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THE BALTIMORE SUN | SUNDAY, AUGUST 7, 2016
A fter serving four years in theArmy,Michael Trotter Jr. wantedto explore the America he and hiscounterparts fought for.
“I remember saying to myselfin Kuwait, if I made it home, I’m definitely goingto travel,” said Trotter, 34. “What is it aboutAmerica that several of my battle buddies gavetheir lives for?”
In 2014, the former Towson resident, his wife— singer Tanya Blount Trotter, 42 — theirthree-person soul and folk band The War andTreaty and their now-5-year-old son, Legend,packed up their lives and loaded them in arecreational vehicle to find out. Together, theyhave “busted up the road,” journeying fromMaryland to Tennessee to Florida to Illinois andfarther west — wherever gigs and curiosity havetaken them, he said.
TheTrotter family is among hundreds nation-ally who travel in their RVs full time, taking theirlives— jobs and schooling included—with them,according toKimberlyTravaglino, founder of thewebsite Fulltime Families. The online resourceserves more than 1,200 subscribed “full-timefamilies,” Travaglino said.
“It’s not uncommon for [these families] to tellyou they’vemoved eight or nine times, or they’re
Former Towson resident MIchael Trotter, his wife, Tanya, their 5-year-old son Legend, and their three-person folk and soul band, The War and The Treaty, have been on the road since 2014, living in a con-version van that Legend named “Rocket.” Shown are band member Thillman Benham, left, Tanya,Legend, Michael Trotter and Antonio Traynaham, Tanya’s son, who travels with them occasionally.
BARBARA HADDOCK TAYLOR/BALTIMORE SUN
By Brittany BrittoThe Baltimore Sun
See ROAD, page 8
ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
DINING
Mediterranean flair atGnocco PG 6
WEDDED
A proposal in CentralPark PG 2
TRAVEL
An adventurein Australia’sOutbackPG 4
restless,” said Travaglino, who has beentraveling inherRVfor thepast16years. “Butwhen they get on the road, they feel atpeace.”
The demand for RVs is also steadilyincreasing. According to the RecreationalVehicle Industry Association, the sale ofRVs increased by 54 percent from 2010 to2015, rising from242,300 to 374,100.
Full-time traveling comes with its chal-lenges. The drives can be tiresome, the lackof space can be a burden, and just as with atraditional home, there are responsibilities,including maintenance and parking costs,and home-schooling for children, Travagli-no said. Income is also a concern for peoplewho cannot take their jobs on the road, butexpenses are often low, she said.
“If you are completely debt-free, and youown your equipment and vehicle, thelifestylecanbeas inexpensiveasyouwant itto be. …You can budget your life so that youmeet your needs,” she said.
Families on the road say they love theflexibility, sights, awe-inspiringexperiencesfor children and the camaraderie of the RVtribe.
TheTrottersTrotter, whose occupation as a musician
and singer requires him to travel to gigs,said anything can bemade to feel like home—even a van.
Their van, named “Rocket” by their son,has everything they need, Trotter said.
The Trotters found their newest wheels,a no-frills Ford E-250 conversion van, for$3,600 on Craigslist. There’s a table forLegend to do his schoolwork, portableoutlets to plug in flatirons for Tanya to doher hair, hot plates to cook dinner, amplespace for instruments and a fuel tank thatcan take them at least nine hours. Thefull-sizedbed in thebackandmultiple seatsafford sleeping space.
When the Trotters aren’t eating the foodthey packed, they dine at restaurants. Theypark at rest stops or RV campgrounds tosleep and use their amenities, like bath-rooms and showers.
Travel is new toTrotter.“I wasn’t raised this way. Up until this
pointofmy life, Ihadn’t beenanywhere,”hesaid. “Even in the military, I joined to takecare ofmy family.”
Trotter, who is black, notes that African-Americans are a smallminority of campers.
“A lot of times,wewould pull up in parks... and [people] were kind of shocked,” hesaid, adding that he was often askedquestions by other African-American fami-lies and passers-by.
