Meet Sarah and Brandon | Homebuilt Floating Tiny Home Liveaboards
We had the good fortune of connecting with Sarah and Brandon and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Sarah, what are you inspired by?
We find ourselves inspired by those who push the boundaries of what day to day life can look like from the status quo to something truly magnificent. And don’t get me wrong – magnificence can absolutely be found within the status quo with the right mindset. But why stop there, right? We love seeing stories of those who have challenged what society says is normal and right, and created a life exceptionally suited to living our their biggest dreams and highest purpose. Families sailing around the world, raising their children as global citizens and problem-solvers; couples who are sick of all the toxic ingredients at the grocery store and decide to take their health into their own hands by creating a bountiful homestead; individuals who build fully self-sustaining off-grid homes so they can have financial freedom… These thinking-outside-the-box stories of creative alternative living teach us to never stop dreaming!
Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
To be honest, we kind of got “peer pressured” by our friends & family to create a youtube channel about our lifestyle. I think it seemed a little foreign, maybe a little crazy, to some of them for us to be living on a floating house in the middle of no where…. Which is fair enough. So they wanted us to take videos of what it was like, especially those who were living too far away to come visit. After a couple years of badgering, we finally went for it. “Keeping Afloat With The Joneses” was born, and seemed to gain pretty good traction. I remember feeling so blown away when the first person we DIDNT know commented on a video. Random people out there were actually watching us live?! It quickly evolved, alongside our skills as creators, and nowadays we have a whole community of “random people”… Total strangers, who feel like our good friends. We know their names & anticipate their comments each week, we dialogue back and forth all week about our life and theirs. It’s amazing to see how inspired others are by seeing someone be brave enough to try and do this whole “life” thing a little outside the status quo. Most folks start watching our videos out of curiosity, interested in seeing someone live in an unconventional way, but they stick around because they become a part of this whole community of likeminded outside-the-box thinkers who find this kind of thing attractive. Sounds corny but, it’s become bigger than us. And we LOVE that.
Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Our home here is Lake Fontana, in Fontana Dam, NC. We are nestled between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park & the Nantahala National Forest. There is virtually nothing out here for 45 minutes driving in any direction other than our marina & resort… and we LOVE that. This is paradise for those of us who aren’t so enchanted by the hustle and bustle of cities. A lot of people ask what exactly we do for fun, with the nearest city being an hour and a half away. For us, fun looks like spending the day wakesurfing, soaking up the sun, swimming, fishing, and porch sitting. We are surrounded by countless trails that we love to hike with our pup. Kayaking or paddle boarding is just a few steps out our front door! We have the easiest access to all of our favorite outdoor hobbies, so we feel like fun is all around us!
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Both our parents gave us a wonderful gift that was a catalyst for our story – the gift of an open mind. It’s a wonderful thing for a parent to teach a child to think for themselves, and we can only imagine how often that might “backfire” during certain phases of life – but the love and respect it takes to put that aside and still see your child as an autonomous individual, rather than a vessel to live out your own unrealized dreams through… That is a gift. Who knows if we would have even had the ability to be open to this kind of lifestyle, which has enriched our worlds in SO many ways, had we not been raised to know it’s okay to think outside the box and do things differently than they’ve been done before?
Instagram: https://instagram.com/keepingafloatwiththejoneses?igshid=YTQwZjQ0NmI0OA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@keepingafloatwiththejoneses
Image Credits
Matt Alexander
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