Let’s get real today about full-time RV life. What does it entail, the good, the bad, the ugly, the frustrating, and how long we think we will be full-time RV’rs.
Let’s start on a positive note the things that we continually preach about on our YouTube channel and our social media platforms, which is simple…. RV life has given us time!! Time to be together as a family, time to do personal interests or hobbies and time to accomplish things that we want to do in this lifetime solo and with one another. The bonus that we’ve realized over the past almost 2 years of full-time travel is, we’ve also gained a tremendous amount of time with family and friends, that with 100% certainty, we would not have had otherwise.
Some of the smaller changes that have happened have really had a profound effect on my life. Things such as not focusing’s on the “things” and when I say things, I mean materialistic items. I can say with 100% certainty focusing my attention on the life that is happening in front of me has helped me grow as a wife, mother and just as a human in general. This is an area I didn’t realize would have such a profound effect on me.
A really great way to explain this is when you’re standing behind a big home, luxury cars, lots of materialistic items I think you can tend to get lost as a human in general. I can tell you that sometimes when we go to bigger cities, I can feel myself thinking, “oh, I need that, or I need this.” It happens so quickly but when you only have 400 ft.² to decorate or live in you realize you don’t really need much and in fact, the things that you do need are simply usually sitting right in front of you -which is the ones you love.
There’s no doubt in my mind that RV life has had a prolific effect on my life and our life as a family. I believe it’s also been a life-changing course for our children as I watch them learn and grow through travel. I say this with no ego, but they are all flourishing, shining, and reaching above all limitations that I thought they ever would at such young ages, academically socially, and otherwise.
Now let’s dive into some of truly the biggest stressors of RV life and I’m going to be brutally honest here. One of the number one items, if you plan to full time RV, and travel, a.k.a. not staying stationary. There will be a lot and I mean a lot that will be out of your control. For someone like me who really hung on to control that was a very difficult aspect when we first started RV life. When I say control, I mean not only can there be delays in your travel days you can also have plans cancelled by campgrounds, full routes can need to be changed, repair work can leave you stranded at locations meaning new plans need to be had, a lot rides on your RV and things that are exterior factors that you can have no control over.
Another aspect in full-time RV life is sometimes things aren’t always what they seem and can lead to disappointment. For instance, we’ve had more than one location that we were truly looking forward to going to and once we arrived it was a complete and total disappointment, this can lead to a domino effect of do you change plans or stay?
Lastly, one of the biggest stressors as I mentioned briefly above is RV repairs, it’s something that I cannot stress enough. You will need money for it even if you buy a brand-new unit like we did. It is something you need to be mentally prepared for. You are moving your home on wheels across big roads, things will break it will just happen.
Your ability to give yourself grace, give your spouse grace, give your kids and fur kids grace will be huge! You will need to learn to lean into feeling uncomfortable at times because plans will not always go perfectly.
One of the other things I’d love to touch base on, is lonesomeness for me personally, I have thrived on the alone time of RV life and really enjoyed it. We have had the unique opportunity to meet some of the most beautiful families on the road and keeping in touch creating strong bonds will be something you will need to do if it’s not already something you do. For me personally, I have never felt isolated nor has my family, but I do know that this can be a common theme for our rv’rs so I’d love to touch on that a little bit.
When you get to a location meeting other families or couples at social gatherings, making sure that you’re visiting the pool, or the playground will be key. I have found that there is no lack of friendships on the road, but I also could see how you could very easily keep to yourself and not branch out to meet others.
The big million-dollar question that we get all the time is how long we will we continue with rv life and the truth is we really don’t have an answer. We’ve always said that we will ride this out for as long as we are happy, the kids are happy, and truthfully that we are all successfully thriving and growing. As a mother, the one thing that I will never do is something that will make my kids unhappy and so I suppose if the day came that they were unhappy, doing RV life, we may be stopping sooner than we think as a parent.
For now, we are set to be able to complete all 50 states by the end of 2024 and although that’s not really something we originally set out to do, it is something now that our kids have gotten excited about. Therefore, as with anything in parenthood, once your kids are looking forward to something, you automatically get excited!
I hope this blog helps and as always, we are here as a support to all of you!
With love,
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