You can’t take a trip like this and NOT fantasize about being a camp host at some point. For those of you who don’t frequent publicly funded campgrounds, camp hosts provide maintenance, reception, concierge and property management services in exchange for a combination of rent, utilities and wages. You get to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth virtually rent-free, but in exchange, you may have to clean its bathrooms.

Judy (pictured here with significant other, Sam), admits that it can be addictive. Our campground managers, she tells me, have been doing this for years. For the last few years, they’ve promised that each will be their last. And they keep coming back.

Judy says that she used to make good money at a “regular” job, but she finds this to be much less stressful. And she meets so many interesting people. Judy and Sam love it here, in Kentucky’s Daniel Boone National Forest. We love it too, but would we want to live here? Or in any park for that matter?

You know what I’m really enjoying? Being a visitor. A guest. An observer. Around these parts, I believe they might have called us “drifters.” Living in a tiny traveling house, we’re mobile. Bad weather? Noisy neighbors? No problem! We'll just be moseying along.

I just love watching the changing scenery from my leather-like captain’s chair. It’s relaxing and maybe even a little hypnotic. New environs invigorate me. Distant horizons beckon. We figured that “itchy feet” might set the tone for the first several weeks (or even months) of this trip, but the one thing that neither of us is itching to do right now is settle down.

Eat: Gravy, mayonnaise-based salads and deviled eggs are well represented among the offerings at Cue on Main in lovely downtown Danville, Kentucky. In fact, every menu we looked at in this small, historic town included deviled eggs. Danville, you really know how to charm a gal.

Stay: Located in Kentucky’s Daniel Boone National Forest, Holly Bay Campground offers more than 80 sites grouped around Laurel River Lake’s irregular western shore. It’s swank for a National Forest campground. Our water and electric site featured lake views and a lower level “patio” with a picnic table, fire ring and a walking path to the water’s edge.

Explore: Founded by ardent abolitionists and radical reformers, Berea College offers a liberal arts education to students who have "great promise but limited economic resources." Berea charges no tuition. Instead, students work 10-15 hours a week and graduate with very little or no debt. It’s a radical ideal that remains ahead of its time more than a century after Berea’s founding. Tours of the campus are available, or you can stop by the Log House Craft Gallery, where student workers sell college-made and local handicrafts.