Hello from the O'Neill's

Thanks for stopping by our travel page! We’re the O’Neill’s; a fun, adventure loving family who have decided to downsize and travel the country with our travel trailer we having lovingly dubbed “Serena the Snail”.

  Kimmie is a registered nurse who started travel nursing in    the beginning of 2020. She started traveling “locally” taking contracts less than 3 hours from home so that she could go back and forth between work and home easily. Being a travel nurse allowed her husband (aka “hubs”) to become a stay at home dad to their 3 littles.  Kimmie has been an ER nurse for 4 years, but has worked in healthcare for more than 20 in various roles. In her copious amounts of free time, you’ll find her knitting a scarf, reading a good book, or coming up with a new recipe to experiment in the kitchen.

Peter is a stay at home dad, working hard to keep the 3 minions fed, educated and happy. Previously, Peter has worked in various theaters, designing and building sets throughout the Chicagoland area. In his free time he loves fossil collecting, reading and urban exploration.

Kendall is 8 years old and just finished the second grade.

She loves reading, gymnastics, playing with her cats, and riding horses. She loves to draw and wants to be an artist one day. She also hopes to be an American Ninja warrior once she’s old enough to compete!

Finn is 5 and will be starting kindergarten at “home” in the   fall. Finn is already loving math and telling time, but his very   favorite thing is to dance to almost any music he hears.  No   matter where he is, if he can hear a tune, he’ll start   twinkling  his toes!  He also loves to ride horses like his big   sister and recently started playing soccer.

Charlotte (Lottie) is the youngest, but don’t you dare call her a baby….she is a Princess (her words). Lottie is the comedian of the family and will do almost anything for a laugh. She loves to color pictures, draw, dance to everything and will often be heard humming along to anything musical, including commercials on tv. She is a daredevil and recently joined her sister doing gymnastics at the Y. Believe it or not, this little 3 year old is an amazing video game player too and she loves to play with her big brother and sister.

When Covid shut the world down in early 2020, we talked a lot about the idea of traveling the country as a family. With schools closed and Peter not able to work in the theater, it was easy to imagine. We took a vacation to South Dakota in the summer of 2020 and realized how much of the country we have never seen. So we started talking more seriously about traveling. One day, we literally sat down and wrote down the pros and cons, and Peter said “If I don’t get a job in January, we will start to travel this summer.” Lo and behold, the theater he had been interviewing with decided not to open, so we took the leap.

Here we are, 5 months later and about to go on the biggest adventure of our lives. 2 adults, 3 children, 2 cats and our home on our backs….this is how we became “The O’Snailtrail”.