On the Rove Again For a North Carolina couple, full-time RV living fuels outdoor adventure. BY LAUREN STEPP
P
eter and Allison Barr are eating peanut butter sandwiches outside a Wal-Mart in Elkins, W.Va. It’s winter, and a heavy snow is starting to dust the motor oil-stained asphalt. To the shoppers panic-buying milk and white bread, this is just a grocery store. But to Peter and Allison, it’s home. At least for now. Tomorrow, the married couple will park their Class C motorhome on some lonely forest service road. From there, they will venture into the Allegheny Mountain Range to bag some of the highest peaks in the eastern United States. Next week, they will start snaking back down to Asheville, N.C.— the city they left behind more than two years ago to be digital nomads. “We wanted to have deep and meaningful experiences while we’re still young,” Allison says as the couple’s cat, Oscar, nuzzles into her lap. “And we weren’t sure how much longer we could
count ourselves young,” Peter adds. To clarify, Peter and Allison are both 38 years old—sprightly by today’s standards. But it’s no secret that an increasing number of techsavvy millennials are having the same realization. Shaken awake by the pandemic or a soured relationship, folks are bidding adieu to 9-to-5 jobs and embracing a location-independent lifestyle bankrolled by remote work. In fact, according to a 2021 report produced by MBO Partners, more than 10 million Americans identify as digital nomads—a 49 percent increase since 2019. However, unlike some nomads who are forced to downsize after facing an eye-opening calamity (think: Covid-related layoffs), Peter and Allison weren’t strong-armed into the full-time RV lifestyle. “We both had careers that we loved and adored,” says Peter, who previously worked full-time as trails specialist at Conserving Carolina, a land
trust in Hendersonville, N.C. Allison, who taught at a public school, remembers being “very, very happy and content.” Except in the summertime. Each year when school let out, the two would set off on a grand adventure. They’d climb the Tetons or hike Yellowstone, crashing in their truck for weeks at a time. Despite a packed itinerary, these trips only whet the couple’s appetite for adventure. They wanted more, says Allison: “It was just never enough.” Fortunately, Peter and Allison don’t shy away from bold decisions, especially when made in the name of adventure. A decade ago, Peter was working as a bench scientist at a water and soil lab in Charlotte. All day, he sat in a room with no windows and daydreamed about being outside. “I was so miserable in that career,” he says. So, Allison made a proposition: Peter would thru-hike the Appalachian Trail while she moved their lives from
PETER AND ALLISON EXPLORING THE WESTERN U N I T E D S TAT E S . P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F P E T E R B A R R
Charlotte to Asheville. Peter, who had fallen in love with the mountains during road trips as a kid, was sold. And in 2010, after logging 2,181 miles, he summited Mount Katahdin. Years later, the couple once again found themselves deciding between divergent paths. They could continue living a secure and stationary life or they could take the training wheels off and travel full-time. After nearly two years of planning, they decided to take the plunge. But, unlike other digital nomads who cut all ties with conventionality, Peter and Allison still live with a fairly straightforward routine. Peter works part-time remotely with Conserving Carolina, where he pours his “heart and soul” into developing the Hickory Nut Gorge State Trail, a 100-mile trail
MARCH 2022 | BLUERIDGEOUTDOORS.COM
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