Check Out Rachel Pence’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Pence.

Hi Rachel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. 
Hi! We’re the Pence Family! We love to travel and explore new places together – living life to the fullest, and creating the best memories we can for our family whether near or far is always a high priority for us!

My main inspiration for creating our Covered in Sunshine Family Life and Travel Blog was that we wanted to be able to show others how traveling is still possible with kids and how to plan something fun for everyone when they visit these new places! We pride ourselves in vlogging about our adventures because to us it is like our own personal scrapbook of the memories that we made on our trip. Our kids love to look back and watch the videos and relive the trip all over again! Our viewers love our authentic videos that we create, and the helpful tips that we can share with them about what we did, where we ate, where we stayed, etc…

As a stay-at-home Mama for the past 8 years and a new to homeschooling Mama – I am also here to share in our daily lives making memories at home, life hacks, tips & tricks in motherhood, and homeschooling, recipes, date night ideas, self-love, and more!

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The main thing that I learned from this journey is that you will hear a lot of nos before you hear a yes. While blogging has been around for many years – the terms content creator, vlogging, and influencer have not been as common for everyone yet… Depending on the host, they either don’t understand what we can offer to them, or they don’t see the need for the extra advertisement and or new media for their rental listing. Through navigating these obstacles/challenges, we have collaborated on over 24 different Airbnb and vrbo rentals to showcase what they have to offer. Some of these hosts wanted the full package of blogging, photographing their rental, video walkthrough, and drone shots, including video and photo. While others didn’t feel the need for advertisement with blogging but were interested in the new media to update their listing on airbnb or vrbo.

I also struggle to be grounded when we aren’t traveling. I have this constant pull to want to travel and explore new things. Life is too short to watch it go by… I love experiencing new things with the ones I love most. Memories over things all the way!

One thing that we were not prepared for when we started traveling are the mini heartbreaks that we go through after visiting places that we love so much. It’s so easy to love more than one lifestyle and place, and it’s hard to leave places that can feel like home, too. It’s a privilege and a struggle that we are happy to face if it means getting to visit more places together as a family.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a creative at heart. I love to create. Whether it be through blogging, photography, videography, crafting, or simply creating memories. I used to try to force myself to stick to one passion, because let’s face it… as a Mama of four – homeschooling three, and an ornery puppy dog at home too… it’s hard to find the time to put my heart and soul fully into every single passion that I have. That’s where I came up with a solution that encompasses all of my passions into one. With our Family Life and Travel Blog, I can be passionate about creating memories through our passion for traveling as a family. By capturing these family memories, I can be passionate about photography and videography. Writing about our memories that we create allows for me to be passionate about blogging – and I typically craft up some shirts for all of us to wear on our family trip too… allowing me to be passionate about crafting too! Most recently I started crafting up our Sunshine Line which is a series of different Sunshine inspired designs that can be added onto t-shirts, and sweatshirts.

My husband, Tim, is our drone pilot – and he has really had fun mastering the art of capturing our fantastic aerial shots. These shots are what in my opinion help set us apart from other content creators who may not have the capability of capturing the high-quality visuals from above, providing a bird’s-eye view of the landscapes, events, or structures. Flying the drone for some of our shots allows us to put ourselves fully into the environment that we are trying to capture to share with everyone. It gives the full shot perspective, instead of just our point of view of what is directly in front of us. Our newest “toy” is our insta360 x3. We have had a lot of fun learning how to use all of the different features that come with it, as well as mastering the invisible selfie stick. It is going to be really great to have this option to immerse ourselves into our shots even if we are in an area that does not allow drones.

I would say that I’m most proud of the experiences that we are giving to our children and our family. We are showing them that there are many different ways to travel and vacation. We want to raise adventurers that want to continue to experience the world and someday create their own memories exploring with their children.

As a stay at home – homeschooling Mama, I am also proud that through this creative process of content creating we are able to be collaborative. Being collaborative with airbnb/vrbo hosts, photographers, things that we do while on vacation, etc… makes our vacation more affordable allowing for us to vacation and adventure multiple times throughout the year. Honestly, the only thing that I forget sometimes is that my husband is only allowed so many vacation days a year – so some of our adventures end up being weekend getaways and exploring our home state of Ohio.

