Roaming Homes is a family business that came from the experiences of the Morris Family’s first camping adventures.

After a couple years of refusing on the grounds that “Morrises do not camp,” we agreed to go along on a camping weekend with a group of friends. We were a total of 8 families, including 20 kids under age 10. Frances went out and bought a tent big enough for 10 people (according to the box), some air mattresses, and sleeping bags. We packed up some coolers, a couple duffle bags with clothes, the kids (ages 4,6,7 at the time) and hit the road.

And then it started to rain.

The storm cell came through just as we had unrolled the tent and while Frances and the kids ran for cover, Robb tried to put up the tent.

And then the main support pole snapped.

We almost went home at that point, but thanks to some creatively phrased curses and a roll of electrical tape, the tent went up and we joined the rest of the group.

It wasn’t until the next day that we started to forgive our friends for dragging us on this adventure. It was a beautiful day; sunny and warm. As we sat and chatted with our friends, we could watch our kids running and laughing with theirs. Our oldest daughter learned how to ride a two-wheeler that day, and the other climbed trees until her clothes were unrecognizable. We took the kids for a walk on the beach, and sat around a fire pit that night while the kids toasted marshmallows for their s’mores.

When we were on our way home the next day, we agreed that we could finally understand why people go camping. We were ready to go again…with a few changes.

First, we would never put up a tent in the rain again. In fact, the entire “tent” experience was problematic. It was smaller than it looked on the box, and everything inside ended up slightly damp every morning.

Second, we would never sleep on the ground again. The air mattresses all ended up with slow leaks so that halfway through the night our shoulders were on the ground, and by morning the rest of us were there as well.

After two nights we had had enough of air mattresses and tents.

So we started to look for an alternative and quickly learned that a new RV for a family our size would be completely unaffordable for us, and anything used within our price range was terribly worn and in need of repair.

Luckily, Robb is a handy guy (with more than 20 years of experience as a licensed home improvement contractor), so we thought about buying a broken-down camper and ripping it apart to make it work for us. While discussing the logistics of that idea, Robb realized that it would be cheaper, easier, and more practical to just build a house on top of a trailer. And that is how Roaming Homes was born.