ReZoom

Carol and Phillip White have been retired for almost eight years, and yet they're as busy as they've ever been: They still take meetings. They still consider marketing plans. And their phone still rings off the hook during business hours.

"We're getting ready to release a new edition," said Carol, referring to Live Your Road Trip Dream, their jointly written 2004 guide book. "We're looking over galleys, calling in updates, speaking with publicists – the engine is revving up again."

Galleys, publicists, revving engines? It's enough to make a person think about hitting the open road. But then, that's exactly how Carol and Phillip got involved in all this.

It was in 1999 that Phillip and Carol White crunched the numbers and realized they could comfortably retire at the same time: Phillip had the opportunity to sell his men's clothing store while Carol, who had worked for AT&T for 25 years, found herself with a healthy 401(k) account.

"We looked at each other and said, ‘Why not?'" said Carol.

But while a day-to-day job became a thing of the past, other demands began to take their place, such as community groups and volunteer efforts.

"It was volunteer this and volunteer that," Carol said. "We were becoming just as embroiled in demands as when we were working."

That was when they looked at each other – again – and decided it was time to spend the next year exploring America, with caution thrown to the wind.

"It had been kind of a long-held dream to just kind of take off, pretty much let our noses lead us," she said. "So here was the sum total of our planning: We knew we wanted to visit all of the 48 contiguous states. We took a map and figured out that June would be the month we explored Idaho, Montana, and Utah and July would be North Dakota and South Dakota, that sort of thing. It was a very basic route."

And with no particular place to go, there was no schedule to stick to. And with no schedule to stick to, there was no stress when things went haywire. Like the time their van got rear-ended in Minnesota.

"Our back bumper needed to be replaced, but it wasn't a standard bumper," Carol said. "It had to be ordered from the factory but the factory was closed. The insurance company made connections for us, and we worked with them in figuring out where we were going to be in a couple weeks, so we ended up getting it replaced in Columbus, Ohio."

Stories like this one came to be seen by Phillip and Carol as research, research for what eventually became Live Your Road Trip Dream: Travel for a Year for the Cost of Staying Home. With tips on everything from buying travel insurance to having your mail put on hold, Live Your Road Trip Dream has garnered rave reviews (no less an authority than Associated Press Travel Editor Beth Harpaz called it "practical and inspirational") and inspired its own web site, thus creating a community for those who have hit the road or are at least thinking about it. Last March, the Whites were selected as spokespeople for the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association.

"A lot of people of our generation never had the opportunity to travel, like so many kids today," Carol said. "We're not getting rich off of this, but I've received literally hundreds of emails from people saying they've set a date for their trip. It's those emails that make every minute of the work worth it."