Downsizing into an RV

[SteveR]

My first post since 2011.


We bought the RV in 2007 but also kept the house. Since then we still have the same RV but sold the mountain cabin, relocated twice and now live in a 55+ community.



Early in the post-retirement phase of our lives, we did the RV traveling thing...coast to coast to boarder to boarder and short excursions in between. DW has to have roots, i.e., a house to come back to. Our longest trip was 4 months and she was psycho at the end of 3 months. In more recent history we have kept our travels more local mostly due to DW's parents health issues; mine are gone so that is not an issue anymore. Once her's are no longer here we plan on getting back on the road for longer trips again.



One thing I have found about RVs in general is once they are paid for you really don't want to fork over the big $$$$ for a new one so you fix what you have and upgrade it or modify it to fit your needs. A diesel engine is good for several 100,000 miles. The rest is basic maintenance and fix as you go. The really expensive stuff is the "house" part of the RV.



Imagine putting a condo on a truck chassis and cruising down Americas "best" roads full of potholes, dips, bad pavement and poor maintenance. Everything inside the 'house" shakes and rattles no matter how good you pack it. Cabinet doors move, the walls move, the floor flexes, the slideouts flex, the roof flexes, etc. Over time and tens of thousands of miles things fatigue, crack, separate, and break.



Like an earlier poster noted...you really, really, really need to be able to fix basic stuff while on the road. It is nearly guaranteed that something will not work or is broken right when you need to leave in the morning. Being moderately handy will keep you on the road and out of trouble. I have several critical replacement parts for the RV for stuff that is mission critical to getting out of a camping spot and on the road. Most experienced RV's do the same thing. Waiting for a mobile RV Repair Man to show up when you have only 2 hours before you have to be out of your space is not fun.



The positive side of RVing is that you take your own stuff, sleep in your own bed, can fix your own meals (eat cheaper), take pets with you and stay places where there are no hotels and you can do it in any level of luxury you require. The price of admission is not trivial nor it the annual expenses like insurance, registration, maintenance and storage if you don't go full time.



All said, we would do it again and look forward to being able to hit the road for extended periods again and see more of America.



Good luck with your descision.

 

[Moemg]

Welcome back Steve , This must be come back and visit week.

 

[Brat]

My son bought one of those bus-size motorhomes at auction, a low mileage diesel pusher. It had a couple dents in fiberglass, had those fixed at a boatyard. The unit was miss-described so being near an auction yard is helpful. Sometimes folks get lucky.

 

[SteveR]

Welcome back Steve , This must be come back and visit week.

I don't want to derail the thread so I will just say Thank you! Been a long while...just got the Newsletter and thought I would drop in.

 

[REWahoo]

I don't want to derail the thread so I will just say Thank you! Been a long while...just got the Newsletter and thought I would drop in.

Great to hear from you, Steve!

 

[Moemg]

I could maybe retire into this Rv if it had a few more slide outs

 

[NW-Bound]

^^^

To live full time, you may need a lot of room. Even then, it's tough to have the space and comfort of a stick-built home.

We would give up our homes only for travel. But for travel with these big motorhomes, I dunno. You would be stuck to the interstates or major highways. You cannot go stay inside National Parks. You can only refuel at truck stops like Flying J and Pilot. You cannot take back roads.

That thing cannot go where I have been with my 25' class C. And I have been in situations where I wish I had a smaller motorhome.

 

[Choices]

MANY years ago my DH , 3 kids, dog and 2 cats moved to AK in a class-C. We lived in it from May to late August, awaiting a house closing. We survived. The kids and dog went feral during the day whilst DH earned our crust. It was like a very long camping trip and we knew we would be moving into a house and be reunited with our “ stuff”.
I could do it again, with new DH and 2 pups as long as I have enough to keep me busy. We downsized a year ago and still have more stuff and space than we need in this new house.

 

[38Chevy454]

We both know that we cannot live full-time in an RV. Doesn't matter if it's a big class A.

But for traveling, an RV is great. I have put 40,000 miles on my class C, and it allows us to take the back roads and go places that hard to do with a car road trip, let alone the fly-and-drive routine.

We can do that only a couple of months at a time before missing home. Guess we could go for as long as 3 months, but something has always happened at the 2-month mark that made me head home.

This pretty much describes us. We did live in my motorhome for about 6 months after selling house, moving 1500 miles cross country, and waiting for the new house to be finished. Two adults, 3 big dogs, 2 cats all together. My MH is a large toterhome style (really big Super C) and we did fine although I could not do it long term, I need my detached garage and hot rods for fun. My dogs love traveling and do fine. But for now the MH is for trips, while maintaining the home as permanent residence. I do not see us full timing in an RV ever, maybe some snowbirding if we get tired of the winters.



