A Georgia family of four walked away from a 10,000-square-foot estate and made Disney World their part-time home. They now spend more than half of each year living out of an RV at the resort’s campsite, and they say they would not have it any other way.
Lauren and Adam Ewing, parents to two girls aged 10 and 12, spoke to PEOPLE about their unconventional lifestyle, which has become a viral sensation online. Lauren estimates the family spends roughly 60 to 70 percent of the year parked at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort in Orlando, Florida. According to UNILAD, one year they were there the entire time.
The shift started during the pandemic. In 2020, the Ewings left their 10,000-square-foot property on 140 acres of land near Athens, Georgia, after what they describe as a series of “life-changing events.” They bought an RV with the original plan of road-tripping across the country as a family. Disney World kept pulling them back.
A philosophy built around the kids
Adam, a real estate developer, said the pandemic reshaped how he thought about time. “I grew up in the generation of you have to go to school and get a college degree and work 40 years to enjoy 20 before you die,” he told PEOPLE. “And it’s like, no man, my kids are little once. I want to enjoy them while they’re little.”
The couple honeymooned at Disney World years before all this started. Once they began their RV life, the resort became their anchor between other trips. In between skiing in Canada, chasing snow in Utah, and spending summers in Vermont, Disney is always where they return. “This has always been our happy place,” Adam said. “We developed a community of friends here and we never wanted to leave.”
Their campsite at Fort Wilderness is close enough to Magic Kingdom that the family can hear the nightly fireworks from their RV. “We laid in bed last night at 10 o’clock, and we could hear the fireworks going off at the Magic Kingdom,” Adam told YourTango. “Most RV parks don’t get stuff like that, you know, that little bit of Disney Magic.”
The reality of living inside the Disney bubble
The resort operates on a strict “26 days in, 24 hours out” rule. Every 26 days, the family packs up, drives to a nearby campground in Kissimmee for one night, and heads straight back the next morning. “The move day back in is always such a happy day,” they wrote on Instagram.
That workaround means the Ewings can end up at Disney World for well over 200 days a year when factoring in all their return trips. It is a lifestyle that comes with a real price tag. During spring break this year, the family said their campsite bill hit $8,000 for the stay alone, roughly $300 per night at peak pricing. According to Mickey Visit, Fort Wilderness campsite rates currently range from $104 to $348 per night depending on the type and season.
Daily life at the resort is more routine than magical. The kids do schoolwork in the morning, Adam runs his real estate business remotely, and Lauren manages the household. Theme park visits mostly happen at night. “We don’t do the whole day at the park unless somebody’s in town,” Lauren said. The family also tries to cook most meals at the campsite to avoid the costs of eating out inside the resort. “We can get caught up eating out in the Disney bubble if we’re not careful,” Adam said, “and before you know it, we haven’t eaten at home in a week or two.”
The Ewings document their lifestyle on Instagram and TikTok under the handle @travelwiththeewings, where their videos have drawn millions of views. For a lot of followers, the appeal is obvious: a dog that saved a California family from a house fire made headlines, but the Ewings traded their whole house voluntarily, and most people would admit the swap sounds pretty good.
Whether it is a brilliant financial move or an expensive indulgence probably depends on who you ask. But the family that crawfish ice cream lovers would argue is living life on its own terms seems perfectly content to keep hearing Magic Kingdom fireworks from their bed every night.