He loves the freedomand freshair on theroad, and the chance to see new places,including Tampa, Fla. — a refuge duringMaryland winters. To Trotter, the camp-grounds beat staying in a hotel.
“It’s a culture within itself. Everyone hasan RV and is parked outside grilling.Children are playing. Ducks are by thewater. People are speedboating,” Trottersaid.
“It’s socool to seeAmericabondthisway,andprettysoonyou’renot labeledbyraceorethnicity.You’re labeledbywhichbrandRVyou got.”
TheSetzersWeb developer and former Columbia
resident Doug Setzer, 36, takes his jobwherever travels lead his family of four,which includes his wife Mandie, 37, hisdaughter, Paige, 12, and his son, Logan, 4.
In a $40,000 small-apartment-sized Sa-bre trailer hauled by a pickup, Setzer said,his family can live on as little as $2,000 amonth, about two-thirds of what he wouldtypically pay for housing. But his “edutain-ment” budget — educational trips thatcomplement home-schooling curriculum— has skyrocketed because of gas, parkingand entry fees to attractions, which can run
from$20 tomore than $100 a night.“It’s reallywhatyoumake it.Thecosts [of
living] haven’t changed much, but ourexperiences are wildly richer,” said Setzer,who before life on the road had neverdriven west of the Mississippi, which hesaidwas a personalmilestone.
Within their first year, the Setzers sawthe Gateway Arch in St. Louis, celebratedChristmas inFloridaandstood inaweof thevastness of Utah. Setzer and his wife, whohome-schools the children, taught Paigeabout the Civil War while they were inGettysburg, Pa., and about the Amishcommunitywhile in Lancaster, Pa.
Paige’s curriculum, managed by theHoward County school system, lets her sether own schedule but requires her tosubmit portfolios documenting a year’sworth of work. It’s different from publicschool inColumbia, she said, but “cool.”
At times, the lifestyle has been challeng-ing. After setting out in Juneof last year, theSetzers hit 16 cities in three months. Theywere exhausted. The road seemed isolated,
and the trailer at times felt crowded.“We laid in bed thinking, ‘Maybe we
made a terrible mistake. We should get offthe road,’” Setzer said.
Instead, the Setzers changed their pace,taking in only the sites they had energy tosee.
Setzer kept his own work scheduleduring theweek, and in their free time, theyconvened with other “full-time families”throughTravaglino’s program,which holdsfour-day “rallies” for families around thecountry.
It made crossing their one-year “road-iversary” in June all the easier.
“Once we found our people, it reallymade our experience,” he said.
TheShillidaysAfter living on the Eastern Shore for
years, Joel Shilliday, 45, a web developerand co-owner of a paddleboard company,and his wife, Elizabeth, 41, who works inmarketing, were bored of the “ho-hum”
lifestyle— anddecided to travel before theysettled down again.
They bought a 31-foot 2014 WinnebagoVista equipped with storage space, akitchen, master bedroom, two pull-outbeds, a shower and bathroom, then set outnine weeks ago with their two daughtersand twodogs.
“It was just one of the spur-of-the-moment things,” said Shilliday, who wasmost recently in Florida. “We knew wewanted to sell our house. … Living on theEastern Shore was great, but it wasn’tsomething we wanted to do for the rest ofour lives.”
On a quest to find a new place to callhome, the Shillidays did “test runs” in apop-up camper for weeks at a time,traveling to Florida and through the Appa-lachians. That’s when they realized theywere capable of taking to the road, Shillidaysaid.
They put their house up for sale andwhile they waited for an offer, theyhome-schooled their daughters Addie, 11,andAmelia, 8,whichmade the transition to“road-schooling” smoother.
Being in close quarters for long periodscan be tough, Shilliday said, but the activefamily learned “when you’re not gettingalong, you go out for a run or hike orsomething to get your space.”
The Shillidays are enjoying the flexibilityand freedom of living on the road, stayingroughly five days in each place.
“If we like someplace and we can find aplace to park this thing, then we stickaround,” said Shilliday, who plans to headwest to Oregon and to the beaches inWashington state later this year.