I agree the RV lets you do things you just can't do with a car and hotel. Also agree with the statement that it is a lifestyle choice, and not a cost savings choice. Third agreement that you do need to be good with doing your own repairs, otherwise an RV will cost you a lot in repairs.

 

[NW-Bound]

MANY years ago my DH , 3 kids, dog and 2 cats moved to AK in a class-C. We lived in it from May to late August, awaiting a house closing. We survived. The kids and dog went feral during the day whilst DH earned our crust. It was like a very long camping trip and we knew we would be moving into a house and be reunited with our “ stuff”.
I could do it again, with new DH and 2 pups as long as I have enough to keep me busy. We downsized a year ago and still have more stuff and space than we need in this new house.

That's tough, but at least you knew the time was limited to 4 months.

In 2016, we started our annual RV trek early in April. The reason: my wife found good deals for timeshare rentals in Bigfork, Montana, and near Vail, Colorado. We had 1 week for transit between these two 1-week timeshare stays.

The weather turned out to be beautiful for the stay at the timeshare resort in Bigfork, which was deserted. Using the nice 2-bedroom suite as the base, I drove the toad to make daily excursions to nearby towns like Kalispell, Whitefish, and Glacier NP. It just could not be better.

Then, the weather turned bad as we headed south to Colorado. We were stuck in a snowstorm while waiting to check into the 2nd resort stay near Vail. Of course I could not boondock and had to check into a county park in Lakewood near Denver to wait out the storm in order to have power. Being cooped up inside the RV watching snowfall alternating with rainfall was not fun, although we did make the most of any interlude to dash out to see the surrounding towns.

The weather turned out nice again when we were in Vail, so overall it was still a successful RV run.

In the recent RV trip to Alaska, we hunkered down in Edmonton for 3 days to wait out a rainstorm with high winds that made the driving dangerous. I cannot imagine having more than 2 people in the RV, let alone with kids and dogs. Oh man, you are trampling on each other.

 

[GravitySucks]

My wife initially did not care for RV'ing. She came along, I think because she was afraid I might get seduced by some female solo RV'ers out there.

Did you get any phone # you could share?

 

[NW-Bound]

Of course not.

If they get interested, and they may not, they see my wife and stay away. So, I wouldn't know.

 

[kgtest]

Did you get any phone # you could share?

Lol, still lookin eh? Good at you. Keep on keepin on. You need to check into the villages in FL for a month or two in the winter. Hang out at the pickle ball court and the town center on Friday nights. I bet you get a #.



Don't ask how a 37 year old knows this lol.

 

[OnTheRoad]

We are on the road full time

Our plan was to FIRE, and hit the road full time with no end date. We sold the house. Sold or gave away everything in it, which was by far the hardest part. We ended up working with as estate agent to help facilitate this. We wanted no anchors.

Before pulling the trigger we spent years debating what type of RV configuration we would live in: diesel pusher motorhome, 5th wheel, or 5th wheel toy hauler. Each has their advantages and disadvantages. We decided on a 43’ 5th wheel toy hauler, and a Ford dually diesel truck to haul it with. This is definitely the most difficult configuration to travel with. The least maneuverable, hardest to pack and unpack, sometimes hard to find sites large enough, but we were still rather young, mid-50s, so what the heck. The deciding factor was being able to bring a Can-am trike motorcycle to tour around in. Which has been super fun.

Travel days are intense. We pack up, load the motorcycle. Hook up the truck and trailer. Haul the house hundreds of miles to the next location. Finally, we maneuver the rig into some strange new RV park and set up the house again.

It’s important that you and your wife really like each other, and can stand being in a small space, rather attached at the hip. It helps if you are a good team and happy campers.

RVs, like boats, tend to require constant maintenance, and we’ve had our share of breakages, minor and major. Something is always on the fritz, but we knew that going in and budgeted for it. But it doesn’t make it fun to be broken down in the middle of nowhere.

We are completely comfortable and at home wherever we are set up. In a lot of ways it’s not really like traveling. We sleep in our own bed and have all our stuff. The view outside our home is just constantly changing.

We’ve been on the road over three years now. I’ve hauled the rig over 30K. We’ve been to 45 states, and crossed the country sea to sea four times. We’ve been doing things in phases. We did the “Ultimate Margaritaville Experience” traveling the Gulf coast from Galveston to Key West, and a week sailing a catamaran in the British Virgin Islands. Then we did the Atlantic Coast, from Key West to Bar Harbor. We are currently doing the Pacific coast from California to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

I think we are beginning to see that we will want to settle down again in a couple of years, so we are beginning to visit places we might want to relocate to.

Full time RV travel is not always easy, and certainly not for everyone. But we have been loving it.

Good luck!

The best information sources I’ve found on the Internet for full time RVing are:

The Escapees RV Club
Forums - Escapees Discussion Forum

iRV2 Forum
iRV2 Forums