Millennial Couple Breaks Down How They Ditched Desk Jobs To Live And Work In An RV For A Year

By July 2020, Aaron and Hillery Levine were itching to break out of their pandemic routine.

A few months into working "pretty traditional desk jobs" from their rented New Jersey townhome, they realized that even the local excursions they took with their toddler had stopped offering a reprieve from daily stressors. "There's only so many times you can go to the same rectangle of grass in the same neighborhood," Hillery, 37, told Insider.

Both of them — Hillery's a scientist, and Aaron, also 37, is a structural engineer — were slated to work from home for the foreseeable future, and their 2-year-old daughter's daycare wasn't opening for the fall.

So they "impulsively" bought an Airstream, put most of their belongings in storage, and hit the road. They're not alone: Thousands of other young professionals freed from offices — from the InStyle editor Laura Brown to Spanx's founder, Sara Blakely — turned to RVs last year for coronavirus-safe travel and remote work.

[...]

They describe their experience so far as magical — and from the full campgrounds they encounter, they can get a sense of just how many others have been lured by the same perks.

Over 430,000 RVs were sold in 2020, up 6% from 2019 despite an industry shutdown that lasted for two months at the outset of the pandemic, the RV Industry Association reported. Garry Enyart, the association's chairman, said he expects the RV market to get even hotter in 2021, forecasting more than 500,000 RV shipments.

"Interest in the RV lifestyle," Enyart told Insider, "is literally off the charts right now." He attributed the initial hype to the vehicles' built-in social distancing; they are self-contained units whose operators have ultimate control of their surroundings. There's the added bonus of nostalgia: "It's so Americana," Enyart said.

Read the rest of the article from Business Insider here.