Intentional Travel Interview: Mark & Kris – A Life More Complete

This is the third installment of our Intentional Travel Interviews, a series profiling unconventional travelers we find inspiring.

Mark and Kris Kuhn are currently planning a big break from their jobs to pursue long-term travel, a process they’ve started documenting on their blog, A Life More Complete.

They met back in 2009 through marathon/triathlon training, got married during the Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon and spent their honeymoon geocaching in the Nevada desert. With a dream to live simply and see the world, they hope “to fulfill their lives by doing things, not just collecting stuff.”

About A Life More Complete

We started out where a lot of other nomads did. Sitting in unfulfilling 9-5 jobs, staring out the window, wishing for something better.

We decided to stop wishing and start actively working to break away; just in a slower fashion than others before us have done. Currently we are setting up our home to become a rental property, building our income sources in the virtual world while still having “real jobs” and enjoying the final years at home with our furry children.

We have 1 senior cat and 3 senior dogs that are our “kids” and we could never leave them behind! So in the meantime, we are asking the questions that many people have about the digital nomad lifestyle and then working to find the answers.

With our website and blog, we are trying to offer a unique angle of the digital nomad lifestyle for our followers which is all about preparing for the journey. And for other nomads out there, we hope you will connect with us, share your successes and failures with us and our readers and hopefully we will cross paths somewhere on the globe.

We’ve always had the wanderlust bug and last summer started thinking about buying an RV. Then after traveling home along Route 66 from Arizona, we started researching RV lifestyles and happened to find a number of digital nomad websites/blogs.

After reading the experiences of other singles and couples that having been successfully living the digital nomad lifestyle, we have become obsessed with the idea.

Letting go of what you’ve grown up thinking you have to do and deciding to go for what you want to do. That’s really exciting. And scary. But we know we’ll always regret it if we don’t.

What are you most looking forward to in your soon-to-be nomadic life?
Aside from the obvious answer of getting to see more of the world, a big thing for us is leaving the monotony of corporate life. We’ve never wanted to climb that proverbial “corporate ladder.”

There’s a great line from a Baz Luhrman song that I keep coming back to. “Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.”

We are 33 and 44 years old and yeah sometimes it worries me that we don’t have that tenure in a specific job. But like I said before, I feel like we’ve grown up being programmed to think that way. And maybe we are fortunate enough to have some skills that fit better with a nomadic lifestyle but honestly I have no idea how we will end up making our living.

But looking forward to a path that is unknown and solely our choice is very exciting.

What do you expect will be the most challenging aspect?
Budgeting! Figuring out how to live on what will likely be an inconsistent income for a while and probably forever.

While we will have a little bit of help from the income we will earn on our rental property, we aren’t going to be heading out with a ton of money in the bank to support us.

What over-arching goals or values drive your life choices?
I feel like we say this a lot when asked “why” we are choosing this lifestyle. We simply value our experiences and living a life with no regrets. 10, 20 years from now we don’t want to look back and wish we did something differently.

What’s 1 big thing you hope to accomplish this year?
This year we’re hoping to reduce our stuff by half. We live in a 2 story home that is crammed packed and we know much of it has got to go!

Where is the coolest place you’ve been to recently or coolest thing you’ve done recently?
We were in Portland, Oregon for the first time and stayed at our first Airbnb! Portland is such an exciting yet relaxing city with beautiful places to explore. We visited Powell Books, toured the falls along Historic Route 30, explored Mt. Hood, even ran a trail run in Silver Falls State Park. A must do if you love to run!

Special thanks to the Kuhns for sharing their story with us!