Roaming Free In An RV

We have had an influx of questions lately and thought since it’s the start of the new year, we would answer the questions in a little blog post. Questions are in no particular order.

 

What do we do all day?

If it’s during the week, we are working. Brad is the main income provider and is lucky enough to work from home. He has a morning meeting with the company every weekday and works a normal ish 9-5 schedule. We say “ish” because he gets random work calls after working hours and the weekends. I (Jen) work on many different projects during the day. I update and keep up with the blog, work on my photography Etsy shop while also working on my photography, taking photos daily and learning something new, and also am working on a book.

After Brad gets off, it varies what we do. Sometimes nothing, sometimes we just errands, or we go out exploring and on hikes. The weekends are all for fun!

How do we get mail?

The most popular questions by far! We have two ways to get mail: either through the campground we are staying at or from a mail forwarding company that we set up in Seattle. The mail forwarding company receives our mail, scans it and then e-mails us what we received. If we want it sent to us, they will send it (for an additional cost). We get online orders delivered right to the campground we are staying.

We really don’t get much mail. All bills are paid online so no mail there and we don’t get flyers or junk mail. The busiest time of year for us for mail is birthdays and Christmas, where we have family/friends send the mail right to the campground.

What do we do for wi-fi?

This is probably the second most common question. It took us over a year on the road to figure this out. Campground wi-fi is not reliable, especially when working from home. We have Verizon for our phone plan (the lowest plan) and a year ago got a T-Mobile unlimited data plan for wi-fi only. We got a free T-Mobile phone and we use that as our router and for the year that we have been doing this, the only time we had trouble was in Monument Valley, but there were no services there for any carriers.

Do we work out? How do we stay in shape?

We both have Fitbits and get in 10,000 steps daily, walking around at the campground, going for a hike, or on rainy days, going to the mall, we figure out how to get it done. For strength training, we have videos that we use outside (no jumping around inside a RV though!!) and a TRX. Some campgrounds even have a gym, which is really nice.

Do we decorate for the holidays?

We do!! We have never been into major decorating for the holidays but just simple decorating such as wreaths on the front door for each season, fake pumpkins inside and real pumpkins outside for the fall, and a small Christmas tree in December.

How does RV’ing work with trick or treaters?

It depends on where we are. The first year we were in Virginia and the campground went all out for Halloween with a hayride, a haunted house, food, and they invited the neighborhood kids (and of course the campground kids) to trick or treat within the campground and it was a huge hit! We went through a bunch of candy that year! The following two years we have been in a 55 and older campground in Mesa, AZ so they do not have any trick or treaters. The campground itself does a Halloween event where everyone dresses up and there is a parade with everyone’s decorated golf carts.

Aside from the RV issues, are there any other challenges we face during our travels?

The first thing that came to mind was weather. We plan our travels so we are in pleasant weather but there are times when we miscalculate or Mother Nature just does her own thing. In Texas, we hit horrible rain in the spring and had to plan around driving in the worst of it, in Maine we got the effects of a tropical rainstorm and that made for some really scary winds, when we were out East we had to rearrange our plans due to campgrounds closing by mid-October, and in Savannah, the nighttime air was colder than what we thought so we had to go out to buy supplies so our waterline wouldn’t freeze.

We would say the next big challenge is making sure that the site at the campground fits our rig. Sure, we do our research and call the campground to make sure but you never really know till we get there. It’s a little nerve wracking right when we pull into the campground the first time because we never really know what to expect. Photos on-line can be deceiving so those first few minutes are us looking around, making sure it looks ok.

 

Any teasers for future travel plans for 2018?

Happy valley, prairies, evergreens, and cacti. Let’s see who can decode that. 🙂

 

 

Can we offer any specific pieces of advice or things we have learned about this lifestyle that could help those who are thinking about trying it?

Just do it. If you want to try this lifestyle out then give it a go. Once you are on the road, you quickly figure out if this is what you want to do and what you do or do not like. We really didn’t know if this was something we were going to do for a year or 20 years! We thought we would give it a go and see how it panned out. Just like anything that’s new, we had our struggles but we realized that we like being full time RV’er and knew that we just had to find out what worked for us. Everyone is different and what works for one RV family doesn’t work for the other. Everyone that we have meant loves this lifestyle but we all do our own things so don’t compare yourself to what others are doing. Just life the live that suits you.