Our first week with the EarthRoamer was an emotional rollercoaster—well, for me, at least.

From Monday to Wednesday, I (Elissa) was a ball of excitement, waking up early like it was Christmas morning. Seeing and stepping into the EarthRoamer for the first time was everything I had hoped for—an instant confirmation that we had made the right choice. We spent so long debating between an EarthRoamer, a van, or a travel trailer, and finally reaching this milestone felt incredible. Buying an EarthRoamer wasn’t just about the vehicle itself; it symbolized our hard work, our goals, our failures, and all the nerve-wracking decisions that led us here. Four years ago, we couldn’t have imagined being in this position.

But by Wednesday, reality set in. As we drove away from EarthRoamer headquarters, I realized just how much we still had to learn. The first campsite Jacob had carefully pre-planned was completely buried under at least 10 feet of snow. The second? Also closed. By this point, it was nearly 10 p.m. after a long, exhausting day. We considered stopping at a Walmart parking lot (wouldn’t it be better to get some sleep instead of driving aimlessly into the night?), but even though there were a handful of other campers clearly sleeping there, we couldn’t bring ourselves to be “those people” ignoring the No Overnight Parking signs.

After striking out at a few more places, we faced an ultimatum—do we book a motel just to be able to park in the lot, or do we keep driving?

We kept driving.

A few hours later we finally rolled into a campsite, parked, and crawled into bed. Our first night was freezing. We hadn’t quite figured out how to use the heater yet, and we definitely didn’t have everything we needed for a comfortable first trip home. Our bedding situation was a set of sheets we packed in our suitcase and a thin fuzzy blanket we shipped ourselves from Amazon. That was it. With nighttime temps dropping to 10 degrees, it wasn’t exactly cozy—but somehow, we woke up feeling surprisingly comfortable. Our little house on wheels.

I even took a quick shower that morning and was pleasantly surprised by how hot (and I mean HOT) the water was. (P.S. Three showers later that week, and our fresh water tank was still at 87%—the water tank in the EarthRoamer is a beast!)

The next few days were a blur of trial and error—finding a campsite after trying a few different options, eating, sleeping, working remotely, driving some more. Our goal was to get home in a fairly quick manner in order to properly pack up the EarthRoamer to move in, and most importantly, pick up our doggos.

Despite the hours of highway driving on this first trip, we got our first chance to drive off pavement. And whoa—is the EarthRoamer meant to be in that element!

We crawled through some rutted-out snow roads with ease, the FLIR camera and light bar coming in clutch. However, in true campsite fashion, the waypoint on our map pointed us up a road that didn’t exist. Being another really late night, we decided to pull off to the side of the road and tuck ourselves in. Sleepily getting ready for bed, we both peeked out the windows and listened to the rain. Then, we had a realization—what if the rain froze overnight? We were parked in a way that would make it really difficult to maneuver out if it got icy. Trusting our gut, we got out of bed, climbed back into the driver’s seat, and drove down to another pullout—somewhere flatter and with less snow.

*Heading down the mountain from out camp outside of Boise*

*Driving through the canyon back to the town of Boise*

By Friday night, though, my emotional rollercoaster took a nosedive. As we bounced from one rejected campsite to another, frustration hit me hard. Is this what I signed up for? Driving around aimlessly, searching for spots we didn’t even like? Wandering from place to place? Feeling anxious about filling the toilet without knowing where to dump it next? We knew we were moving into the EarthRoamer full-time, but we hadn’t really put any parameters around it—For how long? What would our days actually look like? After a good cry (and some solid reassurance from Jacob), I took a deep breath. These first few days of long-haul highway driving weren’t a true reflection of what our life would look like. We’d get settled. We’d transition. We’d find our rhythm.

That first week was messy and unpredictable, full of highs and lows, but isn’t that how all big transitions go? What started as pure excitement quickly turned into exhaustion and doubt, but somewhere in the middle of it all, we caught glimpses of what this life could be—hot showers in freezing temperatures, the quiet of rain tapping on the roof, the thrill of taking our home off pavement for the first time.

This journey isn’t about having everything figured out from day one. It’s about learning as we go, adapting, and trusting that even the rough moments are part of the adventure. And as we settle in, I have a feeling that the late-night campsite scrambles and unexpected detours will become the stories we look back from our first week.

Here are some other surprises from this first week:

We fit exactly in two parking spots! It’s really not as big as I had imagined.
It really is as luxurious as it seemed—dimmable lights, the shower closet, the nightlight in the bathroom… the EarthRoamer team really thought of everything to make this experience comfortable.
We have a lot of work ahead to fit everything we want with us. There’s more storage than anything else this size, but still, we’re downsizing from over 2,000 sq. ft. to around 200 sq. ft. (Is that correct? I’m not even sure of the exact living size in an EarthRoamer!)
The solar is amazing—we’ll never have to worry about power.
Starlink makes it so easy to work from the road.

This is the first entry in hopefully a really long and exciting adventure! Stay tuned.

Finding Our Rhythm - Our First EarthRoamer Trip