It was 2020 when Kim Kelly Stamp reached a breaking point.
At the time, Stamp’s wife was working as a physical therapist, and Stamp was managing a group of physical therapy clinics. “That kind of work is stressful even on a good day,” Stamp says. Then the pandemic hit. Stamp’s wife was suddenly on the front lines, and Stamp had to scramble to keep the clinic staffed. At the same time, the two were also grappling with profound grief; Stamp’s mother and father-in-law both passed away just months before the world went into lockdown.
It was all too much. The couple—then ages 62 and 59—started talking about when they wanted to retire. The idea of living on the road had a particular appeal, especially after working for so long as caretakers for their aging parents.
“We wanted to be untethered,” Stamp recalls. “We both wanted to escape all the responsibility of caring for our home and our lawn, and the responsibility of caring for 70 staff members. I wanted to be free from it all.” She had also always wanted to pursue a writing career but had never had the bandwidth or time. Living on the road, she figured, could give her enough of both to really give this thing a go.
Stamp and her wife officially retired in June of 2021. A few months later, they sold their home and almost all their belongings. Everything they owned fit in a tiny 5×8 storage unit or in their 21-foot Little Guy MAX tow-behind trailer.
Almost as soon as they hit the road, Stamp could feel her mind relax and expand. She suddenly had the kind of creative energy she’d never been able to cultivate while working full-time,
“Being on the road was a whole new world,” she says. “I was able to hole up in the trailer and write while my wife hiked. It opened the door to a second career.” Now, Stamp has bylines in the New York Times, Huffington Post, Insider, NBC, and a handful of other big national publications.
Living on the road has had other benefits, too. For one thing, Stamp says it’s given her a ton of confidence.
“When you live in a camper, there are so many things to strategically problem-solve along the way, and we felt empowered to do things that we’ve never done before,” she says. “Once, our water pump broke. One minute it’s working, and the next we’re not getting any water. So we watched some YouTube videos and thought, ‘Hell yeah, we think we can do that.’” Within a few days, they’d ordered a pump and installed it themselves. And when that didn’t work, they went back to the drawing board, replaced another part, and got it up and running without skipping a beat.
Before living on the road, that kind of project isn’t something Stamp would have willingly signed up for. But the triumph of figuring it out on the fly was priceless.
Other logistical challenges—like finding a safe spot to camp at night—have been solved via online communities and digital tools. Apps like The Dyrt, help RVers identify nearby campsites and boondocking sites, evaluate them based on real user reviews, and plan the most efficient routes between sites. All that makes it easy to plan a seamless roadtrip.
It also helps to have a supportive community, Stamp adds.
“We were initially concerned about traveling through the southern states as a gay couple, and we weren’t sure how that was going to be,” she says. “But we’ve met so many very kind and welcoming people in the South. It was a good way to reorient my thinking and realize there are good people everywhere.”
Now 66, Stamp says she and her wife likely won’t live in an RV forever. At some point, they’ll want to be stationary again to spend more time with their grandson. But the decision to retire on the road is one she believes has forever changed the course of her life.
“If I had to do it all over again I would do it in a heartbeat,” she says. “It was the absolute right thing for us.”
The Dyrt is the only camping app with all of the public and private campgrounds, RV parks, and free camping locations in the United States. Download now for iOS and Android.
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