How do you use your RV? Is it for weekend camping trips in the summer? Or do you use it to head south each winter for soaking up sunshine instead of shoveling up snow?
For an increasing number of RVers, a recreational vehicle — motorhome, travel trailer or fifth wheel — is not about “recreation” at all, but about living. It’s their full-time home. Maybe they’ve retired and a big home with empty children’s bedrooms is no longer necessary. Or maybe they’ve mowed one too many lawns in their lifetimes and enough is enough.
Perhaps it’s time to see the good ol’ USA (or Canada), now that their work life is finished – No more suit and ties for these folks.
Lately, perhaps it’s a way to travel without flying and staying in hotels, where nasty invisible germs may lurk, left by the last guest.
What about you? How do you use your RV? Remember, the poll may take a few moments to load, so stand by…
We love to camp at different camp grounds at least 1 week a month. Mostly at lakes so we can use our pontoon. Have been as far as Branson Missouri, about 600 miles from home. We also like to go to Gulf Shores Alabama. So I would say we like to move it. Mostly at least a week at a time. We are retired and having a blast!
Hard to answer with these choices. Here’s the answer I’d give about our situation: “No sticks-and-bricks house; live and travel in our RV full-time, with some stays 1-3 months at a time.” We’re not constantly on the road, but we move around more than we stay in one place because we get “hitch itch.” Being in one place for longer than a month gives us a chance to get our mail and do some online shopping because we’ll be there long enough to get shipments delivered. We can also get the rig and toad serviced because the wait between an calling for an appointment and getting an appointment can sometimes be weeks or a month. My guess is this fits a lot of full-time, traveling RVers….
Hi everyone! We are new to RVing, just bought a 24’ Navion Itasca, we are from CT. We have gone to Maine and Cape Cod so far, a few days each time. We would like to travel the states and would appreciate any feedback. Our plan is to go south and out west and try to stay warm this winter! We usually go to our boat in the E Caribbean but with Covid and islands shut down we decided to travel in a self contained RV and see this beautiful country! Please advise us on routes, places to stay, ect. I have downloaded a few apps. Thank you so much for being here!!
We wintered in Florida from December until mid-March when we were ordered to return to Canada before they closed the border (they have to let us in and the American’s don’t want us either now) due to Covid. We put the Moho in the backyard of our bricks and mortar until the snow left us sometime in May, then headed out to a local provincial park for a week. Our son and his family have a seasonal site about an hour from home (Winnipeg) so we decided to take a look at a seasonal site considering we couldn’t travel east, west or south for sometime to come. So here we sit in our Moho in a very lovely RV park, close to one of the most beautiful beaches in Western Canada enjoying the best summer ever. Very hot (high eighties – hot for us) with very few mosquitoes. We go the bricks and mortar once a week and cut the grass. Life as we know has changed but we still love to plan for future trips whenever we can get rid of this Covid for good. See you on the road!
For us it is different for full-timing vs non full timing. Once, when full timing, we spent seven months driving across the US. We would spend three to five weeks at each major location and explore the area in the car. Even occasional overnight trips. We actually put more miles on the car exploring than on the motorhome on that trip.
Now that we no longer full time we seldom spend more than four or five days in any one location.
We started full timing last January in Rockport, TX with plans to leave in March. Virus kept us a month longer. We came back to Oklahoma to see family/friends and are now staying here until November. Our reservations for the PNW were all cancelled by us and some campgrounds because of current situation. Blessing in disguise I guess. Hopefully next year will bring more freedom to make and keep reservations. Will winter part time in Texas then head to Arizona. Safe travels to all!
I’m very surprised to see no option for ‘live f/t in RV but move around the country to work in the best seasons at every location’. In eight years, we’ve stayed in a place from as little as one month to as long as eight months; travel from A to B is leisurely and exploratory.
Travel is the grease that keeps our lives moving along. We winter in a SKP Coop, from sometime in November or December until Aprilish. During that time we may take a couple of trips out of the country for a month or so. We usually start East in April or May, unless we go to Alaska, and find our way to an apartment we sort of forget about in the Northeast to stay for 2 or 3 months during which time we may take a trip off the North American continent for a month or so. It’s hard to fit that into the poll, but I did pick the 2nd choice because it comes closest.
Short trips last 5-7 days and are usually within a 4-5 hour drive from home. Long trips last at least a month, traveling out of state, and moving to a new location once a week.
I wonder for those that like to get on the road like I do how long (on the average) does one stay before going on the road again?
I know it depends on where we are and what there is to see. The most we are gone at one time is six months.
For me it’s about 2 weeks for my #1 wife a month so we compromise or should I say I compromise and stay a month.
