Realities of life for full-time RVing

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October 14, 2016, 09:10:38 pm

Our fulltime RVing days are over and I thought I’d post some comments while I still remember what to say.

The fun part of RVing for us is we got to see so many beautiful places. Boredom was rarely an issue and most people can imagine the fun part. And it is fun. And the United States is incredibly huge and has some incredibly beautiful places.
However, full-time RVing is not a vacation. It is real life. So, I thought I would post on what I don’t think many people may consider when they think of full-time RVing.

Where will we live?
We spend time researching where we will be spending the nights. Each and every night, you need to find a place to stay whether it is a Walmart’s parking lot, a boondocking site, or an RV resort. Questions to consider are: How long of a drive is it? What sort of terrain will we be traveling through (a six hour drive is one thing, a six hours of mountain driving is another)? If we are near to the time we will be leaving, we are also interested in what weather are they expecting? What town is near where is it ideal to stop? Does the town have a place to stay? Does the place have availability? Is it affordable?
I like to stay a month in places. Much less research and much more affordable.

Where do our clothes get clean?
Along with the ‘where do we live’ questions, I figure out when the laundry needs to be done and research in hopes to find an RV park with laundry facilities. These can be great and cheap since the RV parks often just charge enough to replace the machines eventually, not to make a profit. If I can’t find a place, or there aren’t enough machines or they smell or are broken, then we go to the local Laundromat, usually checking them out the day before we go there with the clothes. Laundromats are there to make a profit and some are very costly. The fun with a laundry you are not used to is that the machines have their own personalities and problems and you won’t know them long enough to know which washer freezes up when you choose hot water, which dryers run hot or cold, or whether $.25 in the dryer pays for 3 minutes, 8 minutes or 15 minutes. Our laundry budget allowance is $60/mo. This is about 5-6 loads of laundry every 10 days.

Where do we shop for food?
A different store every time we move. Albertsons, Safeway, Sprouts, Trader Joes, Vons, Walmart, Rays Food Place, Fred Meyer, Shop Smart, Morton, QFC, Super 1 Foods, Mars, Kroger, Harris Teeter, IGA, Whole Foods and a whole mess of local markets. Shopping for food is also something to do about every three to four days since space for food storage and refrigerator/freezer space is limited.
Where is the aisle with the salt? Who knows. It’s as if your regular store rearranged almost every time you went.

When you don’t have a permanent home’s water system and sewer system or septic system:
We don’t just flush and forget about it. We have a black tank.
We don’t just shower and forget about it. We have a grey tank.
We don’t just turn on a tap and get water. We have a fresh water tank. We use bottled water for drinking.
These things need to be hooked up to the appropriate places and emptied or filled on a regular basis.

Are we level?
Hopefully, are we level? is not a question you ever ask yourself in your permanent home. But every time we park the RV to stay in a place we need to check to see if it is level. Refrigerators have improved over the years and now only require it to be fairly level. However, a human body may require more. Do you suffer from heartburn? Then you may want to make very certain that your head will not be lower than your feet or you may start having heartburn. I have a problematic neck and shoulder area. The fact that my bed is not always the same level side to side and/or front to back proved to be an ongoing problem until we bothered to make it as level as possible with each move. (Some RVs have levelers; we do it manually with blocks)

Are we safe?
You are often going to where you have never been before. Good RV parks are very safe and very quiet (from noisy people).   Unlike ordinary neighborhoods, there is someone there who has the power to make someone leave if they misbehave. I find good campgrounds by choosing campsites very carefully, using sites like RV Park Reviews - Trusted Reviews of Campgrounds & RV Parks We have never have a bad experience.
Boondocking or dispersed camping depends on where you are and who is nearby.   One caution – I have know of two people that heard a knocking at the door while boondocking and opened the window to talk only to see a policeman aiming a gun at them. Police will check on parked RVs, especially in a town, and presumably because of darkly tinted windows, they may be more nervous about sudden moves.
The weather systems are getting to be massive in size and scary. Definitely own a weather radio.
Fire is a good thing to keep an eye on also, especially in the west. Also, don’t just think about fire, consider smoke as well, especially if you have lung/breathing issues.   See InciWeb the Incident Information System: Incident Maps and National Geographic Area Coordination Center Website Portal

Mountain roads
These books are a godsend and saved us several times from going on some nightmare roads. We also use it to determine if it would be easier to split up and drive the car or tow the car behind the RV.      Mountain Directory for Truckers, RV, and Motorhome Drivers
(Driving with tow attached usually has us go up mountains at about 35-40 mph – which means in the truck lane. This is usually fine except when we find ourselves behind a truck going 15 mph, which makes for one long boring uphill drive.   Also, in California (and some other states) a towing vehicle is restricted to 55 MPH. When we split up and the LD is on her own, she can easily do mountains in the auto lane. )

Where are they???
There are many wonderful places that you will NOT have cell phone reception.
Consider owning a tracker if no one knows where you will be. We use it to track the RV, to track the car, especially if we are going on less traveled roads, and to track long hikes. If family notices we are not making contact as usual, it would be the first place for them to look. It also offers a way to communicate.   A bonus is that then we also have a record of where we have been and when we were there. We use DeLorme AG-008727-201 InReach Explorer Two Way Satellite Communicator with Built in Navigation
Especially if you go RVing or hiking alone, consider owning a personal locator beacon (PLB) with GPS. NOAA - Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking - Emergency Beacons

These aren’t negatives and I’m not complaining. These are realities that most people don’t think about that make it very different than a vacation.

Our Lazy Daze RV is well-made and a wonderful place to live. I love my 3 large windows in the rear, the shades that make the RV very dark and quiet, the bathroom door that can also serve as a divider between the front and back, and so much more. I also liked dealing with the company both when we bought the RV and afterward. Motorhome Dealer | Low Profile Motorhome | RV Manufacturer | Quality Motorhome

Coachnet (like AAA for RVs) has helped us quickly and well when we were stuck in the sand (at a campsite) and a couple of years later when we got a flat tire. It’s always good to have someone to call.

For books about RVing, see
Recommended reading   I also recommend the entire blog.
For groups, I highly recommend the Escapees RV Club (~$60/yr membership), for their magazine, their mailing service and their SKP parks.
   Escapees RV Club | Home
RV Village is new, but I think it has great potential   RVillage

And finally, when you drive, whatever you are driving, sucking on Atomic Fireballs is the cure to feeling sleepy.