THE ART OF MAKING FRIENDS ON THE ROAD
This story first appeared in ROVA Adventure One, Spring 2017
By Marisa Roman and Vanessa Semrow
At ROVA, we think it’s necessary to address a couple of common misconceptions about living on the road. One is that you will live a solitary and lonely life, staring longingly out through darkened RV windows and dreaming of company. The other is that everyone who lives a similar lifestyle will instantly be a part of your community—an automatic road BFF. Navigating travel-based friendships can be tough, but luckily for us, some of the most popular RVers on the road—you might know them as “The Roamans”—are here to tell us a bit about bonding on the blacktop.
Truthfully, we are asked about this a lot. Probably more than you’d imagine. At first, we were a bit offended when people we told about our full-time RV-living lifestyle asked, “Yeah, but how do you guys have any friends?” And we get it, really. We’re constantly on the go, traveling the country, spending one weekend antique shopping in Austin, Texas, and another sand-boarding in White Sands, New Mexico. Without standing still, how can we really facilitate long-lasting friendships on the road?
The answer? In short, it’s pretty darn easy. Besides the fact that we’ve maintained the majority of our friendships from when we were standing still in South Florida, the travel community is huge and extremely welcoming. We’ve met so many interesting and eclectic people who share our values and interests, while also living a shared unconventional lifestyle.
It’s really simple to make friends on the road, especially with such awesome resources available to us online and through social media. Instagram is a HUGE resource for us, and it’s where we meet the majority of our travel buds. It is almost a rite of passage to see a fellow traveler who you follow on Instagram in a location nearby, and shoot them a DM to meet up. Coffee, drinks, vegan brunch, and even an impromptu bonfire off the Pacific Coast with gathered driftwood—we’ve done it all. Some of the best conversations that we’ve had in life have happened when we’ve met up with fellow travelers. It’s so valuable to listen to their stories, share your own, and bond over this intimate experience of both wanderlust and spiritual expedition.
But there’s the other side of the coin, too, which is to say that we have met up with other RVers who we just didn’t click with. It happens. You know the way you just can’t vibe with a particular coworker, no matter how hard you try?It is the same thing for travelers. For us, in this particular instance, it wasn’t that they were bad people, or that we didn’t have enough in common, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us to be lifelong friends. They knew it, we knew it, and that was okay. Nobody’s feelings were hurt, and we did share a great meal. Consider it a tech nomadic one-meal fling, if you will!
Travelers who broadcast their lifestyle and updates on their blogs and on social media are usually more than willing to meet up with you. Shoot them an email, send a DM, or comment on their blog. Most travelers are flattered to be approached. For us, part of the reason we decided to start a blog as well as an Instagram account was to help inspire people. We wanted to show how we live so that others could see it as a tangible goal, and something that doesn’t require too much sacrifice or saving. We thoroughly enjoy receiving messages to meet up. Heck, as we were driving through Ohio, a (non-creepy) man in a small vehicle saw our blog details on the back of our RV, sent an email (while driving, which we do not recommend!), and asked if he could buy us coffee at the next rest stop because he and his wife were looking to become full-timers and wanted to pick our brains. We obliged (although, because we were flying high on caffeine already, we declined his beverage offer), and sat and chatted for an hour in the rest stop lounge.
Through traveling, we have made a few friends who we consider some of our best. One particularly great friendship started with mutual Instagram follows; we dug their Airstream, their morals and values, and their photos. It wasn’t until months—and lots of photo likes and DM conversations—later that we figured out that our paths would cross in Joshua Tree, California. We spent a couple days on BLM land with our newfound friends, and it happened that we got stuck in a sandstorm together. They were traveling temporarily in their car, so we all braved the sandstorm together in our RV, sharing meals, wine, lots of laughter and stories. Here we are almost a year later, still in contact with each other almost every day, and we have plans this spring for another meet-up in Joshua Tree (we’ll take plenty of wine just in case there’s another sandstorm!).