Far too often we get into the habit of glamorizing the “good old days” and reject the present times like we’re witnessing the apocalypse itself. It’s easy to think like this. In a world of overrun RV parks and the disparaging of public lands, I often find myself wishing that I could have experienced RV life back before it became a social media hashtag.
While I’ll never get to experience the sheer openness that came with road-tripping in a time before we all became digitally connected, I can’t help but look around and think, “Damn! We’ve got it good!”
Here’s why I think we’re in the golden years of RVing.
1. Navigation apps
Undoubtedly, the internet will get most of the credit in this article. The explosion in technology we’ve experienced in the last decade alone has made RVing easier than ever. Gone are the days of etching out a route on a map as big as your dashboard. You can simply plug in where you want to go, and more times than not your smartphone is going to get you there without a single hiccup.
2. Boondocking resources
Whether you’re using iOverlander, Campendium, or the classic freecampsites.net, finding that picturesque remote campsite out in the boonies is a breeze. I often wonder how some of the original RVers used to do it (and I’d love to hear from you in the comments).
I imagine that finding a free campsite before the era of apps meant scouring BLM and Forest Service roads for hours, just hoping that you’d eventually find a suitable pullout for camp. It must have been intimidating to go into an area with no plan on where you’d sleep for the night, holding on to nothing more than the confidence that it would work out.
Nowadays, you can drive to an area and have information about where you can camp available right at your fingertips. While it’s always best to plan out some spots ahead of time, sometimes you can’t avoid uncertainty. iOverlander has helped me out in a pinch more times than I can count.
3. Millions have done it before us
This is one of the most underrated reasons why RVing has never been easier. Millions of other people have traveled the same proverbial roads before us, and there’s a significant “roadmap” that we can now follow. With a community that’s larger than it has ever been, countless RV forum posts, and thousands of YouTube guides on every aspect of RV life, your work has been done for you and someone is always there to lend advice.
4. Remote and digital work
Consistent income has always been one of the most challenging parts of living full-time on the road, and it’s something that many RVers take time to figure out. There’s always been seasonal work and work camping jobs, but before the internet, these were all by word of mouth. The internet has made these types of jobs readily available for all RVers.
Even more astounding is the new phenomenon of remote work. RVers no longer have to remain in a location for a temporary job, allowing them to truly travel uninhibited. So long as you’ve got reliable internet service, you can comfortably fund your livelihood immersed in the beauty of the outdoors.
5. It’s normalized
Above all else, the social perceptions surrounding RVing have never been more positive than they are today. You no longer risk the stigma of “living in a van down by the river.” (But who really cared about that anyway?) When you tell someone you live full-time in your RV, chances are they’ve heard it before and have a rough understanding of your lifestyle. This certainly wasn’t always the case, and I think it shows just how far the lifestyle and industry have come.
Do you agree this is the RVing golden age?
Even with all the advantages that come with RVing in the modern world, there have certainly been sacrifices made to get to where we are now. There’s something innately freeing about hitting the road with nothing more than a map and a loose itinerary, and this is an experience you can no longer easily obtain.
Is RVing as good as it ever has been, or is the lifestyle missing something that it used to have? You tell me.
##RVT1073
Good job. You are absolutely correct. Thanks for the positive reminder.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Great positive article pointing out all of the good things about rving and how fortunate we are to be able to travel so freely in our beautiful country! Nothing like it.
Totally agree with all of your points. We’ve been fulltime for over 13 years & have travelled over 200K miles to every state at least once & Alaska twice. We can’t imagine living any other lifestyle, & plan to continue wandering until health forces us off the road.
Agreed…except when we lived in Alaska people were more normal and helpful…not anymore. Greed has attacked that state and we will never go back.
And online reservations. Previewing the campsite before selecting. Reserving months in advance. Real time campground reviews. Texting the campground office to let them know when you’ll show up (predicted time of arrival based on the GPS). Using fuel discount apps to plan fuel stops. We still get the state maps at the welcome centers but I can’t remember when I actually opened one up to look for an alternative route. The RV specific GPS (mostly) routes us where our RV is safe to drive avoiding non-big rig routes given the weight and dimensions of our RV.
