No longer stuck with who we had become over the years, and not yet ready to yield to being “seniors,” we decided to live our long-held dream of seeing the United States – not just a series of short trips here and there, not just a surface glance at a few important places, but a real, life-changing experience. Along the way, we found much more than we could ever have envisioned.
We decided on this course, because we still had our good health and our adventuresome spirit. Now was the time to take off and see this great country as a start to this new phase of our lives. We wanted to do this before we became just as involved in our “new life” as we were in our old.
We planned, we cajoled friends into helping us, we leased our house, we sold our cars and we kissed those precious grand-kiddies goodbye. Then we took off to spend a year just vagabonding around the lower 48 states. We had no reservations and virtually no itinerary other than to travel in each of the states, see every national park and have the time of our lives.
"As we traveled along, we found our curiosity starting to creep out from someplace deep inside us, and we discovered that we really were turning into kids again."
In the waning month of the trip, we were reminiscing about all we had learned, what a fabulous experience it had been, and how we had changed, both as individuals and as a couple. We kept thinking about all the people we had met who dreamed of doing the same thing, but hadn’t yet figured out how to make it happen. We wanted to help them live their dreams.
Our next challenge was learning the steps to writing and publishing a book. We learned to write query letters to potential publishers, and worked with a major publisher for nearly a year. But we found ourselves right back at the beginning when the publisher decided not to publish the book.
Undaunted by the setback, we decided to learn about independent publishing. Our book, Live Your Road Trip Dream: Travel for a Year for the Cost of Staying Home
and its companion website, www.roadtripdream.com, were launched in 2004 under our company imprint, RLI Press.The book has sold well from the beginning thanks to articles and other PR.
Our book has won awards and led to speaking engagements. We have become “road trip experts!” But a funny thing has happened along this new path. People are now asking us for help in making their book projects successful. We now are headed in a whole new direction: helping people with their own book journeys.
We can’t imagine where our road will lead next; we know only that we will be open to that roadmap too.
Carol White is the co-author of the award-winning book, “Live Your Road Trip Dream” (www.roadtripdream.com) – the ultimate road trip planning guide for extended road trips. Carol and her husband Phil have traveled more than 50,000 road miles in recent years, visiting all fifty states and all of the National Parks in the “lower forty-eight.” Carol now spends her days speaking, writing, and helping others to live their dreams, as well as writing for travel-related websites and magazines and managing an active publishing consulting practice. She lives in Wilsonville, Oregon.