When our family grew, we quickly realized that we were outgrowing standard hotel rooms – so traveling and vacationing needed to grow with us. We are very thankful for the experience that airbnb/vrbo hosts can provide for our family. As a larger family, it is nice to have the extra living space while we are away, as well as everyone being able to have their own bed, extra bathrooms, etc… so I’m proud to be able to showcase these rentals that focus on conformability, and customer experience – as well as the opportunities to collaborate with the hosts to generate increased revenue for their rental.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success as a content creator is not solely measured by external factors. Yes, there is growth to be taken into consideration, and I of course have goals in regards to how far our reach can go. Over the past few years, I’ve been working towards making a known presence for Covered in Sunshine on each social platform to continue our growth. However, to us, it is truly the personal fulfillment and satisfaction with our creative work, the impact that we can have on others, and the joy derived from the actual creative process that I would define as our success. I truly do enjoy the entire creative process.

As I mentioned before, we pride ourselves in what we create because to us it is like our own personal scrapbook of the memories that we have made on our trips. Our videos are never staged or give off the vibe as needing to get this shot… Our kids love to look back and watch our videos and relive the memories all over again – so we ensure that our videos are all authentic memories, not influenced perfection. How special is it to have these videos to watch many years from now when are babies are grown? It sure makes this Mama heart happy to think about… I know these years will fly by all too fast, so we want to make the most of them by spending them creating the memories that will last a lifetime.

We love to travel so much that we even have a travel inspired bathroom to showcase our memories and souvenirs from our trips. I know that sounds bizarre… it all started when my husband pranked me with a tampon/pad dispenser that he bought off of ebay for my birthday – from there we had anybody that came over to our house to visit sign/graffiti it. We then started decorating the rest of the bathroom travel themed, including a scratch off map of the world to show where all we have traveled to. For Christmas, my parents really took our bathroom to the next level though… they bought us an automatic soap dispenser, faucet, AND a hand dryer?! Everyday it makes us laugh, and we feel as if we really are at a rest stop bathroom. I know this is far from the norm, but it is so fun, and it really showcases our personalities. I love seeing all of our travel memories daily – it makes us feel good about the life that we are living, and reminds us to be grateful for all of these opportunities to travel as a family.

Our next adventure for our family will be this June to the Florida Keys to visit our family. We love the Florida Keys, and we can’t wait to get back to the Sunshine! This visit we are extremely excited for because it will be our kiddos first time flying, and we just know that they are going to flip when they find out! They’ve been talking about flying, and how fun it would be to be up in the clouds! Once we get there we are also renting a jeep for the week, and I can already just feel my hair blowing in the warm ocean breeze – the sound of our kids giggling, and my husband and I hand in hand as we take in those beautiful ocean views!

Next up in August we’ll be heading to the Bahamas aboard the Carnival Sunshine! My husband and I last cruised for our Honeymoon, 10 years ago!! We are really looking forward to getting back on a ship, and for our kids to get to experience the all inclusive fun of a cruise vacation. We will be sailing during our 10 year wedding anniversary, and celebrating 12 years together (we got married exactly 2 years after our first kiss) – so we are recommitting ourselves to each other by renewing our wedding vows on our anniversary! We are so excited for Covered in Sunshine to take on Carnival Sunshine to showcase what it is like cruising as a family aboard a Carnival cruise ship!

In 2025 we will be traveling the furthest that we have ever traveled to visit our family that we have in Hawaii, and we cannot wait!! It will truly be a trip of a lifetime, and we can’t wait to start planning it!!

In the midst of our bigger trips we love to experience small weekend getaways or day trip adventures to explore our home state of Ohio. Where do you think we should explore next? Are there local places that you feel deserve a feature? We would love to check them out!

Please be sure to follow along on our socials – we would love to meet new friends that share our same love for travel, and making memories!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/coveredinsunshineblog
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coveredinsunshine_blog
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoveredinSunshineBlog/
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@CoveredinSunshineBlog
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@covered.in.sunshine.blog

Image Credits
Studio Thirty One Photography
ArJay Hasty Photography
Lyriss Marie Photography