By Emily Woodbury
The results of a recent Sunday poll somehow don’t surprise me, as I’m sure they don’t surprise you either. For you long-time RVers, is being an RVer more or less challenging than it was 10 years ago?
My initial thoughts go immediately to campgrounds, er, lack of…. Ten years ago, you could drive all day and pull into any ol’ spot at any ol’ campground for the night (as many of you point out in the comments). Now, we’re making reservations six months, even a year or more in advance.
On top of that, RV sales have skyrocketed, and the younger generations have jumped on the bandwagon. Now you’re not just sharing the campground with 36′ motorhomes, but with converted vans, school buses, and even ambulances.
Let’s review these less-than-shocking results: Most of you, 64 percent to be exact, answered that being an RVer is more difficult now than it was before, and 29 percent of you think it’s probably about the same. Only a small 6 percent of you said you think it’s easier now than it was back then.
For those of you who think it’s easier, how so? Let’s peek at some comments. Reader Davie Brock writes, “The internet and smartphones have made everything easier. From researching a problem to finding your next spot, it’s all easier. The availability of options is also much greater and cheaper. Power awnings, big screen TVs inside and outside, electric hot water heaters, it’s all better.”
And Fred, who says, “RVing is easier for us than it was 10 years ago, despite our being in our mid 70’s now. Vastly improved internet coverage & YouTube videos for any RV maintenance issue make it much easier & cheaper to maintain our RV over the last 10 years of full-timing. Also, the new features on today’s RVs have made set-up, take-down & travel much easier. It’s so much easier to stay in touch with family members with all the smartphone features now. Getting product deliveries while traveling is much easier too.”
So, there you have it, spots are harder to find, but perhaps the handy GPS you have makes it easier to keep moving down the road to other options.
Now that you are doing the reviews separately, would it be possible to include the comments received on the poll?
Thanks for the good idea, John! We used to link to the polls, or the newsletters they appeared in, but in the move to the new way of summarizing the results the linking to each poll got lost in the shuffle. I’ve put the link into this article that you commented on, and Emily will put the link in each one from here on out, right Emily? That way the readers will be able to see all of the individual comments. 😀 —Diane at RVtravel.com
👍👍