We are Tawny and Mike McVay, and our story goes something like this.

{Or read Tawny’s bio and Mike’s bio.}

Once upon a time, we were just two run-of-the-mill personal trainers, recommending protein shakes and running the gym we started in Montana. During the political season of 2016, we {like many others} took a good look around for the first time and realized we didn’t really understand what was taking place in the world. We made our first trip out of the country and our comfort zones during that time and as we walked those unfamiliar streets, it made us start wondering about the more familiar path we were walking back home and if it was one that truly aligned with where we wanted to go.

We started questioning our life choices, the motivations behind them, and the meaning of the world and our place in it. It was in this sacred space of time I think we truly opened our eyes for the first time in our adult lives and saw the world around us and ourselves more clearly – or in other words, we woke up.

Over the course of that year we upended and changed our entire lives. We started selling off our belongings, put our home and business up for sale, bought a school bus, expanded our education through classes and seminars, and started homeschooling our two kids. At every point we asked ourselves questions like, “Is this what we actually want for ourselves, or is this something we’re chasing because the world told us to?”. We reprioritized every facet of our lives until in the end, we were living one that looked and felt more like us.

Today, we’ve lived tiny in a skoolie conversion for four years, continuing to ask ourselves those same questions at every intersection of the road to make sure we continue forward on a conscious path. In that four years we’ve traveled thousands of miles, purchased and renovated another bus, and laid the groundwork for a home base where we plan to build an off-grid homestead. All our belongings fit into this little bus, and it’s a special kind of freedom to know everything we own in the world is in that tiny space with us.

Besides the Since We Woke Up Instagram and TikTok pages, you can also see more at Mike’s Instagram, @feral.forge, which features the art and knives he creates, or on the new page for our homestead endeavors, @feralhomestead.

If you’d like to see a few of our favorite posts, and a good place to start if you’ve never been here before, check out the story of how we came to live in a school bus, how we afford to travel full-time, or a rundown of our skoolie layout.

For more about each of us, please check out Mike’s bio, Tawny’s bio, and our Affiliate and Marketing Disclosures.

Want to keep in touch? You can also find us on a daily basis on Instagram, Amazon, TikTok, & YouTube!!