Who We Are and What We're Doing and How and Why

We are Mark and Vicki Sherouse, Floridians originally, married fifty-four years, parents of Rebecca and Rachel. Vicki is a former teacher and librarian. Mark is a former higher education/non-profit administrator. We have lived and worked or studied in Tallahassee, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, Columbus, Ohio, Dallas, Texas, and Missoula, Montana. In 2008, we retired and, having already sold our Montana home, we sold our car, truck and trailer, sold or donated most of our other belongings, put the rest in storage, and stepped out that door "where it began...".

It had been our intention to travel for a few years and then settle down into retirement. On various trips to Europe in the past, we had always envied those touring the continent in campers, and one of the things we wanted to do was ship or buy a camper there and spend perhaps as much as two years on tour. This we did, sort of, starting in April of 2009. But before RVing in Europe, however, we traveled six months in east Asia and New Zealand and the Pacific. There have been several respites in our travels, but we have been relatively full-time world-wide travelers since September, 2008. Friends and family keep asking when we're going to "settle down." Not until we have to.

In Asia and the Pacific and in South America, we traveled light: two carry-ons and two back-packs, three or four sets of clothes, trekking gear, and enough gadgets to keep in touch and get by. We stayed in mid-range or less hotels and hostels mostly, ate and drank with the locals, mostly, used budget or public transportation whenever we could, and practiced relative frugality. In Europe, we traveled in a class B motorhome, a Roadtrek RS Adventurous that we shipped to Bremerhaven in April, 2009. In 2013 we sold the Roadtrek, but in 2015 we purchased another small Class C motorhome, and used it for our European travels through August, 2019. In August, 2020, we sold it to a other American couple, also world-wide travelers. In the US, we often stay with friends or family but more usually in a camper here: first a Dodge/Bigfoot, especially useful for snowmobiling and other winter travels, and more recently, a Mercedes/Sportsmobile B+. The RV is perhaps our preferred mode of travel, but we are equally comfortable with knapsacks on our backs, hostels, or five star hotels. It depends on the destination. In our advancing age, we are finding cities and apartments more to our liking. We always read widely in preparation for our travels, both about the places we will visit and about the types of travel we are undertaking.

We have always enjoyed travel. We both have humanities backgrounds, and we enjoy the learning, stimulation and adventure travel provides. In Montana, we developed a strong sense of place. Now we are developing a sense of our wider place, a sense of planet. Perhaps eventually we will settle down again, in Montana, or near our children or relatives. Perhaps not.