2024 is our fourth year of Full-Time RVing in our 23′ travel trailer. We have seen a lot of things, learned a lot of things, and missed a lot of things from living in a sticks and bricks home.
Living in a Camper Full-Time
When we sold our house to start RVing Full-Time, we had no idea what we were getting into to. We simply knew we were tired of working long hours without spending enough time together. While traveling we thought we would also look for a permanant home area while on the road. We would explore areas and see if any fit our needs.
Our travel trailer is a lot smaller than any house we have ever owned, including our first one-bedroom house in town. When we moved into the travel trailer, we didn’t know what to keep and what to get rid of. We spent a lot of money on a storage shed and tripped over a lot of stuff all over our camper. After the first year, we finally organized our travel trailer. Now, most everything has its place; although we still have a few things sitting around the bed. After the first year, we also sold everything in storage and got rid of the storage shed.
We still do not have the space for everything in our travel trailer. For some reason, the more adventures we try, the more toys we want to buy. So, the wetsuits, snorkeling gear and boogie boards are in the back of the truck. One of the reasons we do not have room in the travel trailer, though, is that we are carrying coats and old clothes for the Sugar Beet Harvest we work every year. When we decide to no longer work the harvest, we will have more room in a travel trailer for our toys.
After figuring out our organization, there are still many other considerations to full-time RVing that may differ from living in a house. Internet is a biggie. We have a Thousand Trails membership. Although we love our membership because it offers us campgrounds in a lot of areas, their campgrounds are notorious for not having the best cell service.
We have Verizon cell service for both our phones and our jetpacks. Because we do not work from home, we have the luxury of not requiring internet service full-time. However, we are addicted to Amazon Prime. And, we like to make videos, post blogs, and study Spanish. So, internet access is still a daily ritual with us. Right now, we are both sitting in the truck with the jetpacks on the weBoost in a Thousand Trails campground. Our goal is to buy an additional antenna for the travel trailer. Hopefully we can sit in our recliners and have internet!
Originally we purchased NETGEAR Omnidirectional MIMO Antennas from Amazon. These atennas connect directly to our jetpacks. They have greatly improved our cell service for watching television in most campgrounds. However, we still do not have enough service in some areas to make phone calls. Because we were truck camping this year, we also added the weBoost Drive Reach OTR – Cell Phone Signal Booster for Trucks and SUVs. This has really made a difference in cell service curing our travels. Especially as we rely a lot on GPS and Campendium for locations and boondocking. Our Signal Booster works very well, which is why we are currently sitting in the truck for internet.
We have not tried Starlink. However, we see many full-time RVers with the notorious Starlink receiver sitting on their roof or in their yard at campgrounds. Right now, with our budget and how we want to spend our money, Starlink is not on our purchasig radar. We will continue to rub our bellies while patting our heads to try to receive cell service at some of our campgrounds rather than subscribe to Starlink.
However, we have experienced internet issues even when we lived in a house in the country. We could not make or receive phone calls in our dead zone. For internet, we signed up with a satellite service that cost nearly $100 per month. We still have issues when we visit our friends in this location. So, having cell service issues is not uncommon to us, but we still cuss a little. If we did work online, it would be more stressful. This is one of the reasons we decided to not to pursue online jobs. We didn’t want to fall back into stressful jobs while full-time RVing. Cleaning toilets and working the beet harvest temporarily are enough for us right now.
We don’t consider the repairs on our travel trailer being any more frequent than repairs on our houses. We have owned homes where the roof leaked, water flooded into the carport, and cinder blocks held the house up. In our opinion, houses require a lot of maintenance. And, the more bathrooms you have, the more stories you have, and the more windows you have, the more maintenance you have. Now that our travel trailer is approaching five years old, it seems to require more repairs. However, when the repairs become too costly, we have decided to buy a new, larger travel trailer with more storage. Then, we can put our toys inside. Of course, with us, nothing is set in stone.
One constant in our Full-Time RVing is the planning. We usually move more slowly than most of the RVers we know. We sit at our Thousand Trails campgrounds for two to three weeks. This did change a little while we were truck camping this year. We usually only stayed at a boondocking site for a few days. But usually we will sit in an area for at least a week. We do a lot of planning. We plan our trip, our campgrounds, and our activities. This was something very new to us from living in a house. When we planned a small getaway from our house, it was usually last minute and for a few days. Now, we plan months in advance and have several plans saved at once. Just in case we change our minds.
What We Miss While Full-Time RVing
There are some really important things we miss from living in our sticks and bricks. It is not the space of the house or the internet. We miss our hobbies. Although we have added a lot more fun hobbies while traveling, there are some activities we really enjoyed while staying put that are difficult to continue on the road.
Gardening on the Road is Difficult
Jessica loves gardening and having chickens. When she lived in the country, she had fresh veggies throughout the summer and fresh eggs throughout most of the year. She built cold frames and a hoop house and kept honey bees. Some of the things Jessica misses most is picking a watermelon and dividing it to share with the chickens. She misses mulching the grapes and blueberries and pulling weeds from the herbs and flowers. Watching a plant grow in the spring from a bulb you planted in the fall can be so exciting.
Windell misses hunting and fishing. He loved planting crops, including turnips, for the deer. Then, he would set up game cameras to watch the deer eat and see how well they grew in the Spring. Although he really enjoyed bow hunting in the fall, his real passion was caring for the land and the deer. Both of us miss feeding the fish in the pond together while sharing a beer.
It is very difficult to continue the same hobbies we had in our homes while traveling. Jessica has tried. She irritated Windell until one year he carried grow bags full of Salvia and alpine strawberries in the back of the truck. He would unload them everytime they moved to another campground and reload them when we left. She still owes him for this, and he still lets her know she owes him.
When we are sitting at a spot for several months, Jessica will probably still try to grow some flowers and vegetables to satisfy her gardening itch. And, if we ever do find a spot that we want to sit at permanently, we have already decided to have some gardening space and maybe a couple of chickens, if we can. Of course, it all depends on where we will eventually end up. Who knows!
Quitting Full-Time RVing
Although we thought we might find a new location to settle down on, we are not yet there. Everytime we think about settling down again, we cannot imagine ourselves waking up to the same view day in and day out. Also, we would have to settle down somewhere near the ocean. Snorkeling has become the number one hobby for the both of us, beating even gardening and hunting. We want to continue playing in the ocean, no matter where we end up.
However, right now we are excited about traveling overseas. There are so many adventures that we have yet to try and so many places we still want to see! As much as we love snorkeling, we are considering trying scuba diving. So, no, we have no desire to quit full-time RVing as yet. But, we do understand why many people do quit. The desire for a constant location, more living space, and a desire to return to our previous hobbies would be the reasons we would quit, if we wanted to.