In a different context, I read an article about “Pioneers and Settlers”. There are two very different kinds of people around. The pioneers love the unknown where nobody has gone, rising to the challenges and revelling in the self-sufficiency and resourcefulness required. The settlers love the fact that others have paved the way. Your article shows that, for RVing at least, you are more of a settler. BTW we can be both, at different times. I’m a pioneer at my career (doing lots of R&D) but am definitely a settler when I RV.
My answer is I’m not sure. Before the internet (and even a little after) we sometimes used Woodall’s.- A thick paper back book that had most campgrounds listed. We just called and made reservations….and you got to actually talk to a campground employee. It was the personal touch that I sometimes miss. One thing that surprises me is that it seems many people don’t even want to talk to people to make reservations anymore. The place we go to frequently just made on line reservations possible. We’re seeing many more different faces here than before. That’s not a bad thing but it happened pretty much at the same time. I know we’re not going to see the old days anymore but I miss them in many ways.
Don’t be so sad about this. I like personal communication too, but in reality, if I’m trying to line up a campsite, I don’t want to leave a voicemail, then get no response, or a response hours later when I am driving in traffic; because I needed to get a ‘yes or no’ to go on to my next choice. MANY campground owners now roam around doing landscaping work all day and ‘let the machine get it’. The absentee type owners are even worse and think you are interested in playing phone tag with them til they get off their real job and feel like calling you at 5 or 6 in the evening.
Meanwhile I can have used reservations.gov to secure something, and see what site I will get, and be done with it. Let’s face it, Dr. Welby is not down at the clinic, and Aunt Bee is not running the campground. It’s fun when you occasionally run into great hospitable hosts who love to talk with you and assign you the perfect campsite, but it doesn’t happen too often.
We’ve been full-time for 5 years (in a large Class A Winnebago towing) and I’ve often said that I can’t imagine doing this before GPS!
We got our first TT five years ago, have both retired since then and now own a Class C. We are snowbirds, not full timers. The apps are incredibly helpful for all the things you mention. Plus, now we have HipCamp, Boondockers Welcome, Harvest Hosts and the like to add to this list. It’s made RV’ing, and getting off the beaten path, pretty easy. We have nothing to compare it to as we were tent campers up until 5 years ago and it was easier to go bouncing down a Forest Service road to find a camping spot.
I don’t know how we did it. We just decided if we wanted to go North, South, East or West. We had Rand McNally, and would pick up state and local maps at gas stations along the way and many had local attraction maps as well. We would have to find a phone booth and a quarter if we wanted to call head, so did not. We never knew where we would land for the night, but never had a problem finding a State or National Park or a mom n pop campground for the night. There weren’t even any Walmarts then. Young, dumb, and fun. Not young, but still dumb and fun. Now we estimate our destination for the night and refer to a paper campground guide, but have never called for reservations and have still found a place to land for the night. Dumb and fun still works for us, I guess. (opposite from my dad who planned every mile and every minute).
Yep, I love paying 3rd party campground app producers extra on top of severely rising campground fees instead of just calling and talking to the mom & pop campground owner to book a reservation.
For our recent trip almost every site we booked gave no alternative but to pay extra and book through a 3rd party app. Fees ranged from $2 (reasonable) to $17.70 (absolutely outrageous!)
Two campgrounds still did it the old fashioned way…call the office and get personal service…OMG…service at no added cost…how horrible! 🙂
Sorry, but no. Because now you can’t take a pic without an RV or tent in the pic. It’s way too crowded. And way too expensive with campsites tripling and quadrupling in price. Plus now, having to make a reservation everywhere you go which forces you to leave an area that you really liked because of the reservation you made at another campground months ago. Not to mention new RVs are being made crappier so they break down, or start falling apart in no time.
Sorry but it’s just a sign of the times.
I agree. But it is also the available online banking, bill paying, etc that allows us to be on the road for months at a time and still stay out of trouble. Zoom and facetime to keep in touch with family and friends. Unlimited cell data plans that allow us to actually use these connections. We have been camping since the 70s, and it has never been easier.
Thanks Jeff. I believe we are hardwired to be cynical. It is an amazing time to be an rv’er. Map apps steer us clear of issues and give us generally the best routes. We can find new non traditional camping through alternative apps. And the technology we have access to is amazing, solar, lithium batteries, efficient generators etc. We should marvel at instead of complain.
