Full Time For Six Months
I completed my first six months living in an RV full time about 1 week ago. I will write some thoughts about the experience in case someone wants to hear about it and I will try to answer any questio...
Forum Discussion
I will give a (not so) quick recap of my travels so far in my first 6 months. I will just add it to this thread because the ones here who expressed an interest in reading about my travels may see it here and the others may not care anyway.
I returned to the USA from 6 months abroad on a flight to Florida mid-March 2020. I bought my new motorhome in Jacksonville, Florida. That's funny because tonight I am in Jacksonville, Texas. And, despite his flaws, Andrew Jackson is one of my favorite Presidents because he is the only President who ever paid off the national debt. Lots of them promise to do it. Old Hickory did it.
I came back to Dallas quickly to pick up some things from storage. I then headed south and planned to travel around south Texas, but that was in April and the Covid panic was shutting down a lot of state and federal campgrounds. So I rented a spot in a nice campground in Georgetown, Texas.
After a month there it started getting warmer so I made plans to head north. I wanted to buy a Jeep Wrangler and flat tow it behind me, but despite the economic crisis Jeep was not discounting their Wranglers much. They said they were great deals, but they really weren't. I ran out of time before I could buy one so I headed north with just the motorhome.
We traveled back through Dallas to get a few more things out of storage. I had reserved sites at a number of Oklahoma state parks for our journey to northwest Arkansas. That part of Arkansas besides being beautiful mountain scenery has cooler temps than the surrounding areas. Oklahoma was one of the few states that did not shut down some or all of its state parks. Texas caved in.
We stayed there (in Springdale) for over 3 months and it is beautiful and the hottest days were 95 degrees and only about 2 of them compared to 18 100 degree (and up) days in a typical Dallas summer. So I was happy about that. While we were there I bought a Jeep Wrangler and got it set up to tow back south with us in September.
That's where we are now. We looped briefly up into Missouri then back into Oklahoma over to Amarillo and then east and south through Dallas and now east Texas. Starting Sunday we will spend about 14 days on the beaches of Texas, but not actually on the sand. I have reserved state and private parks along the beach that have paved roads with electric and water.
As I'm traveling I try to keep my driving to about 7 hours per week. I get weary after a couple of hours driving. It's too much like a job for me. We stay at parks for 1 or 2 nights along the way. I usually don't think there is that much to see in one place, but sometimes it is a little rushed.
Anyway, the cost of gasoline, the repairs that appear on my to do list faster than they disappear, the parks that have no or poor mobile data (internet), the drudgery of keeping the beast in her lane on the highway, the gray water tank that keeps filling up faster and faster, the rush (sometimes) to unhook and get back on the road, are making me question how much longer I want to do this.
I'm going to put off any decisions until March because if I sell this rig I probably won't do it again. I will talk to my wife next year and we will decide if we do this another year or not. I don't regret what we've done so far; I've learned some things about this country, small towns, and me. I'm retired and I wanted to give this a try and I'm glad I did. Almost every park and city has had something beautiful and or interesting to see. By March I may be ready to do it again.
I returned to the USA from 6 months abroad on a flight to Florida mid-March 2020. I bought my new motorhome in Jacksonville, Florida. That's funny because tonight I am in Jacksonville, Texas. And, despite his flaws, Andrew Jackson is one of my favorite Presidents because he is the only President who ever paid off the national debt. Lots of them promise to do it. Old Hickory did it.
I came back to Dallas quickly to pick up some things from storage. I then headed south and planned to travel around south Texas, but that was in April and the Covid panic was shutting down a lot of state and federal campgrounds. So I rented a spot in a nice campground in Georgetown, Texas.
After a month there it started getting warmer so I made plans to head north. I wanted to buy a Jeep Wrangler and flat tow it behind me, but despite the economic crisis Jeep was not discounting their Wranglers much. They said they were great deals, but they really weren't. I ran out of time before I could buy one so I headed north with just the motorhome.
We traveled back through Dallas to get a few more things out of storage. I had reserved sites at a number of Oklahoma state parks for our journey to northwest Arkansas. That part of Arkansas besides being beautiful mountain scenery has cooler temps than the surrounding areas. Oklahoma was one of the few states that did not shut down some or all of its state parks. Texas caved in.
We stayed there (in Springdale) for over 3 months and it is beautiful and the hottest days were 95 degrees and only about 2 of them compared to 18 100 degree (and up) days in a typical Dallas summer. So I was happy about that. While we were there I bought a Jeep Wrangler and got it set up to tow back south with us in September.
That's where we are now. We looped briefly up into Missouri then back into Oklahoma over to Amarillo and then east and south through Dallas and now east Texas. Starting Sunday we will spend about 14 days on the beaches of Texas, but not actually on the sand. I have reserved state and private parks along the beach that have paved roads with electric and water.
As I'm traveling I try to keep my driving to about 7 hours per week. I get weary after a couple of hours driving. It's too much like a job for me. We stay at parks for 1 or 2 nights along the way. I usually don't think there is that much to see in one place, but sometimes it is a little rushed.
Anyway, the cost of gasoline, the repairs that appear on my to do list faster than they disappear, the parks that have no or poor mobile data (internet), the drudgery of keeping the beast in her lane on the highway, the gray water tank that keeps filling up faster and faster, the rush (sometimes) to unhook and get back on the road, are making me question how much longer I want to do this.
I'm going to put off any decisions until March because if I sell this rig I probably won't do it again. I will talk to my wife next year and we will decide if we do this another year or not. I don't regret what we've done so far; I've learned some things about this country, small towns, and me. I'm retired and I wanted to give this a try and I'm glad I did. Almost every park and city has had something beautiful and or interesting to see. By March I may be ready to do it again.
