You read that right. It’s been an entire month of tiny living. So far we have been bouncing around FL and it has been such a great experience for the kids. Finding your community along the way is one of the most important and fulfilling things you can do. One of the major complaints that we have heard from people who are living on the road is how easy it can be to become lonely. If you’ve been following along, you may have noticed that we haven’t experienced that at all so far. Quite the opposite!

We don’t go on many family vacations, so we have basically treated our time in Orlando as a vacation a bit to help break the kids in. They have had a blast at Disney Hollywood Studios and Universal Studios for all that Harry Potter has to offer. (side note: hot butterbeer is a delicious latte, cold butterbeer was just gross). They’ve eaten milkshakes as big as their head and experienced thunderstorms inside during dinner. Overall, I think they don’t mind being so far away from ‘home’. Even with all of that, I think what they have enjoyed the most is the friends they have already made along the way.

When we left TTO and the B field (kid playtime heaven for anyone heading to that park), we stopped temporarily at a smaller campground down the road that finally had real internet (aka fast enough to actually stream) for a week. Turns out, we overlapped there with a family we had already met so the kids got playground and more dinner times with them. Thanks to technology these days, Kids Messenger and Roblox will help them stay connected. On Tuesday we moved on to another Thousand Trails Park that is full of other full-time families. Even though it’s almost 2 hours away, it has turned into a mini TTO reunion with 3 of the families we have really gotten to know in the last month. Seeing familiar faces and hearing the kids squeal as they run to see their friends again has been one of my favorite things to witness. Mom and Dad got to see adult friends too so we’ve barely had a chance to remember we’re supposed to be ‘lonely’, right?

Even though we may have only crossed paths for a night or in some lucky cases just over a week, the community that builds so quickly in full-time living has been truly amazing. Drew was able to get a haircut from a traveling barber at TTO and David will get one this week. Need a tool to fix the closet rod? Our neighbor had exactly what we needed. When we pulled into this campground and got a site we weren’t thrilled with, a friend we met previously let us know a river site opened up next to them, we got the chance to jump on that, and now the kids have spent every day in the river collecting shark teeth with their friends having the time of their life and even hosting another outdoor movie.

I mean, come on. Look at this view!

(pro-tip: get a Fulltime Families membership and join the group campground chats. Such an easy way to connect and get information and meet people. I don’t know what we would have done without them! ) So many nights around the fire hearing fascinating stories about other people’s lives have really shown us what ‘community’ means. It’s more than people who just happen to live near one another, it’s a common thread that ties us all together.

It really does take a village, ours just happens to be on wheels.