About Us
Hi, we are Shannon and Gerry Arner, and our rescue, fur baby, Betty White. After owning our own business, working 24/7, we made a lifestyle change and decided to make the most out of life. We sold our house, downsized, and moved to the coast. Yep, just like that! We're so happy you found us!
How it all began
Our journey
Picture it. A married couple, childfree by choice, pouring everything they have into their business. They have a home and a lot of stuff to fill that home. On the outside, everything looked perfect. On the inside, it wasn’t.
We were burned out. Our physical and mental health was on the decline. We were being inauthentic to everyone around us, hoping they would think that we were doing great. It sucked the energy out of us. Then, in 2017, things changed. There was a breaking point.
We had suffered the loss of three furbabies. As pet parents, it is one of the most difficult things to go through. We didn’t take the time to take care of ourselves. Grief led to depression, depression led to a complete breakdown.
In the span of about a month, we sold our house, our belongings, and the business and moved to the coast of North Carolina to begin our healing process.
Gerry & Shannon
We met in 2002, had a few adventures, got married on April 30, 2005, in the Meredith College Chapel, and decided life would be one BIG adventure!
Before our lifestyle change, we lived in the Raleigh, NC, area and owned and operated a business in the pet industry.
We recharge via travel and being outdoors. We enjoy plant-based dining, self-improvement, and our love of animals. We are rescue pet advocates, which leads us to our rescue furbaby, Betty White.
Our mission
We started Arner Adventures, at first, as a journal. We knew the benefits of living by the ocean and our newfound minimalist lifestyle. Living simply by the sea helped with our healing process. So, we blogged about it.
Our community grew as more people commiserated about the toll that burnout had on their own lives. Many were curious about learning how to live with less and experience more from life.
Our mission is to help people live life to the fullest rather than simply having life happen. We serve musings of our travel adventures, our wanderlust mentality, being child-free by choice, and our minimalist ideals of materially living small so that we may live and experience large. We hope to inspire others to cultivate the life that they desire, not one that they feel they are supposed to be living.
Betty White
Betty White is our star and a true golden girl! She is our pibble-love, our rock, our travel buddy, and love muffin. Betty White is a beach pup who loves biting ocean waves, likes people better than other pups, and would do anything for a car ride to her own next adventure.
Betty has been through a lot on her own, from being found as an emaciated, abused little girl to being rescued and adopted into our home, where she wants for nothing.
She is resilient and demonstrates that to us each day as we are reminded of just how strong we are as a family. She has been a support for us through some tough times- she is truly a living example of the hashtag: #WhoRescuedWho
Anything we experience in life, good, bad, challenging, or a breeze, is an adventure. As long as we are experiencing it together, we know we will make it through any adventure.
