In the 1930s, a man named Colonel Tooey had a problem.

He was running a jungle cruise attraction at Silver Springs in Florida, and he wanted monkeys. Six of them. He imported them, dropped them on a small island in the middle of the spring, and figured that was that.

What he didn't know, or maybe didn't believe, is that rhesus macaques can swim.

All six swam off.

He bought six more and tried again. Same result.

Twelve monkeys total, placed on an island they were never supposed to leave, refused to stay where someone else decided they belonged.

Those monkeys weren't supposed to survive on their own. They weren't native to Florida. There was no plan for them, no support system, no safety net. They were just... loose. In a subtropical wilderness they'd never seen before.

That was almost 100 years ago.

Today, there are over 300 of them thriving in the forests around Silver Springs. The only wild monkey population in the entire United States.

Marissa and I were just there with the kids, paddling the spring run looking for them. We didn't find them that day (apparently they're hard to spot unless you cover the full 5.2 miles). But the boat captain told us people had seen them the day before, and honestly that almost made it better. Knowing they were there somewhere, invisible, unbothered, living completely outside the life someone designed for them, felt like the whole point.

About twelve years ago, we were expecting our first child, Hensley.

And we did what you're supposed to do.

We started talking about adding on to our house. Getting a bigger SUV. Preparing for the version of life that everyone around us was living, the one that seemed to be the obvious next step. More space. More stuff. More structure.

Something felt off, but I couldn't pinpoint it yet.

For Marissa, it was the schedule. She was working as a nurse, which she loved. But once Hensley arrived, she was leaving before our daughter woke up and getting home after she was already asleep. Three or four days a week, she never saw her face.

She came to me and said, "I'll do anything if I can stay home with her more."

When your wife says that, you either shrink or you get creative.

I showed her a video of a family living full-time in an Airstream.

Her eyes lit up. There was excitement there, real excitement, and some fear mixed in too. But the seed was planted. I was already close to fully remote. We both loved to travel. And I kept coming back to one question that I couldn't shake: what if instead of going bigger, we went smaller?

Sell most of what we owned. Move into an RV. Trade the script we'd been handed for something we actually wrote ourselves.

Here's what I've noticed after eleven years of full-time RV life: almost nobody who makes this leap regrets leaving. What they regret is waiting so long to go.

The thing that keeps most people stuck isn't money. It isn't logistics. It isn't even fear, exactly.

It's the weight of the expected path. The invisible island you've been placed on.

Most of us never stop to ask: did I choose this, or did I just... end up here?

The monkeys didn't ask permission. They didn't wait until the conditions were perfect or until someone told them the water was safe. They just saw something on the other side and swam toward it.

Here's what nobody tells you: the life you were handed isn't the life you owe anyone. Swimming off isn't reckless. Staying on an island that was built for someone else's purposes is the actual risk.

After eleven years, here's what I'd tell you:

1. You're not waiting for the right time. You're waiting for permission that's never coming.

Most people have a number in their head, a debt to pay off, a kid to get through school, a promotion to hit. And when they get there, they move the number. The waiting isn't about logistics. It's about not having anyone tell them it's okay to go.

2. The thing that finally moves you won't be the dream. It'll be the thing you can't keep ignoring.

For Marissa it was leaving for work before Hensley woke up and getting home after she was asleep. For three or four days a week, she never saw her daughter's face. That's what got us moving. Not a vision board. A breaking point.

3. Going smaller gave us more, not less.

We went from a four-bedroom house to 400 square feet. What we got back: mornings eating pancakes with no rush, the ability to park our home next to a river, and eleven years of being present for our kids in a way the old life couldn't touch.

4. The people who doubted us couldn't see what we were swimming toward.

We sold most of what we owned and moved into an RV with a newborn. People thought we were either brave or losing it. Eleven years later, not one person who's made this leap has told us they regret leaving. Every single one has said some version of: I wish I'd gone sooner.

5. The gap between your life now and the life you want is smaller than you think.

The financial math, the logistics, the unknowns. They're real. But they're also solvable. We've watched hundreds of people figure it out with less runway than you have. What's usually missing isn't money or a plan. It's someone telling you the water's fine.

So here it is, if you need it:
​you're allowed to swim off the island.

The monkeys at Silver Springs were placed there to entertain people, to be part of someone else's system, to stay where they were put.

They had other ideas.

Eleven years ago, so did we 🙂

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Until next time, see you down the road!
— Nathan