I began my full-time journey two years ago and I’m basically doing what you’re planning on doing. There’s a photo of my RV and toad in my Member Profile.
Here are some things I’ve learned so far during my journey. However, we’re all different and things that are a problem for me won’t necessarily be a problem for you.
You say that you’re a pretty good mechanic, well I’m 67 and have done 95% of my various vehicles upkeep all my life. What I wasn’t prepared for was the Godzilla sized fasteners used on these RV’s. A simple straight forwards task such as replacing all four shock absorbers became very difficult when I couldn’t unscrew the bolts even with a 3/4 drive breaker bar and a cheater-pipe. I finally rented an air-impact wrench rated to 1,100 ft/lbs torque and still had to heat two of the nuts before they’d break free! Do yourself a favor and get a good heavy-duty air or electric impact wrench because you’re going to need it. Make certain you have good roadside assistance insurance, towing one of these things can get pricey very fast and even if you’re a good mechanic catastrophic breakdowns can happen.
From what I’ve read this shouldn’t be a problem but here it is, make certain that you’re able to fix things, not simply replace but rather fix them. RV coach parts tend to often be poorly made and expensive. If you can fix a part you’re money ahead. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box. When my toilet began overflowing because of a bad valve I simply bypassed the valve, hooked a kitchen sink sprayer and hose to the toilets water pipe and use that to “flush” the toilet. It blasts off “skid” marks and uses much less water. I couldn’t be happier. The board naysayers told me I’d be sorry with my fix, that was two years ago and I’m still happy with it.
You’re traveling plan is wise. Staying at a campground for at least a month is much less expensive than their daily or weekly rates. It’s what I’ve been doing; I use my RV as a base camp and use my Caravan and a KLR250 to explore the area. However, RV parks in different parts of the country cost different amounts so you may want to plan on boondocking almost exclusively in some areas. I found a very nice RV park to winter-over in SE AZ for $300 a month. However, some of the places I’d hoped to stay during the spring and summer months had rates of $500-$600 a month. One fellow’s strategy for such areas is to boondock for several weeks and then stay in a park for a day or two to get cleaned up and dump his tanks. I don’t much enjoy driving my RV (it’s sooo damned big!) so when I relocate from one area to another I usually plan my journey via interstate highways and I sleep in rest areas during relocations. When I have to go through any large city’s (LA and Dallas come to mind) I drive through them at 2-3am to avoid traffic. For LA I also scheduled my pass-through for Sunday morning. Since I’m not in a hurry I plan things accordingly. Also, I’ve found some excellent and inexpensive places to park my RV using Craigslist.
It sounds like you have an interesting future ahead of you and you’re pragmatic and flexible enough not to get hung up on details and preconceptions.
Steve
