With keen insight, real-life experience and a quest for a fuller understanding, author and entrepreneur Jeannine Patané is looking beyond the common notion that full time RVing is a lifestyle choice and the primary domain of a retired couple spending their children’s inheritance traversing the country cozied up in a luxurious motorhome, travel trailer or fifth-wheel.
Ms. Patané delves deeper into other – some would argue more important – socio-economic reasons that have led to an explosion of traveling and living aboard a recreational vehicle on a full time basis with the publication of her article, “The Fulltimer Effect: Strengthening Our Story.”
A solo full-time RVer herself, Patané seeks to understand not only the reasons for such a proliferation, but also how many people actually participate in this nomadic trend. Official numbers published by the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) only reveal the number of wholesale deliveries of RVs to dealers.
The Internet, replete with countless RV travelers documenting their excursions, coupled with the forums of popular RV clubs and even feature-length documentaries, shed light on only some higher-profile activities of a few fulltimers.
But what about the non-joiners, the independent types who desire obscurity, freedom and adventure, or those who simply cannot afford conventional housing, or those forced by job description to travel vigorously? “My daily in-the-trenches observation along with hardwired gypsy intuition tells me there are a few million more fulltimers than are recognized,” Ms. Patané explains.
Passionate for the fulltiming RV lifestyle and dedicated to helping others within the full time community, Patané asks, “If we can’t start with an accurate estimate, then how can we keep track of a growing movement to help ourselves?”
To that end she has created a non-invasive questionnaire for fulltime RVers which she hopes will shed light on not only the “where” and the “how,” but also the “why” of a nomadic life. Click here to read her article, which also links directly to the questionnaire.
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We are first time snowbirds in Phoenix. As I walked our dogs around our RV park, I wondered about the wanderlust that we all seem to share. In our time on the road we have met people from everywhere, families with children, giving them experiences they will remember and the ability to be comfortable anywhere. We’ve met people who travel for their jobs, and people who just have the need to travel, to see what’s beyond the curve in the road. It makes for an interesting community, a diverse community, bound together by the need to see more. I wouldn’t trade our RV experiences for any sitck and brick home anywhere.