Real Life of a Blogging Family

Just living your best life while people simply pay you to post about it…

Blogging seems to have a stigma of being super glamorous, easy, and elegant. You just be-bop along living your best life and people pay you to post about it. That does sound amazing, but it is simply not true. Well not completely…

We started our blog about 7 months ago as we prepared our family of four to embark on an epic road trip, to find our new home. It was a crazy idea, that I believed in wholeheartedly. It took a while to get my loved ones on board, and honestly, not all of them humored me. We were tired of our routine. We simply wanted to be-bop along while living our best life and get paid to do it, you know the life of a blogging family!

From the first moment, my husband and I agreed that a blogging journey was to be our next path we hit the computer hard. We came up with our name, The Road Knott Taken. It was difficult to decide on a name since our last name can be used so awesomely. Set up a website with a few simple pictures. Added an intro of who we were. Came up with a hook to get people to follow us. Linked social media accounts. Bam! We were off and running, sort of…

Now began the endless hours of planning. Where did we want to live? What route makes the most sense? When would our departure date be? Who can we reach out to? How were we going to make it work financially? What companies/people would want to sponsor us to make our blog a reality? Spreadsheets were meticulously created and then completely redone, and then redone again only to be edited while on the road. Roadtrippers itineraries were rerouted constantly.

Finally, there was enough of a rough draft plan in hand. I started sending countless emails to city chambers, town tourism agencies, real estate agents, moving companies, travel agents… Anyone I thought would make a great partner. We SLOWLY began to make connections and saw this blog working to get us where we wanted to be.

With no sponsors, but I felt that could come with time, and a little bit of confidence, we went live with our blog and began our journey.

Little did we know what this blogging adventure was going to manifest for our family. But we did feel in our heart it was worth the risk of choosing The Road Knott Taken.

Things we have learned living the real life of a blogging (traveling) family:

• I cherish the time we have together as a family. The four of us were together every day for over a month. No school schedule to work around. No time clock to punch during the day. Good thing we truly love each other. Levi and I have been married for 10 years but this is the most time we have ever spent together. Without work or other commitments where we do our own thing and get time apart throughout the day, it was almost like a glimpse into retirement, and we will be adorable.

• We were kind of like Forrest Gump on his run across America; when we were tired we slept, when we felt hungry we ate. That freedom is AMAZING. The possibilities were endless and the world was at our fingertips. We could choose to turn the car around and set up shop anywhere or continue driving to see the next adventure awaiting us.

• Money and sponsors are a tough commodity. There was a constant anchor of stress we felt as we tried to close the sale of our home. So many things kept falling out of our favor in the sale of our house, that unfortunately, it took away much of our energy from the adventure. The money from the sale that we were depending on to continue our journey was not coming. Our budgeting skills were pushed to the max. Thankfully we don’t have a lot of debt so we didn’t have many large monthly bills we had to battle, or else we would have been toast. If we had been able to secure a sponsor or two prior to setting off, it would have eliminated a lot of stress and created income.

• The all-day driving and sightseeing led to late nights of sending emails and researching the next towns on the journey. We needed connections set up before we arrived so as much as we wanted to be lazy and go to bed early or crack open a cold beer, we couldn’t afford to. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and we had to do it right.

• At times it was difficult visiting with family and trying to get in quality time while still posting and working on our blog. We were in the moment of garnering a following and hence sponsors as we went. We would spend all day doing things with loved ones. Then work into the wee hours of the morning still planning our journey.

• There is only so much you can fit into a vehicle alongside 4 people. We were diligent about laundry. We cleaned at least one load of laundry per stop. Before we set out on our trip we practiced maximizing how to pack the car to utilize all of the space. Each time we left a destination it was like putting together an awkward puzzle of coolers, toys, clothes, and kids into the car so everyone was comfortable yet able to reach whatever toy, book, snack, etc. they might need.

• It’s amazing just how awful, or great, hotel beds and pillows can be. Most nights we were too tired to really care what the bed was like but in the morning we sure felt a difference in the beds quality or age. I never realized how much I loved our worn out king size bed until we slept in different beds each night. Just thinking about it makes me need to swallow a few Ibuprofen.

• By nature, I am a Type A personality. Levi is not. He is much more ho-hum and just goes with the flow. This adventure has really pushed us both into uncomfortable situations. I had to just go with the flow when things didn’t pan out as I expected. Levi has had to dig deep and learn to plan for the days ahead and step out of his comfort zone. It has been good for both of us to be in this situation, to experience the day through the other person’s eyes for a bit.

Hindsight is 20/20. I wish we could start our blog over again knowing what we know now. To be able to start our journey without the looming time crunch of school starting and the kids yet to be enrolled anywhere. To have partnered with a sponsor to squash, the ever-present pit in our stomach as we watched the money flow out of our account, instead of into. But who is to say everything would have turned out the way it has without our challenges? One day we will have a financed carefree living our best life blog lifestyle, but today here we are. And damn is it good to be here right now.