overheating. This was in the middle of summer, she recalled, so it was a bit warm.
Dustin knows how new things can be challenging. He went through Japan for six weeks with his family where you have to drive on the left hand side of the road. After about 2 days, Dustin was comfortable with driving that way.
It is all about adapting to the changes.
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The next time they set out didn’t go as smoothly. They were delayed to their destination because their U-haul was delayed. Their hopes were to find a pull-through site but when they got to the destination, there was only a back-in site option.
They were a bit panicked as they had never backed their trailer in before. Thankfully, their site neighbor was there to help them back in and Meg believes he saved their marriage that day!
One thing Meg suggests you do is make sure you give yourself and your family grace, try to go with the flow and adapt.
How the First 7 Months Went
Since they are location independent, Meg and her husband have been homeschooling their children. Because homeschooling depends what state you live in, they are happy that Arizona is more relaxed.
They call their take on it, road schooling. The Brunsons approached RV living and homeschooling as a “jump in and tweak as they go” type experience.
Rather than a traditional school day, the Brunsons mix it up depending on where they are. Everyday the kids do 30 minutes of reading. Meg recommends Raz-Kids.
She likes it for their e-books, downloadable books and even book quizzes. The family reads, or more accurately, listens to audiobooks while driving and regular books located in the RV.
Math is usually taught everyday and everything else just depends on where they are going. For example, when they visited the Florida Everglades, they learned about Earth Science, or Washington, D.C. they learned a lot about history.
They have done some fun factory tours like Anheuser Busch and Jack Daniels, learning science. Meg recommends purchasing a National Parks pass for $80 (you can find that here).
Successfully Unemployed Pro Tip: Maximize your money savings
Make sure you are utilizing the National Park Service’s 4th grade pass. This includes 4th grade and following summer months for homeschooled, public schooled or free-choice schooled learners 10 years of age.
How to Score Free Experiences on The Road
Meg explains that there is a wise way to do fun things on the road for free. She mentions that her family rarely has to pay for doing some of the things they want to.
Meg has been blogging for roughly seven years for Kids Out and About who have about 37 different markets from New York. She pitched to them about being the travel editor who would post reviews for everything that she and her family do.
Meg would reach out to someone telling them they will be at their destination, they have a family of six, blog for this platform, etc. She said to them that they would love to do a review and asked if they would provide passes for the family in exchange.
Because Meg is working for a travel company, the publicity is great for the company or business they are wanting to visit. Meg recalls that they have not only been offered swag bags or free passes but once someone offered a drone to try out in exchange for a blog post.
Meg Brunson Pro Tip: Don’t Overlook the Visitor’s Bureau
On a trip to Wilmington, Meg visited the Visitor’s Bureau as a blogger. They presented a list of 12 places to visit where she picked 4-5 they were interested in. The Bureau then put everything together and her family was able to do all this stuff there.
Being able to barter prices for exposure has given the Brunson family more activities and experiences than before. As long as you have the foundations, your exposure will benefit them and their target market.
How Far and How Much Meg Wants to Do
Meg wants to go to all the lower 48 states. She doesn’t think it will happen in a year which was the original plan. After that they plan to slow down and go back to their top favorite places and figure out where they want to put down their roots.
Meg’s husband would like to go back to regular living at some point so they will go back to normal living some day. A good way to decide where you would like to live is you can try multiple places and decide if that is where you want to be.
Meg mentions that there are places that are only desirable during certain periods of the year. They would like to avoid hurricane season in Florida, the dead of summer in the South or the winters in Vermont.
So her idea would be to have a plot of land in Vermont where they can park their trailer and maybe a bit of land in the South to bypass the undesirable weather patterns.
Meg mentions a couple of people who live in an RV while renting out their house in the same yard. All of this has opened up their eyes to different ways of living.
Meg tries to relate with families who are coming from different backgrounds and gives tips if necessary on her blog.
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Meg Brunson’s One Piece of Knowledge to RV Living
Meg says to just do it. Make the decision, learn all you need to learn. Then you can adapt and go with the flow later.
Meg’s Advice to Her Younger Self
Meg would tell herself about RV living sooner. She can’t stop thinking about how cool it would have been as a young adult. Even though she never would have considered it back then, looking back, she would have done it knowing what she knows now.
The One App or Tool Meg Uses
Google Calendar is the #1 thing Meg and her family uses. Since she is pretty busy and her husband is at home, he needs to know when things are planned. Google Calendar is helpful so they are all on the same page and are able to communicate about things happening.
The Non-Fiction Book Meg Recommends
Meg just finished reading Superfans, by Pat Flynn. She likes how she learned how to build super fans in your business. Since she has met him, she has used his tactics. 
Where to Find Meg
Best place is megbrunson.com for all things and also her travel stuff can be found at www.familyroadventures.com. Meg talks about a summit you can attend at influentialsummit.com where you learn to increase income in not only money but also experiences.