LOL!😂
None seem to fit. We are full timers. We don’t move every few days, and we don’t stay in one place only vacationing or visiting occasionally. We go and explore an area until we think we have seen all there is to see or learned all there is to learn. While we are there, if my husband wants to hang out his shingle for RV repair and inspection and do some work, we’ll plan for that. Also if we are close to an Amazon, he may go and work a season there. Basically, I think you needed a option for full time travelers.
We live in the Mojave desert of Sou Cal where day time temps are at least 105 to 115. So we purchased a lot at an rv resort on the Oregon coast where day time temps are 60 – 70. We travel up to the resort in May and return in October. So yeah, I checked off “it serves as a seasonal getaway”…..obviously.
We’ve taken advantage of the pandemic to catch up on annual health exams and the like. Our DPMH gives us a great little bubble. Run errands as needed. See the folks that we can. I have a projects list that I attempt to punch off every day.
Originally, in the naughties, I only did 3-4 day weekend trips while working W2 job…
I went fulltime working as a personal safety lecturer, and then would stay only a day or two each place along multistate loops… I finally quit that last year when Cuomo’s hatred of personal safety crushed me sufficiently out of local business and travelling work got too sparse for the mileage.
Now back to W2 at a desk (even if in my basement the last 6 months) I’m back to the “long weekend” variety. Since my work IS mostly on a workbench, I’m debating if I can work while “semi leisure” RVing (work a 4-5 days, spend every weekend in a new place), but failing that I’m also plotting a return to multi-week BIGGER loops of quadrants of the country just for fun while on vacation next year — assuming America still exists then.
Usually 3-4 month trips where we go 8-10,000 miles. We pick a destination, take several weeks getting there, and several weeks getting back. We have a 25’ class C, and can go from bed to driving in about 15 minutes, and driving to camping in about 5.
If I wanted to stay in one place for a long period, I’d stay home. My motor home has wheels for a reason!
We used to do a lot of traveling and moving around. Been around the lower 48 states twice, most of Canada a few times and Alaska once.
Now that we are older it gets more difficult to always be moving around, setting up for a week or two and tearing down for the next move. Now we pick a place to stay for a few months and drive our toad to all our friends and events not just staying in our coach all that time.
Age does catch up on everyone eventually and that will effect your activities.
Stay safe, Stay well.
My 20′ Rialta is a Family History research vehicle. I travel from Seattle to NY, PA, CT, IA, WI, SD and eastern Canada, urban boondocking near archives, libraries, court houses, and cemeteries. As long as the genealogical treasure chests hold documents, pictures and hints of family members long gone, I remain in the area. There’s no way I could engage in this interesting/exciting endeavor if I had to fly, stay in hotels and carry my papers and files in suitcases. RVs are perfect for hard-core genealogists!
Kat, your reality is my dream. We started full timing in January with my hope to do research on the road. The virus has really hampered our plans. I don’t even know if courthouses, archives and libraries are open to the public. Certainly not where I am now.
We are full time. Stay in one place for a month or so, then move on. A month gives us time to feel settled. Then we get a nice change of scenery at a new place. Too bad we can’t take advantage of local attractions.
We’re fulltime. We do stay in one place up to 3 months at a time, but we travel too. Generally log 12k to 16k a year on the road.
I couldn’t answer the poll…. We live in our RV but we don’t stay in one place. We travel from Alaska to the east coast to the west coast constantly. We’re not sightsee’ers either. Before Covid we’d stay at about 5 different places for a month at a time. The rest of the time would be traveling and shorter stops. No poll question covered us rolling stones!
No answer for us, either.
Actually, I couldn’t pick an answer that fit our RV lifestyle. Currently though, we’re ‘stuck’ in Houston, TX for many months and I don’t like this. Friends tell us there’s so much cool stuff to see while we’re here. Right, but it’s mostly all shut down. Drat!
We will go to a specific destination and then use our TT as a “base camp”. From there explore and do what ever. Then pull up stakes head for home until our next adventure.
I was torn between the second and third options. Typically I have my sights on a ‘special’ place to visit, stay for a week or a month (usually at a reduced price), then ‘travel’ a couple of days to the next special place.
We generally explore an area a week or two then move on. The exception is winter when we stay in one CG 3 months. It’s more difficult now but not the same place every year.
Road trip. Two to three weeks at a time, two to three nights at a site.
Our mode is simple: 3 months in Florida for the winter and “travel” the other 9 months. However, sometimes travel might mean staying in one place for a month while going on daytrips in our Jeep to see the sights in the area, visit friends or even a few days with family.
To me RVing is about moving around, seeing & experiencing new things. It’s the reason I talked my hubby into RVing fulltime. As for my dear husband though, I have to drag him kicking & screaming every time we move. He likes sitting for months on end in areas that are his comfort zone. After 8 years we’re still working on finding a compromise.