Hi!
Kerisa, Anthony, Tiskies (cat) & Butters (dog) here, and we’re the Traveling Tiongsons!
We started full time traveling under the name of Gems of the Road, in our Forest River EVO 178RT in November 2020, but this dream started long before then.
Full time travel had been Kerisa’s dream for years! As a desk jockey working customer service, she knew the tan cubicle walls weren’t for her. She longed to be outside with a laptop and a million dollar view that changed however often as she pleased. She saw others doing it, so why couldn’t she?
Anthony was a former boy scout who liked the outdoors but had turned into a bit of a workaholic who liked to just hang out and play video games in his downtime.
We met in May 2018 at a nutrition shake shop in Kerisa’s hometown in California, and a quick hello turned into a few hours of chatting about their life dreams. Kerisa showed Anthony her pictures of her solo travels and told him about her planned solo trip around the country, and Anthony was hooked. We went on our first official date a few weeks later.
Unfortunately, life happens and Kerisa’s solo trip didn’t happen. Car problems and health issues for Butters caused her to cancel her big trip. But after some expensive car bills and some rest for Butters, we were able to enjoy several weekend getaways over the few months in our then teardrop trailer named Buddy.
Then life got back to normal, Kerisa went back to the desk job and Anthony continued to work grave yards as a security guard … not quite living the dream, right?!
So we came up with a plan. Kerisa got a different desk job that gave her three day weekends that happened to match up with Anthony’s new job that gave him three day weekends. We’d save every extra penny we had for fuel and campground stays . We’d drive close to a thousand miles on the weekends to escape the Southern California crowds.
People would ask us what we did over the weekend and we’d chuckle and say “Oh, we went to Utah for a couple days…” The looks we’d get were priceless, people thought we were nuts for traveling as much as we did. But they loved to hear about it!
While sitting on our expensive balcony in Southern California, Kerisa says, “I have to do this, this dream isn’t going away. We have to find a way to travel full time.”
So we came up with the plan to make it happen.
We started side hustles that eventually turned in to businesses that would support our finances on the road.
We moved to our friend’s house in Idaho (where we hope to settle down again someday) to save money on rent.
We sold Anthony’s car to start our savings.
Then come November 14, 2020 we finally hit the road with the plan of visiting as much of the U.S. as we can in less than year. The goal being all lower 48 states.
And ya know what, we did it! Yep, after 35,000+ miles in just over 8 months, we had achieved our big goal.
We got married in October 2021. Went on our honeymoon. But now what?
We weren’t ready to go back to the “grind”.
Heck, we don’t know if we’d ever be ready to go back to that.
What was supposed to be a once in a lifetime opportunity for a year of adventure turned into so much more than that. We fell in love with RV life and decided to just keep going. This time at a more slower and enjoyable pace.
In the summer of 2022, Anthony began workamping, where we stay and he works at a campground seasonally. We have the opportunity to live in places we fell in love with for 3-6 months at a time. Kerisa is a full-time freelance travel writer, travel blogger, and content creator.
We hope to live this amazing lifestyle for years to come, and we love sharing our story and travels with you! So thanks for tagging along with us!
Happy and safe travels,
Kerisa, Anthony, Tiskies & Butters
Traveling Tiongsons 