Year long family US history tour

Keep your clothes to one to one and a half seasons. Make your travel plans coincide with the weather. Washer/dryer? Definitely a yes! Doing a load a day takes no time at all. Start a load and go do what you want. Come home, clothes are done and ready for putting away. This allows you to limit clothes needed,IE more room. Remember, you will need room for school supplies, books etc. Not to mention a place for the kids to work. If you really want to understand how little space you will have available, pack yourselves, kids and yoir clothes into 350 SQFT and try living in that space for a month. Overpacking especially clothes is the absolute worst thing you could do. Clothes can take up a lot of space in a big hurry. And you only have XXX amount of available space inside an RV.

Here's how we handle clothing:

Lots of underwear and socks. We have three weeks worth. They doesn't take up much room and allows us to go for longer periods of time before going to the laundromat.

Windbreaker type shell. Layered with sweaters or sweatshirts plus hats, gloves and scarfs gets you through any type of weather.

Jeans, shirts, shorts etc. do not have to be changed daily just when they start to look or smell dirty.

This time will also give me and the mrs a better idea of what we want when the kids leave the nest. We have a plan to get all bills paid, and houses sold, prior to doing this, so our rig will be paid for, which will help greatly. However, we like other floor plans much better; we just need to get our money's worth out of this one first, then see where we stand after the trip ends.

For right now, we will have space for the grille, bikes and anything else we may need to keep out of the weather.

C-Bears wrote:

norfla71 wrote:
Were planning on taking our kids on a year long tour of the US; we'll be homeschooling and figure that actually getting hands-on with our history will be much better than just reading about it.

We will be using the rig in my sig, so space should not be an issue. My questions are how to survive with 2 pre-teens for that long? We seriously need to pare down our stuff, but what would be recommended to take, and what should we get while on the road? Any absolute needs? We won't be spending a lot of time inside (weather permitting).

We won't know where we'll be staying, but it will be for at least a week each time. What would be a reasonable budget for campground and food each month? The longest we've stayed anyplace was for a week, so I have nothing to compare to, mainly due to eating out a lot, which will not be feasible once we start this.

I think it would be a challenge to actually pre-plan an educational year long trip. I probably would do it in segments, for example plan the first 6 months first and of course let your required destinations guide you, along with favorable weather.

Two RV options that I feel you must have for doing full time, especially with 4 people, is a double wide fridge and washer/dryer.

If your rig only has a single wide fridge then you probably will be smart to invest in a high quality large cooler and small counter top ice machine. All drinks and other stuff can be maintained in cooler and you can continue to produce your own ice instead on purchasing it.

By having a washer and dryer you can keep doing loads thus cut down on how many articles of clothing each of you have to take along. With 4 residents added weight is going to be your main obstacle. I don't know if you have been to a laundry mat recently, but doing laundry for 4 people every week would be extremely expensive and time consuming.

Your selection of CG's will probably take the most planning but is where you can save the most. State/Federal CG's are cheaper but many do not take reservations.

As for your planning and actual navigation, I would spend the money and purchase one of the new RV GPS units. I have used a Rand RV GPS for over a year with extremely good results. You enter all of your RV specifications (height, weight, width, amount of propane, etc..) and it won't let you get in trouble. I also use a Trucker's Atlas because it shows all the "designated" truck routes plus height restrictions in all states.

As a full timer I could probably fill a couple more pages of suggestions. Congrats on taking on this adventure! Your children will never forget it!

Lots of good info. With the garage, we are planning on putting in a residential fridge we have in our garage. I have a Garmin GPS someone gave us, which works well for getting us there, but agree we need an RV specific one. As for the washer and dryer; at over $1,000 on the cheap end, and possibly not being able to use it at most locations (state and federal parks as recommended) a laundry mat will be cheaper, though much less convenient as stated. Factor in the install cost, as well (mounting, plumbing, upgrade to 50A service).

We're excited to do this; Europe was our original thought, but even spending a year on the road is cheaper than a month over there.

Being our first real full time, we're not too sure as what to expect. Our kids will be in their teens by the time we do this, so bordem may be a bigger issue, at least during the travel part. We will need to pack 4 seasons of clothes, but how much? Tools and spares? Little things like that.

We've seen good discounts for longer terms at campgrounds, and there are several Good Sam choiches around the states. Next most important thing is how to budget; we will basically be semi-retired and on one fixed income, so little things like free WiFi will help.

Definetly will try to start a blog about it.

norfla71 wrote:
Were planning on taking our kids on a year long tour of the US; we'll be homeschooling and figure that actually getting hands-on with our history will be much better than just reading about it.

We will be using the rig in my sig, so space should not be an issue. My questions are how to survive with 2 pre-teens for that long? We seriously need to pare down our stuff, but what would be recommended to take, and what should we get while on the road? Any absolute needs? We won't be spending a lot of time inside (weather permitting).

We won't know where we'll be staying, but it will be for at least a week each time. What would be a reasonable budget for campground and food each month? The longest we've stayed anyplace was for a week, so I have nothing to compare to, mainly due to eating out a lot, which will not be feasible once we start this.

I think it would be a challenge to actually pre-plan an educational year long trip. I probably would do it in segments, for example plan the first 6 months first and of course let your required destinations guide you, along with favorable weather.

Two RV options that I feel you must have for doing full time, especially with 4 people, is a double wide fridge and washer/dryer.

If your rig only has a single wide fridge then you probably will be smart to invest in a high quality large cooler and small counter top ice machine. All drinks and other stuff can be maintained in cooler and you can continue to produce your own ice instead on purchasing it.

By having a washer and dryer you can keep doing loads thus cut down on how many articles of clothing each of you have to take along. With 4 residents added weight is going to be your main obstacle. I don't know if you have been to a laundry mat recently, but doing laundry for 4 people every week would be extremely expensive and time consuming.

Your selection of CG's will probably take the most planning but is where you can save the most. State/Federal CG's are cheaper but many do not take reservations.

As for your planning and actual navigation, I would spend the money and purchase one of the new RV GPS units. I have used a Rand RV GPS for over a year with extremely good results. You enter all of your RV specifications (height, weight, width, amount of propane, etc..) and it won't let you get in trouble. I also use a Trucker's Atlas because it shows all the "designated" truck routes plus height restrictions in all states.

As a full timer I could probably fill a couple more pages of suggestions. Congrats on taking on this adventure! Your children will never forget it!

That is going to be our plan in a couple of years. Our daughters are currently 10 and 7 and we figure about 7th and 4th grades would be perfect for us to take off and see the country and experience all the places they have already studied about or will be studying about.

I hope you will do a blog and let us know the website so we can follow you along on your adventures.

We won't know where we'll be staying, but it will be for at least a week each time.

Many RV parks and some campgrounds have weekly and monthly rates that can be very reasonable.

Food? About what you spend at home now.
Camping fees? Can run from about $15 for NF to $50 for upscale. Your choice.