I blame my Dad. He was of the WWII generation from small-town Indiana, and when we kids came along, he felt it was important for us to see the country. Given that there was never much extra money laying around, the only way to do it was by camping. Even did the 1964 World's Fair in NYC with a pop-up! Turned out that the many summer trips we took were some of the best times of my childhood and youth.
Skip forward a could of decades when our own kids came around, and the situation was pretty much the same. Important to travel, but not a lot of money to afford it. So, we got our own used pop-up and hit the road. Turned out that those trips were some of the best times of our kid's childhoods as well.
So here we are, with the kids gone and retirement years coming up shortly. Money isn't as tight as it was, but we still want to travel, and the last thing we want to do is live out of a suitcase, coming back in the evenings to a 'bed in a box' (hotel room).
Your original question, though, was what made us ABLE to do RVing. That's a bit different than just why we choose to do it. My opinion is that you need to have the following...
1 - You need to be a bit adventurous, and comfortable with 'winging it' at times, not knowing how far you might get in a day, what you'll see along the way, or just where you'll be laying your head at night. Planning is good, but one needs to be comfortable with throwing the plan out the window when an opportunity comes along.
2 - You need to enjoy other people. I can't tell you how much enjoyment we've gotten from the various folks that we've met along the way. People who RV are some of the friendliest and most interesting around.
3 - Shouldn't need to say it, but one really should enjoy the outdoors. While you'd think that this is obvious, we have run into people who fear a little bit of dirt and find common wildlife (including fellow campers)as something of a threat.
4 - and of course, there's always the financial side. Need to carefully balance how you want to camp with the financial resources available to support that style. The great thing about RVing is that there the camping styles that are available is pretty wide... from tent to million-dollar motorhome and everything in between. So, depending on expectations, there's a lot to choose from.
Interesting question, and interesting responses. Thanks for asking...
