RV living is amazing but there’s a few things we didn’t expect. Here’s a quick overview:
1. Cost of living in an RV
2. Where to Park
3. Finding Work on the Road
4. Maintenance for the RV
5. Building a Community of Friends
First, let’s talk about the cost of living in an RV. There’s a lot of confusion and discrepancies when it comes to RV life expenses. Full time traveling is not cheaper. There’s a lot more wear and tear on your RV and vehicle because it’s going through a mini tornado everytime you move to a new location, which is usually every 2-3 weeks. So we’re talking about more repairs and maintenance. In addition, you don’t always know the best places to find groceries or cheap clothing/household items so you settle for whatever store is nearby. Some campgrounds don't allow for packages and some charge per box you receive so it can really add up quickly.
However, if you’re staying in one spot then it can definitely be cheaper to live in a tiny house on wheels vs traveling.
Finding a place to park isn’t as hard during the summer as it is in the winter. Most people who fulltime travel go south during the winter to meet up with their nomadic community. Us nomads bounce around every 2-3 weeks through the same campgrounds so we bump into the same families over and over intentionally.
During the spring, summer and fall months we tend to expand out west and/or north to make the most of each weather season. There’s a lot more campgrounds to venture to and more boondocking options so it’s not as hard to find a campground during those seasons.
Nomadic work on the road is bittersweet. It’s such a blessing to work wherever you decide to park your rig but you feel like you’re missing out on fun sometimes. You can’t always jump up and go to the next adventure like you can when you’re on vacation. You need to stay back from the beach day, field trips and such to get your work done (and homeschool if you have kiddos). It’s easy to get into vacation mode the first couple of months but you quickly realize that your bank account is NOT in vacation mode so you need to cut back a little and focus on free things, taking advantage of the campground amenities, or just meeting new people at the campground. If you’re looking for nomadic work, click here for info on our membership program designed to help you find ways to make money on the road.
Maintenance for an RV is killer! It’s such a big deal! Like I mentioned before, your house is going through a tornado everytime you move the rig. Those little speed bumps through the campgrounds or interstate roads are awful for the stuff inside of your home on wheels. It’s easy for the screws to slowly become loose and things to break. You need to constantly check for repairs and maintenance at every stop because if you don’t catch something in time then it can leave you stuck on the side of the road when you least expect it.
The amount of friendships and community you gain while traveling is out of this world amazing. Because you tend to meet people with the same mindset of focusing on experiences over things, you open up your heart quicker and the friendships become deep in a short amount of time. You know that you’ll only see your new friends for a couple of days before one of you is up and moving to the next place so you’ll make more of an effort to visit with them. This leaves you visiting with people almost every night. The connection is quicker and you really do see them a lot more than you think you will.
The full time RV community is amazing and we know that it’s growing. There’s a lot of misinformation out there but it’s good to know the good and the bad so you have an informed decision when selling everything to kick off a new way of life in a tiny house on wheels.
See ya on the road!
-Amanda