Taking a break from RVing every so often gives us great perspective for why we keep coming back to it as our primary living style. And why we’re investing so much into making our bus even more OUR bus.
Every time we think we’re ready to hang up the keys and try something different – whether it be boating, backpacking, housesitting, global nomadism or renting places longer term – RVing continues to be our perfect long term nomadic substrate.
We’re currently anxiously awaiting our bus renovations to be done so we can get back out on the road.
I thought I’d share some of the reasons why we keep choosing the RVing lifestyle – or rather the things we’re really missing right now:
Always Home. Always Traveling. – It’s no secret we’re homebodies with a serious streak of wanderlust. RVing means the two don’t have to be at odds. We get to explore new places all the time, constantly change up our views, meet & visit with a wide variety of people, follow the weather .. all while our home is our basecamp. We know every night we’re returning to our own space to recharge, and we know exactly what drawer the wine opener is in. There’s no place like home – RVing allows us to keep familiar surroundings, and our cat, all while traveling.
No Packing – We love exploring new places, we even love the process of getting there. But we’re spoiled just driving our home with all our belongs to our next location. When we venture off on other travel styles, we forget how intimidating it can be to pack. Trying to think about what we’ll need in advance, forgetting items, over packing, thinking about weight restrictions & carry-on limitations. Lugging around a bag becomes no fun pretty quickly. It makes RVing all that much more luxurious in comparison. Our RV is a huge suitcase on wheels that has everything we desire, including the kitchen sink.
Cost Savings –
We never got into RVing to save money, we did it to increase our quality of life. However we’re constantly amazed at how much we save each month over our previous fixed location lives. We get million dollar views all the time for a fraction of the cost of a suburban lifestyle. Yes, RVing can be as expensive as you want it to be – but it can also be incredibly affordable. That financial freedom may give us the choice to retire earlier than we might have otherwise. And we remain incredibly agile to explore income & volunteer opportunities that inspire us, not just pay the bills.
Choose Your Own Adventure – We are completely at the whims of serendipity. We don’t often need to make reservations, we wake up some mornings not knowing where we’ll sleep that night, we choose how far we want to travel in a day and we can choose when we stop somewhere longer term. If we start to feel the itch to move earlier than anticipated, we move. We love being in control of our pace to match our desires. No rental agreements to break, no escrow to close, no reservations, no itinerary to follow or pre-plan. It’s a unique kind of freedom.
Community – I used to think that a traveling lifestyle would mean a loss of the feeling of being part of community. Yes, at first it can be jarring and an adjustment. But the community we’ve formed on the road is amazing and constantly expanding. We’ve made friends in cities across the nation that we now visit regularly. And we’ve made friends with other nomads who we get to live in temporary moving neighborhoods with, and each have our own lives too. I can’t say I’ve ever felt this closely connected with a community before.
We’ve explored other forms of nomadism a few times over the years – a medical hiatus after our first year on the road, 5 months living in the US Virgin Islands in 2010, our bus hunt by rail in 2011 and most recently our summer Alaskan Adventure (which has now extended a few extra week awaiting our bus work to be done).
At our core, we are nomads. We love keeping a life of mobility, variety and mixing in various traveling styles.
But at the end of each RVing break, we have so far continued to choose RVing as our center.
Will we always make that choice? Who knows.
We do know we are definitely ready to get settled back down again after this summer’s sojourn.
Which for us ironically means .. being back in motion.
Thank you Cherie and Chris for the inspiration! Look forward to continue and follow you two for years to come!
Great points. We are just two weeks into our new full time RVing adventure and we are already hooked. The freedom, the savings, the adventure all wins for us~
Can’t wait until we can start! Only a few more months! 🙂
We just bought a rv and we are going on our first trip to Tenn . I am retired and want to see the country without having to plan hotel stops and where to eat .Just want to go and not have any hassles. Can’t wait to hit the rode .Love the up dates and tip u provide to ur fans .Keep up the videos up dates .Tks ty and Becky
Hi Cherie and Chris, My Wife Barb and myself (Bryan) only have 7 months left before we sell our house and start our full time adventure. I have watched all your vids, great job btw :>. Be awesome to meet up with you on the road.
seeya soon
Bryan
Great post, Cherie! You hit all 5 nails on their heads. :). We just celebrated our first year of full-timing, and we don’t miss our former life one bit.
On a side note, glad to see your bus project picking up steam. We are loving the updates!
Congrats on your first year!
Love your positive attitude. It’s the best way to be, I think. We only have control over how we react to things. I enjoy your posts. Thank you for the suggestion, Cherie, to check out rvsueandcrew. It is full of good information for potential full time RVers. Looked at Tioga George’s archives, too. I always learn something new from your blog. Happy travels.
So glad you’re finding the info you were looking for.. lots of inspiring folks out there.
Our family of 5 just started full timing a few weeks ago, and I already see the benefits you mention at work. It’s great! And thanks to your resources, I am able to work from the RV. Keep it up!
So glad your new adventure is off to a fabulous start!
We had become pretty spoiled with traveling in our own home. We drove 1000 miles to pickup our Eagle in a GMC 1500 extended cab with an eighty pound dog in the back seat. The trip took five days. That was a very long five days. Staying in motels with nasty smells and unknown bedding. Eating where ever. Not being able to stop and take a rest during the day. Packing luggage in and out every evening. Unhappy dog. Paying $70 a night for this misery. We were so happy to be in our new home. Any thought of traveling any other way went straight out of our minds.
RVing sure does spoil you for hotel living.. we just had a few nights of it ourselves, and even being a nice hotel, it’s just not the same.
Yes. Yes, and yes. Yes to that, and yes to the other. All to say that, Yes!, we completely agree with every word. Thank you for a great summary of why people choose this lifestyle!
We are hoping to finally move to full time RVing within a month. We can’t wait, the people we have met in our short travels have been fantastic, can’t wait for the real adventure to begin.
And may it be awesome!
Totally agree. And to confirm reason #5 – we love it because we got to meet YOU!! Hugs!! Can’t wait to see the bus and both of you back on the road.
Nina
Miss you guys bunches.. it’ll be a fabulous day when we next meet up! *hugs*
As we sit here in a shop parking lot, all I can do is fantasize about again being camped out in an awesome boondocking spot in the middle of nowhere with amazing neighbors next door.
I can’t wait!
Very timely post- so nice to read your thoughts about these things, especially as we are about to take ourselves off the road for a while. Lots of contemplation ahead for us as we plan our next phase. So happy we were fortunate enough to meet you in person. Wishing you all the best with your home upgrades!
And wishing you a happy landing into the next chapter.. wherever it may take you. Another benefit of RVing is that no matter what you guys choose, odds are we’ll meet again 🙂 Whether on the road, or wherever life takes you.
Sounds great … We can’t wait to join you on the road. Working on our five year plan, hoping to shorten it by a couple of years, if possible.
Regardless of how long your plan ends up taking.. don’t forget that life itself is an adventure whether you are on the road or not, bring that spirit into every day.
It is so wonderful article and Travel is like love, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness.
Very true.. it does bring new perspective to every day.
Yes to everything you mentioned. I have been full time RVing for 1.5 years and I can’t see a reason not to be.
We ask ourselves regularly – we’ll keep doing it until something else feels more right for us
So well said, thank you! We are newbies to full-timing, and your blogs are helpful, reassuring and inspiring. Just started our blog: therollingtoaster@wordpress.com, hope to see you out there. Currently in New England until October enjoying the vast and various waterways with our kayaks. Life is good
Welcome to the road, and may it be many wonderful adventures ahead!
Amen to all these!
Cheers to that!