- So we're here in our RV,
which is our home at the largest balloon festival
in the world.
This is our home, and those are 600 balloons
flying over our home.
Balloons, our RV.
- When you picture the American dream,
what comes to mind?
Is that the life you want?
- We were living this American dream
and then realized that it wasn't our dream;
it was a beautiful dream, but it wasn't our dream.
- It's like, you're told where to go to school.
You're told what to do after school.
You're told where to get the job, you make the money,
your kids go to school and the process just keeps
going and going.
It's just hard to have time to sit back and say,
"What's most important to me?
What does freedom really look like, for me?"
- These are stories of people
reimagining the American dream for a new generation.
- We saw 'em painting the house, like it was that original
brick over there, and I was like, "You can't do that!
You gotta leave the original brick."
But she did good— it looks good.
- This four-bedroom brick house in Tennessee is where
Nathan and Marissa were living the American dream.
- Hensley learned to walk on that little,
you know, like she- and she'd pick up these rocks.
She loved those rocks.
- It wasn't until their first child
that they started to question their lifestyle.
- I remember leaving this house to go to work,
and I had a 13-hour shift that I had to complete.
And so when I left in the morning,
our daughter was asleep, and I knew she would be asleep when
I came home, and so I remember leaving in tears.
That's when we decided, like,
if we let go of all that overhead and just live simply,
live below our means, how much more freedom
and time that would open up.
- So I looked into downsizing the house,
and I found out that people actually downsized
and lived in RVs.
And we thought, "Man, that seems kind of
crazy to do that.
But what if we did that?"
- This is our home?
- This is our home!
- What started as a crazy idea
turned into a full-time life on the road.
The process of getting there
was a year of change, and a lot of trial and error.
- We bought and sold an RV
that we tried out that didn't work
while we're in the house,
because we'd never RV'd before.
One of the biggest things was just the downsizing and
getting the stuff out of the house.
So it is- it's a tough transition.
The plan was to take our skillset and pretty much our jobs
we already had, and just kind of try to make those mobile
and more flexible, and we over time said, "You know what,
let's film what we're doing with our life on the road."
And it just kind of started catching on.
- Nathan and Marissa started a YouTube channel
and eventually became full-time content creators,
traveling all 50 states in five different RVs
over the course of seven years.
- I'm pregnant!
It feels really weird to say out loud—I'm so excited.
I'm going to tell him sometime today and
I want to get his reaction on camera so—
Woo!
- He's fishing! Reel it in a little more.
- Alaska's special to me in general, 'cause
this is where I found out I was pregnant.
- You what? No, you didn't.
Is that why you brought me over here?
- So, when we first decided to hit the road,
it's a little overwhelming to think of the money aspect of it.
Like, what do things cost? How much do I need saved up?
What do we need to make a month
in order to make ends meet?
In a house, a lot of your expenses are fixed, right?
Like your mortgage is fixed, your insurance is fixed.
You do the upkeep, for the most part, is fixed.
The downside of it is,
you don't really have much flexibility.
- And when we eliminated that overhead,
that changed everything.
- A smaller overhead meant
Nathan and Marissa were able to lower
their income requirements,
allowing them to support themselves off of their
YouTube videos and subscriptions
through the website Patreon.
- As far as how we make income,
I would say close to half is probably through
Patreon or through our community.
We make around a fourth, is through like
merchandise sales, affiliate income.
And then the other fourth
is through, like, ad revenue through YouTube itself.
- What is cool about RVing is we can travel
and move a lot and spend a lot.
But if times are getting slower and our income
isn't coming in as much, we can slow down,
we can change that pace.
- Solving how to make an income on the road
is just one of the many other challenges
Nathan and Marissa work through every day.
- Homeschooling was never an adventure
I thought I would be on.
We kind of do a combination of life is school,
but we do have physical books and a plan,
because that fits my personality as a teacher,
and that fits her learning path as well.
Sometimes that can be challenging
to be a mom role and a teacher role,
but also at the same time,
like it's so rewarding to see that light bulb
go off in their head.
- 'Isn't that incredible?
This is a rainbow eucalyptus; look at these colors.'
We can use nature as our school book.
And that was just something we didn't even know existed
until we did this lifestyle.
- Homeschooling isn't the only challenge.
- We always say, "This lifestyle
magnifies your personality; good and bad."
- In an RV, you're still probably
in the same room while you're mad.
And it's either really awkward or you've got to just,
you got to figure out how to work through it
'cause you're gonna, you're gonna see each other.
There's not much you can do.
- Living on the road full-time has been challenging,
but it's just really been a growth experience that
I don't know if I would have found the courage
to do otherwise.
- We do value adventure.
So we try to go places and do things. But at the same time,
we're trying to balance that with family time.
I've often defined success as just
being able to play with my kids.
Like, if I get too busy to play with my kids
and spend time with my kids, I'm just too busy.
And so it's a constant game and struggle.
But at the same time, we're doing this with our kids.
We're making a difference with our kids,
and we're doing these things as a family.
- This is what makes it worth it, right?
There's a couple of sayings when you RV, you say,
"A home is where you park it," which is such a unique
perspective that we can pull
our home up and be on the beach for the week
or be in the mountains for the week,
and it's constantly changing.
But the sense of home is wherever we are,
wherever our family is.
It's a new dream that we've created for our family.
- The American dream has
always been rooted in freedom.
Younger generations are finding new ways to make an income.
It's allowing them to prioritize experience, adventure,
and for Nathan and Marissa, their family.
- So I think every year we evaluate ourselves
like where we're at financially, where we're at relationally,
where we're at as far as, like, maybe
just even a sense of adventure.
We have an honest conversation with our daughter
and we ask her like, "Do you still like traveling?
Do you enjoy this?"
So that's a real conversation we have every year.
We don't know how long we're going to do this.
I think we will always live small.
We will leave enough cushion for adventure,
and ask the question, "Does this add journey to my life?
Does this give me more adventure?
Does this allow me to play with my kids more?
Does it do all those things I want, that are priorities?"
- It's definitely opened my eyes
to the new American dream
because it doesn't have to be a certain way.
There are different ways to do this.
We wanted to make an impact on the world.
And if you can combine making an impact
with making an income, that was our American dream.