36-year-old lives and travels in her truck full-time, spends $1,305/month: ‘I’m comfortable in very small spaces’

In 2019, Ashley Kaye took a scuba diving trip to Honduras that changed the course of her life.

On that trip, Kaye met someone who travels full-time, and the conversation they had helped her realize she wanted to leave her career and life in Wisconsin behind and continue traveling.

“He told me he wished he had done it sooner because it’s so much easier and cheaper than you think. That changed everything for me,” Kaye tells CNBC Make It. “I went home and worked more and more until I quit the next year.”

When Kaye quit her job in 2020, she says she had about $37,000 in savings, but what she struggled with the most was not having a job to fill her time.

“I didn’t know how to just do nothing. The first few months were really hard and I wasn’t sure if I was making the right decision,” she says.

“Once I got into my rhythm of traveling and growing my confidence through that experience, I’ve never looked back and don’t have a single regret about leaving.”

Kaye spent the next three years traveling the world, including to South Africa. In 2022, a couple reached out to Kaye on Instagram to ask about her time there and shared their own experience overlanding in a Toyota truck with a camper.

Overlanding is a form of self-reliant travel that involves adventuring to remote destinations, typically in a vehicle of some type.

After doing a bit of her own research, Kaye was all-in and purchased a Toyota Tacoma truck for $42,934, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

Kaye picked up the truck in South Dakota and drove it back to Wisconsin, where she had just sold her childhood home for $320,000.

In March 2023, Kaye drove to Baja California, Mexico, where she spent time arranging the necessary renovations to make the truck more livable.

“My life is kind of like ‘the plan is there is no plan.’ Most people plan this type of adventure for years. I didn’t even have a truck when I accepted the offer on my house,” she says.

“It was very spur of the moment, so I needed to take a pause and figure things out.”

She estimates she spent over $50,000 on the renovations. The costs included purchasing a camper, adding solar power, replacing the truck bed, upgrading the suspension, new tires, customizing a bumper, and installing an electric cooler.

When the truck was ready, Kaye decided to journey the Pan-American highway, starting in Denver. The highway stretches from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina.

“It’s really an incredible way to travel because you get to set your own pace and if you find somewhere that’s beautiful and peaceful you can stay as long as you want,” Kaye says.

“But there’s pros and cons to every mode of travel and a lot of red tape and logistics crossing borders. It can be exhausting, especially when you’re alone. You have to find a balance that works for you, but overall, it’s definitely one of the coolest adventures of my lifetime.”