Our Nest on Wheels

Today, August 3, marks the one-year anniversary of our full-time RV adventure. So it's a good time to review and reflect on life on the road.  A few things stand out immediately.

1) We haven't found where we would want to live yet. I (Steve) mentioned in "The Big Idea" post that we didn't know where we wanted to live in retirement, but we knew that it wasn't the Chicago area. So we are trying out different places to see what we like. We've found a number of places that we enjoy but probably would not like for year-round living. So far we have stayed in 50 different locations in 20 different states (we've traveled through 25 states but didn't stay in all of them). Our intention was to stay for a week to a month in various places to get a feel for what it's like to live there. As you can see, 50 locations in 52 weeks is an average of one week in each place, but that does include a number of one- or two-night stops when we were trying to get somewhere else quickly. We are now in the fourth location where we are spending a month. So far that has included Wisconsin (Door county), Virginia (Williamsburg), Arizona (Overgaard), and currently Colorado (Gunnison). But along the way we've been in many places for one- or two-week stints and gotten a pretty good idea of the area in that time. So far, we're still looking. I'm holding out for the Pacific Northwest, where we hope to be next summer. [Jane's note: I could be pretty interested in living on the beach in the Florida panhandle. But it would have to literally be on the beach; I'm not sure we can afford the housing there!]

2) We're not constantly on the move, and that's by design. We have tried to learn from other people's experience by doing a fair bit of research in advance. We've joined several Facebook RV groups, and that's been a big help. It seems that full-time RVers tend to fall into three groups: those who are stationary, those who move seasonally between a couple locations, and those who are always traveling to new locations. We are in the latter group. But we've learned that it's fairly common for full-timers to travel a whole lot during their first year on the road as they try to see the whole US. After a year of constant travel, they realize that mostly what they are seeing are the Interstate highways, and they need to slow down. We are trying to take that slower approach from the beginning. When we are in a spot for an extended time (two weeks to a month), we are not out sight-seeing every day. Some days we just hang around the house and do stuff that normal people who live there do on a typical day.

3) This lifestyle is not a constant vacation. But it's pretty close! We're not out seeing and doing stuff every day, but we do get out a lot. That's sort of the point of this: getting to see a lot of different places and interesting things. But just as our friends who live in the Chicago suburbs are not going into downtown Chicago every day, we aren't out hiking or rafting (or whatever) every day. Some days we are just living.

5) We are saving money. We're not in this primarily to save money, but it's a nice side benefit. We don't have the costs of a large house with high property taxes (ours were over $11,000/year when we sold). We do have site rental expense and some repair expense, although mostly those have been covered by warranty. And we spend more on diesel fuel than if we were stationary, but at 10 mpg (for the motorhome) it's not too bad. We save the most when we stay a month in a spot. RV parks typically charge a whole lot less per night on a monthly rate than they do for a week or a single night—often 40% less. And when we're not on the move, we're not burning diesel. Most other costs have stayed the same or similar to what they were before hitting the road, so it's really the housing cost that's the big change.

6) There are a lot of full-time RVers out there. We are always meeting others who are also full-time. The RV industry has been setting sales records for the past couple years, and while this is good for the industry, it's not so good for the rest of us. There aren't that many new campgrounds, so getting a spot in a popular location may require a fair bit of advanced planning. It's not quite as carefree as we'd like. For example, if you want to be in south Florida (south of I-4) in January, February, or March, you better get your spot booked a year in advance. Summer in the Pacific Northwest fills up fast, too, as we found this spring when we were unable to get reservations.

7) We've never camped in a Walmart. Yes, you are usually allowed to park overnight for free in most Walmart parking lots unless local regulation prohibit it. And for people who are traveling a long distance and just need a place to park overnight, it can make sense. But seriously, would you want to live in a Walmart parking lot? Instead we joined Harvest Hosts, which allows us to stay for free at participating farms, breweries, and wineries/vineyards. We've used them only a of couple times, when were were trying to get out to Maine quickly, but the views were much better than a Walmart.

Straight ahead you'll see a U-shaped couch. It's pretty big, because it doubles as dining-room chairs when you put the movable table in front of it. Maybe it sounds trailer-trashy to eat on the couch, but we like it much better than the models that squeeze a smaller couch and a dinette in the same amount of space.

When you don't want the table out (like when you're rolling down the road), you just drop the leaves and store the table under that cabinet that you see behind Steve and in the shot below.

Yes, fireplace. At first we thought it was a silly idea and a waste of potential storage space, but our friends who RV tell us that it's just right for taking an early-morning chill out of the air when you don't want to run your furnace. (And did you notice: we haven't even moved in yet and we're already having trouble controlling the clutter caused by remotes.)

It's not big.

 But it has a double (very small) sink, a combination microwave/convection oven, a gas stove, and a full-sized refrigerator. And a backsplash that is almost identical to the one we picked when we redid our bathroom; we feel at home already. (Both the sink and the stovetop are covered in this shot; apparently one covers them when traveling, but I haven't figured out why yet.)

. . . but I didn't get any shots of ours except this one I took to remind myself of the amount of storage available. The bathroom is only slightly larger than you'd find on an airplane and isn't quite as luxurious as the one in our land-locked home (no soaker tub, for instance), but it does have one of the few motorhome showers that Steve can stand up straight in. His head is in the skylight, but at least he's standing.

On the way, we can throw a load in the washer or dryer located behind closed doors just outside the bedroom. Yes, I did say glamping!

In the bedroom there's not an inch of space wasted on non-essentials like walking space, and I'll be the first (but probably not the last) to say that the current bedspread and pillows are butt-ugly. But the mattress is one of those sleep-number things, and the wardrobe boasts 80 inches of closet rod (conveniently accessible by his-and-hers sets of door to clearly delineate personal territory, not unlike the imaginary line my brother and I used to draw down the middle of the back seat on family road trips) plus four decent-sized drawers. There's also storage under the bed; over the bed; and on, under, and above bedside tables. Also reading lights and triangular bookshelves (re the odd shape: see previous comment about not an inch of wasted space). Steve has already claimed his side of the bed.

~ Jane

from Steve
So, we purchased a motorhome this weekend. Since we've been looking for more than a year, we pretty much knew exactly what we wanted, and were willing to shop nationwide for it. We found the one we wanted—a 2015 Itasca Solei 34T—at a reasonable price in New Jersey, so this past week we made a quick trip to inspect, test, and finalize the deal.