As The Home Roams

A 200-square-foot Airstream Excella, Stella measures 29 feet at her longest point. She's covered in polished aluminum, and her interior boasts wood floors, custom cabinetry, an antique metal backsplash in the kitchen, a stained-glass window, sheer window treatments throughout, and a couch that flips into a bed. In short, all the comforts of home, for only $15,900, delivered to the Maryland driveway of Ramona Creel and her husband, Matt Boorstin.

"Stella's hip and cool and awesome and I love her," says Ramona. So much so, in fact, that she and Matt decided to sell their house, reinvent their careers, and take to the open road. Permanently.

"The house thing just wasn't working for us," says Ramona. And they were miserable in Maryland, spending nights and weekends fixing up the house and days working to pay for it. Plus, all that work cut into their travel time.

"Some people are perfectly content staying at home, living in the same town their whole lives, not really caring if they see the world," Ramona writes from somewhere near Atlanta. Or San Diego. Or maybe it was Louisiana. "Not me! I inherited busy feet from my father. Nothing excited him more than jumping in the car and taking off to someplace he had never been. I'm the same way."

Matt is, too. Ramona's husband was a military brat who grew up wandering the country. Initially he worked in interior design while Ramona, who has a degree in social work, found homes for displaced families in Florida.

Eventually, she started her own business as a professional organizer of homes and offices, while Matt started work developing her business's Web site. To earn money and remain mobile, Matt morphed into a full-time Web designer. Now, Ramona coaches clients via the Web, with occasional meetings when Stella pulls into an RV park, and Matt runs his business online. Wherever they can hook up to a server, an electrical outlet, and a water faucet, they're in business. It's a life that suits them well. "It just feels like the right path," says the woman with busy feet. "We didn't want the house. We don't need the big screen TV. We want the experiences."

Where are they off to next?

Ramona laughs. "Florida. We follow the good weather."

We often think of home as the place where we're most grounded, but for many Americans, the best homes are on the move. As many as one in 12 households own a recreational vehicle. That's a fleet of RVs about 8 million strong, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA), and for a significant portion of Americans, the RV is the household.

The U.S. Census Bureau shows RVs and other types of mobile housing (such as houseboats) as the third most common housing type in America. And the numbers are rising: RV sales this year are projected to increase by more than 25% in 2010, according to the RVIA. Time to hit the road?