beginner full-time

Hi shannon62,

Welcome to the forums!

It is important to have an exit strategy.

Full time is hard work, sometimes.

Have you had an RV before?

I would add solar. This series of articles may help! https://freecampsites.net/adding-solar/

Pick which state you want to setup domicile check the options for mail forwarding service.
Check on registration, DL's,insurance.
Much easier to have this decided on before hand.
We don't boondock very often so have not gone the solar panel way. We did camp off grid 10 weeks in Alaska and a 2000 watt gas generator was enough to keep us charged up. Other than that we may do an occasional night or two in a Forest Service campground.
If you're 62 get yourself the Interagency Lifetime Senior Pass and a copy of Army Corps of Engineers Campground book.
Senior pass good for half off at Corps run parks as well as discounts at FS and other National Parks.
We also use free and cheap camping. Net. Most of these are small town or county parks some are very nice some just gravel lots.
Sometimes we are surprised by how nice a $5-10 FHU can be.

We volunteer 7-8 mos a year and travel the other months. We are on our 11th year full-time. Many don't last this long or they just zip to the same two spots one up North and one down South. Those that constantly move seem to get burned out after 2-4 years.
We enjoy volunteering I am a retired carpenter and wife is a birder and budding naturalist. We seek volunteer positions where our talents can best be used and we stay in beautiful places.

This are what we consider important for full-time traveling.

Have you decided on a landing spot when your done travelling? After selling down on possessions, you will have some items to store, where you do that can simplify things later if you already know roughly where.
Domicile and mail forwarding, lots of threads in here on it, No state tax states are most popular, Texas, South Dakota, and Florida being common.
Also look at escapees they offer many services as well as insight.
Insurances, will you be on mediscare or private? If private, look at different states options, it could be an important determining factor on which state you establish as your domicile.

I would recommend joining the Escapees RV Club (if you haven't already) and start reading here:

Escapees - Domicile

Escapees also offers a good mail service, but there are others, too. In addition, there is an Escapees forum with a dedicated subforum for full-timing and lots of experienced folks to advise you.

The RV-Dreams web site isn't very active any more, but there's lots of really useful information still available there:

RV-Dreams - preparing for full-timing

Rob

Well we had a 25ft. travel trailer a couple years ago but covid came & we sold it, we have been searching & reading all kind of articles about full-timing, we both will be 62 next year when we retire, it is kind of scary to sale everything even your house that you lived in for more than 20 years & live in a class a motor home, but we think we will be o.k. So anyway we want to thank everyone for all the great info & tips we really appreciate all of it & we will talk again some day. so to all Happy Travels.

piano is right on regarding solar. Most days...90% at least...recharging your batteries is off your to do list. I’m at 60 nights of camping with no required generation or plugins.

We have spent the last 10+ years partially retired (doing art shows in NY area and florida part of the time). We are selling the house in NY and taking off end of August. Rving is NOT new to us and we boondock most of the time (southwest, newfoundland/labrador), have solar to keep us stocked with power, added truckfridge and extra water tank. All in a 2005 24 foot class c. It IS possible we may upgrade while on the road but for now we will stick with the C. Currently selling all furniture, worldly goods, giving tools to sons/daughter and anything else they want. Facebook marketplace has done well for us in moving things out (not asking top dollar just want it out). We will have an 8x12 shed at sons house to store some tools and some house stuff...not getting into the storage unit trap. Pretty sure we will not be one of the ones that say this is not for us". We have been spending 3 months in florida volunteering/state parks and fall is out west. For now domicile is in NY because we will park at kids in the summer and christmas. We look forward to the adventure at 65 and 66. See ya on the road.

AND thanks for the guy that recommended the COE campground book...never knew there was one...had a map once and we have stayed at a couple in florida. Going to spring for that one! We also are charter members of boondockers welcome, had a year of harvest hosts, and use the BLM lands and national forest service lands well!

shannon62,

We were in the process of setting up retirement "homestead" with a park model in a campground, when covid hit. A neighbor at our house approached us in November with a friend that has had their eye on our house for years. That deal fell through, but we kind of looked at each other and said, maybe it's time. In a matter of days, we started prepping the house for sale, which included hiring a crew to start literally taking everything out of the house and putting it in TWO roll off dumpsters. This stage was hard, with both of us wanting to cry, but in the end, it was almost a relief. It didn't help that in a couple of short weeks, we had already planned to be on the road to FL, where I would continue working from home. We actually closed on the house in FL, it literally sold the day it was listed.

Escapees used to have an excellent guide on how to set up a domicile and suggest checking that out. For us, selling the stuff in the home was the most difficult part of going full time.
I've backpack camped prior to kids and took them tent camping every year. Below is our 1st RV and it's not been a problem for us switching to it. We've read, read and read blogs and forums for 10+yrs prior to going full time. Lot's of great info on line now to help you along.