I've been following Julio and Kate from TacoBoutUsMariscals as beacons of hope for my family who wants to live full-time in an RV. I was excited to find out how they did it, are still doing it, despite work changing during COVID-19 and Kate's health. With a hysterectomy, then another surgery, then another diagnosis I wasn't sure how they navigated life!

IN THEIR WORDS: We are Julio (33) and Kate Mariscal (33) from TacoBoutUsMariscals. We are a family of 6 including our 4 children ages: 12, 10, 7, and 4. In addition, we have 2 dogs and a cat. In June of 2018, Julio applied for a traveling surgical tech job, as he was tired of decreasing benefits and PTO at the hospital he had worked and loved.

We always talked about Kate working as a traveling nurse, but didn’t realize the ability for Julio to travel as well. He was on medical leave from the Air Force, Kate was on summer break (she worked as a school nurse) and the timing seemed perfect. He quickly started applying for travel jobs and was offered a position in York, Maine. We had two weeks to the day to get everything aligned so we could go. We quickly found out that housing would be more than his weekly pay due to increased tourism, so we bought our first travel trailer and were on our way.

We fell in love. It was beautiful, we met amazing people, even after 5 weeks the kids felt at home in our tiny space (~170sqft) and were fighting/arguing less than ever before. Julio stayed to finish his contract while Kate and the kids returned for school. It was overwhelming, it took more time to acclimate back to our big house than it did for the camper. We missed it.

Julio returned and over the next few months, we decided we wanted to travel full time. During this time, Kate was suffering more and more from her Endometriosis. She had a second surgery, this time removing the rest of her reproductive organs, and was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis and underwent a second round of pelvic floor physical therapy. Even after all of this she was in immense pain daily and could not get through a partial day at work. It was becoming apparent that Kate would no longer be able to work full time and traveling was not only appealing but a necessary move.

By April we bought a bus and found a company to convert it into a motorhome (skoolie). We put our house up for sale, and we were selling off all of our belongings. On June 7th we were back in Maine and on our first stop of full time traveling life. It hasn’t always been peaches and cream — RV life is trialing ... especially in a 22ft TT,

Kate’s in menopause and struggling with hot flashes, depression, and loss of identity, homeschooling, the bus still isn’t finished after 9 months, there’s a learning curve to RV life and maintenance... the list goes on. However, as stressful as this life maybe we are extremely happy with our decision and love the memories that we are making with our children.

FIND THEM HERE:

@tacoboutusmariscals on IG and FB TacoBoutUs.net   We also sell merchandise through our online store https://www.bonfire.com/store/simplistic-living-and-wanderers/

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