What Have We Learned So Far, Living In Our RV Full Time?
“We’re moving full time onto our RV and traveling the American West in search of a new town to call home” has been a line I have shared with lots of friends, family and colleagues over the last couple of years. The reality of it was a slow burn that all came to fruition rather quickly looking back at it.
The weeks that led up to our departure were hectic and even panicky at times. Our generator wasn’t working, we hadn’t pulled our jeep as a “Toad” yet and we didn’t even really know where we were headed short of “Colorado”. We departed St. Louis on Sunday August 16th, and made the two day trek across Missouri, Kanas and into CO, finding a campsite along the way at Americas First Ever RV Park, Chief Hosa Campground.
So What have we learned living full time on the road for 6 weeks, in our RV, as a married couple with two dogs?
1.) Life doesn’t change that much on the road. Who you were at home, is who you’ll be on the road. You’ll eat largely the same foods, you’ll do largely the same activities.
2.) Simple is better if you move a lot. There is a really strong temptation when you first start traveling to have “everything you’d ever need” tucked away into some corner or cabinet of your RV. The goal, in my opinion is to enjoy the locations you travel to, not the gear you’ve brought to said location. We keep our campsites very simple, with an all weather rug, a door mat to clean our shoes, and a couple of simple folding chairs. Each time you have to pack up your camp, and move to the next great city or National Forest, you’ll thank me for the simplicity.
3.) Boon docking will be your friend, both in planning, and in finances. We decided that for work, and for my sanity that we would camp in established campgrounds with hookups and services 4 nights each week. That leaves 3 nights for “dispersed camping” in national forests, wildernesses and other areas designated for such purposes. We budget about $40 for each night at a campground which brings our monthly “rent budget” to about $640 monthly. We do our best to find value priced sites each month to help balance some of the more expensive sites near more popular destinations.
4.) You’ll use more power then you think you will boon docking. We end up having to charge phones, ipads, my lap top, air pods and all sorts of other random devices. We tried to get by with several smaller battery banks like you’d use to charge your cell phone on the go but that just wasn’t covering us for 3-4 days at a time. We recently purchased a Bluetti eb70 solar power bank solution that we charge when plugged in at campsites. With 716 watt hours of power, it has really helped us bridge the gaps without having to run our generator each day to top back off.
5.). Campsites are hard to find if you don’t plan ahead, but not impossible. I was really anxious leaving St. Louis with so little planning completed and I believed we’d be spending many of our nights in Walmart parking lots from a lack of available campsites.
I have been pleasantly surprised at the availability of campsites all over the state this summer. Don’t get me wrong, we end up scanning lots and lots of websites, bad websites, and calling lots of family owned RV parks that don’t always offer the greatest customer service. But all in all, we’ve been able to find plenty of sites to plug in, fill up or empty tanks and provide access to the towns we’ve wanted to visit in short distance.
Campsites have ranged from $20 to $90 with the bulk in the $40-$50 range. Some, have offered laundry facilities on site, but it’s far from the standard.
6.) AT&T cell phone service is far superior to Verizon in the Western United States. Sara actually switched from the former to the latter in advance of the trip so we’d have both carriers, diversifying our coverage. Our experience so far is that AT&T has far more coverage in Colorado, especially out in the more dispersed areas like National Forests and National Wilderness areas. I’ve had virtually no problem working, including 6 hour long video conferences in even the most remote of locations.
7.) Having a rough path, along a physical map, really helps in planning your destinations and understanding distances. I’ve mapped out each of the towns on our “wish list” and that helped create a path that we can plan along. Using apps like RVLife and Roadtrippers will help you find campsites and services along the way with less “googling” and losing your mind keeping track of things.
8.). Our 1993 Fleetwood Bounder has been more resilient then I thought she would be. There are so many horror stories right now about campers and trailers literally pealing apart from rushed manufacturing and the desire to meet the new demand for RV’s. We’ve been really lucky that our older bus, 30 years old next year has held up incredibly well over the last 2000+ miles. The coach and drive train/chasis have made us proud crossing the largest mountain range in North America.
9.) We learned how to drive up and down mountains. I boiled the brake fluid in our bus on the first week we were in town, not yet truly knowing how to use the gearing system built into our automatic transmission. For the noobs out there reading this, here is your lesson! When going up long hills, put on your flashers, move to the far right lane and find the gear in your transmission that doesn’t overwork your engine and feather your gas pedal in that range to keep your bus moving forward, but in our case, 20 or so miles under the speed of traffic. On Down hills, use the lower gears on your tree like the second D or 2, keeping your RPMS in the range that doesn’t sound like your engine is freaking out. Pump the brakes from time to time if your speed gets up higher then desired but DO NOT RIDE YOUR BRAKES ALL THE WAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.
10.) Life is easier on the road with a partner. My wife Sara has been incredible in so many ways on this trip. She has planned the majority of our campsites, our daily fun trips, groceries and cooking, and managing our dogs in a way that I would never be able to attain.
She has paid for half of everything we have done, from campsites, to gasoline, outings and food, she has made this entire endeavor possible and for that, I’m forever grateful.
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