While the Shillidayswill travel until theyfind their next long-term, traditional home,neither theTrotters nor the Setzers have anend in sight.
“We’re going to do it until it’s not funanymore,” Setzer said. “And if it’s not, we’lltry something else.”
[email protected]/brittanybritto
Families opt to make their homes on the roadROAD, From page 1
Joel Shilliday, 45, his wife Elizabeth, 41, and daughters Addie, 11, and Amelia, 8, decided to sell their Eastern Shore home and travel fulltime in a 31-foot 2014 Winnebago RV.
JOEL SHILLIDAY
Doug and Mandie Setzer, with children Paige and Logan, live in a Sabre trailer.BECKY SETZER SCHROEDER
8 THE BALTIMORE SUN | LIFE & TRAVEL | SUNDAY, AUGUST 7, 2016
Have youheard thenews?HillaryClinton is amom.
Her supporters hit thatpoint hard at thisweek’sDemocraticNational Con-vention,with PresidentBarackObama celebratingClinton as “amother and agrandmotherwhowoulddo anything to help ourchildren thrive” andMi-chelleObama championingher as amother-in-chiefwhohas shown a “lifelongdevotion to our nation’schildren, not just her owndaughter ... but every childwhoneeds a champion.”
It’s enough tomake aworkingmomput a dozenbaby photos onher deskand tell her boss that she’sleaving early for a pediatri-
cian’s appointment, butdon’t let all the high-profilemom-love fool you, saysAndieKramer, a partner atthe law firmMcDermottWill &Emery and co-chairof the firm’s gender diver-sity committee. Formost ofus,waving themom flag atwork remains a risky strate-gy.
“You’re notHillary. I’mnotHillary. She’s a veryspecial case,” saysKramer,co-author,with her hus-band,AltonB.Harris, of thenewbook, “BreakingThroughBias: Communi-cationTechniques forWomen to Succeed atWork.”
Tounderstandwhy, youhave to look toAmericangender stereotypes,Kramersays.We tend to believethat a goodmother is avail-able to her kids 24/7 and
thus, almost by definition, isan inferiorworker. But if amother shows competenceand commitment atwork,she’s viewed as a badmother and therefore deep-
ly unlikable.“WhatAl and I do in our
book iswe call this theGoldilocksDilemma.”Kramer says. “If awoman isseen as toohard, they don’t
like her. And if she’s toosoft,whywould youhaveher on your team?She’snice to have around, butyou’re not going to promoteher. Sowhat shehas to do isfind themiddle of the road.”
For those of uswhohaven’t, say, served as sec-retary of state, thatwouldmean exercising a littlediscretion.
Youmight tell colleaguesyou’ll be unavailable at 3p.m., as opposed to sayingyouhave a pediatrician’sappointment for a sickchild,Kramer says.
Among the indicationsthatmoms aren’t treatedequally atwork:MichelleBudig, a sociology professorat theUniversity ofMas-sachusetts atAmherst,found thatwhenmenbe-come fathers, their payincreases,whilewomen
experience a 4percent dropinwageswith each child.
Clinton is the rarewom-anwho is not suspected ofbeing “too soft,” so itmakessense for her supporters tohighlight hermaternalcredentials, Kramer says.
“Iwould sayHillaryClinton is unique anddif-ferent in a number ofways,and the first is that she is soenormously competent thatshe falls into the ‘toohard,unlikable’ (stereotype),”Kramer says.
“And it turns out that thestereotypes about being ‘toohard’ include ‘untrust-worthy’ and ‘only out foryourself’— almost all theanswers [wehear] to ‘Whydon’t you likeHillaryClin-ton?’ ”
[email protected]@nschoenberg
Chelsea Clinton, holding Aidan Clinton Mezvinsky, andHillary Clinton on June 20.
TAYLOR HILL/GC IMAGES
Hillary Clinton is waving mom flag — should you?By Nara SchoenbergChicago Tribune
Cover story
Family
