Full-time RVing is exactly what it sounds like. We live in our trailer all of the time and travel from place to place. This way of life is more than just camping. In fact, we never go “camping” because we just call it “living.”
We do not have a house, property, or home-base anywhere. Our mail is set up through a postal service with a P.O. box. There is an entire business set up to accommodate people like us and full-time travelers with mail. Whenever something gets sent to us, we get an email with a picture of the item. We can then decide if we would like the service to shred it, or forward it on to wherever we are currently at. It’s actually pretty slick and gets rid of having to sort through junk mail.
We have the luxury to travel anywhere we can drive to living this kind of life, and as soon as we park we are home. “Home is where you park it.”
We’ve stayed in RV parks and resorts, truck stops, rest areas, Walmart parking lots, off ramps, on the curb in subdivisions, and my parents front yard.
We usually only end up moving when there is a new job to go to, versus traveling for vacation or luxury. Don’t get me wrong, I love the traveling and going to new places, but mainly it’s to get to the next job. My husband’s work is why we’ve chosen to live this lifestyle, so we have the freedom to go anywhere.
Another main reason is that neither of us really know for sure where we would like to live. I’m from Illinois, and don’t necessarily want to live there; and he moved so much growing up that he doesn’t really have a deep-rooted sense of “home” to want to live anywhere in particular. His parents are in California and we lived there for a while, but couldn’t wait to get out of that state.
Some jobs we are parked for months or even years at a time, while others are much shorter. For example, in the last 30 days we have parked in two places in California, Nevada, and Utah. I think calculating it out, I have lived in over fifteen different places since I’ve known my husband, and way more places for him.
We have been in Yuma, AZ in July with 120 degree days, and in Utah for the winter. We have lived in the desert and in the mountains. Fancy parks and trashy ones. We lived on Catalina Island for a while, but obviously couldn’t take the trailer there. I have lived in more hotels than I can count because the area was so packed we couldn’t find a space to park.
We have gone through four different trailers trying to find the best one for us. We’ve had a camper that is literally as old as I am (manufactured off the line the exact same day, month, and year I was born), a brand new one, and some in between. We’ve been through multiple pickups too finding the best one to work with pulling and work.
We have remodeled different ones to make them work for what we needed, and spent hours making repairs. The siding of one came detached going down Interstate 80. Another time we spent all night repairing a roof. Most recently, the entire bottom of the trailer flooded and had to take off the entire bottom to let it dry out. That was quite entertaining when all the water came rushing out. Not only from the shock of having so much pour out, but my husband started yelling, “What color is it? What color is it?” (That’s funny because we have a sewer line and a water line.)
We’ve met some of the best people we know in parks and have had the most fabulous times with them. After our parties/get togethers, I would crawl into bed and giggle at all the great memories we were making, saying to my husband, “These are the days we will remember forever!” A great group of friends like that is your “trailerhood” family.
We’ve had wine Wednesdays, birthdays, craw fish boils, barbecues, Halloween costume parties, game nights, and the inevitable going away parties. We’ve seen the cops visit the park more times than I’d like to remember, affairs, fights, drug deals, heart attacks, countless stray cats, and so much more.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to following my home down the road, but I love our life and am so blessed to be living the way we do!
For more insight into RV life, check out the humorous, but very true
“You know you live in an RV when…”
https://liveandlearnjourney.com/you-know-you-live-in-an-rv-when/
Sounds like you are living the dream! I hope to one day be able to travel more and maybe even make enough income from my blog to start an adventure like this 🙂
I truly enjoyed reading this. I subscribed so can follow your journey. RVing has been an interest of mine so hoping to find some helpful tips to see if it’s for me. 🙂
Sounds so exciting. I’ve been dreaming about living in different places and even had the idea of buying a motorhome and traveling around. The difference between us is, you’re doing it and I’m still dreaming…
This sounds fun, but not sure we could do it all the time. We have a Fifth Wheel, but it stays in one spot for weekend getaways when we want.