As a Canadian Snowbird who is still in the USA at tax time, I file my taxes remotely. Last year, I had ZERO pieces of paper as my online tax filing system populates all related tax documents from my investments, banks, CRA (your IRS) and other agencies. As much as the internet is a pain in the a** sometimes, many things that we now take for granted as so simple. Stay positive about the joys of RV’ing, as it takes less energy than being angry all the time!
Sorry. I don’t think we’re in the “Golden Years” of RV’ing. But I’m so old-school that that is probably the problem.
Yep, There are still some positives. It may not be as relaxing or affordable as it once was, but there are still good times to be had. One way to improve your experience is to take day trips out of your crowded campground. Hanging around a busy campground gets old fast.
I think it all depends on why and how you use your RV. For us, I would certainly agree that RVing gives us a level of freedom we previously did not have and could not afford.
One boundary is we don’t view us as ‘camping’ (and we have plenty of experience in that regard) so much as ‘turtleing’ (carrying our home with us). We don’t look for resort destinations, but comfortable places to park while we enjoy local life and scenery. Our pets and few personal belongings travel with us. We aren’t always eating out. A 2nd fixed location home costs much more and gets as dull as our primary home.
“Easier” is why there are now hordes of RVers meaning reservations needed way in advance more often and rapidly increasing costs from RVs themselves to campground fees. So technology can be a two edged sword.
In many cases it’s a double-edged sword. This article deals mainly with wild camping that has scored pretty low in preference level with most rv’ers who responded to a poll here. -So some could benefit from the features around now. However, policies from Nat’l parks, BLM, and other things are changing too- including reducing the choice of places for camping. For the rest of us, crowding still remains the biggest problem and will probably be that way for a long time.
Golden Age? That probably depends on how the RVer lives the life. Technology has certainly made some aspects easier and/or more convenient in all walks of life. Technology has also created risks and pitfalls that can certainly create chaos in someone’s life, i.e. internet security that has affected too many people with online banking and the like. Campgrounds aren’t my first go-to choice. That said, the trend to the Gubmint wanting to restrict access to public lands, sometimes warranted, mostly not in my opinion, has limited the locations many feel comfortable visiting. Whether it’s reality or not, complaints about finding a private’ setting is growing…
you have never experienced a life without the internet. That was true freedom. When we were tired we stopped and fixed supper and crawled into bed. The sun woke us up, we fixed breakfast and went on. Had only broad destinations and stopped whenever something looked interesting. Now everything is too regulated. Dash from one spot to the next following a program on a phone. My recommendation to young folks is to get a pickup camper or van, an atlas and lock up your phone. Don’t use unless it’s an emergency and discover how free you are without a phone. Only thing freer is backpacking. Internet is an addictive drug that bleeds spontaneity from life.
Thank you, Jeff! I certainly do not disagree with you, but perhaps fall a bit short of fully agreeing with your conclusion. I do think that this is when DW and I are RVing and we will make our travels as enjoyable as we can. Further, I’m thankful that we have the physical ability to travel and the financial resources to fund it. Thank you for making me think. 🙂
It may be the golden years of camping, but whoever coined the phrase golden years of life couldn’t tell the difference between gold and rust.
We have to recognize, a large number of RVers enjoy well made RV Parks with wonderful amenities for families and adults. The number of such RV Parks built, and being planned and built, provide a myriad of opportunities to enjoy traveling to locations they want to see. These parks are not for everyone, yet they do offer what so many of us truly enjoy, and can be comfortable in. We are in our 70’s, and the ability to have full hookups and a clean, well maintained park, appeal to us so very much. The Golden Years of Camping come in many styles and desires, providing so much enjoyment for all types of camping and RVing lifestyles.
No, it’s a total cluster. After Covid, everything went downward. There has been such an overrun in the RV lifestyle that in many places we are simply not welcome anymore.
There is nothing “Golden” about today’s world…especially pertaining to RV’s compared to yesterday’s world. We had no electronic gadgets and especially those
smart
phones that people have become addicted to. 50-60 years ago we thought we had it made if we had a 16 foot Shasta or Red Dale camper…with no gadgets. No y’all can have it now since anything to do with RV’s has went to the dogs.One does not have to be a rat in the rat race…or ride for the brand either.