Thinking of full timing? Good or bad idea?

[Fla904]

I have been recently thinking of buying a nice class A RV and living in it full time instead of apartment living. I figure why pay rent when I can just make a rv payment and I can go any where I want for the most part. My question is are their places I can keep my rv at for free? Does anyone on here full time it? What is it like transitioning from a home to a rv? Do you get pulled over often (on the highways)? Does it feel some what like a apartment? By the way im in my early twenties if that makes any difference.

[Fla904]

tatest wrote:
You started at "Beginning" forum, a good place to start with questions like these. There is also a "Full Timing" forum here too, with a lot more discussion of full timing specifics.

Does anybody do it? I've seen one estimate that puts the Full Time population at about two million, but that estimate was not all full time RVing, it included RV snowbirds who might still have permanent homes somewhere, and street people. Many RV full timers are here, in the Full Timing forum.

Full timing is mostly about being able to move around. People who live in RVs permanently located somewhere are no more full time RVing than people who live in other classes of manufactured housing that are permanently located. Sticking a travel trailer on a lot in the desert or in a rural area is not really full timing, it is just a low cost house or cabin, and something that gets harder to do as health, sanitation and building codes work their way out into the countryside.

Being able to move around is pretty useful, since most RVs are best suited to moderate climates, and can need lots of energy to deal with very cold or very hot places. A lot of full timers follow the best of the weather in North America.

A lot of full timers are following jobs. There is a class of work campers who get a place to park in exchange for the work they do supporting the RV infrastructure (a forum here for that too) but many more working seasonal or short term jobs in agriculture, construction, infrastructure maintenance, mining, etc who choose to bring their RVs to live in, rather than staying in local motels or hotels. Although living in boxes built as RVs, they are not so much RVing. The RV functionally replaces the house trailer, which used to be much more mobile than today's mobile home which seldom gets moved more than once.

Full timing is not necessarily less expensive than staying in one place. Moving costs something. In many places, you must rent a place to park, you must pay for your utilities or alternative services. While there are places you can stay for free, not all are legal or welcoming, some are time limited. Few "free" places have connections to power, water and sewage disposal.

To have water, power, a way to dispose of sewage, you end up in a place built to support RVs: campgrounds and RV parks. Just as with houses and apartments, rent varies quite a bit with location and facilities provided. I've seen long-term parks at $150-200 a month to more than $2000 a month. Public campgrounds range from a few days free, through $5 - $18 a day with limits of a couple weeks to a month, to $30-50 a day for really great, high demand locations like beach parks. Some of those in the $30-50 range don't even have utility hookups, that's just the cost to park on the beach.

There are some people who live on the street, off the grid, in RVs. It is an alternative, something of an improvement, to living in a car. The estimate for New York City is a few hundred, among the few thousand living in vehicles of some type. There are tens of thousands of people living in vehicles in southern California, where the climate is more suitable year round; some of those vehicles are RVs. Like other street people, they must make some effort to stay ahead of those who don't want people living on their streets.

There are a few off-the-grid communities, on public lands, mostly in the southwestern deserts. There are "keep moving" requirements on Federal public lands to limit squatting, enforcement is variable. There are some state or municipal public lands where a community of squatters has become an permanent fixture. One would be "The Slabs" which is a former military installation on the Salton Sea, but that community is becoming more tenuous as services dwindle.

Transitioning from a home to a RV, the hard part can be shedding your collection of possessions, paring things down to a RV lifestyle. How far you go with that depends on the size of the RV, but the largest RVs, 45 foot motor coaches, cannot carry all the things most Americans accumulate over their life, not even pulling big cargo trailers.

How much a RV feels like an apartment depends on your apartment experience. My 30 foot motorhome has about 200 square feet of living space, in two areas. The total space is less than most motel rooms, but I've lived in an apartment that small in Asia. I've never lived in an apartment smaller than 600 sq ft in North America. The largest RVs will be 400 sq ft (by definition, any larger and it becomes manufactured housing with different building codes).

I've never been pulled over on the highway in my RV. They don't usually attract that kind of attention, and it is your behavior that gets you pulled over, more so than what you are driving (unless what your are driving says "junk"). I have had to stop for customs and immigration screening, but so does everybody else when going through the screening points. That's a location matter, not a RV thing.

You can go anywhere you want, sort of, but depending on the size of your RV there will be places you can't go because you don't fit. What you can't do, legally, is just stay anywhere you want.

There is one limitation that can be important. RVs don't work well in big cities; even if you can get around you will find few places you can stay. RVs are often not welcome in the posh suburbs in large metro areas. I find that I have to get out to the fringes or commercial/industrial areas where the trailer parks are.

Full time RVing works pretty well in rural and small town, small city America, particularly where agriculture is important. People who live in these places are accustomed to having a transient population of working people and recreational travelers. You might be considered an outsider, but you will usually be welcomed, will not encounter the hostility suburbanites often show strangers or street people.

If you are thinking of full timing as a less expensive way to live, in the same place you live now, it is probably a bad idea. It will likely turn out to not be less expensive. Usually a better idea is to move to a place where it is less expensive to live. Rent for a small apartment can range from $200 a month to more than $5000 a month, rent for a room (which might be the size of a RV) can be less than $200, in the right part of the country.

Thanks for your detailed response. A lot of RVing like many things in life takes common sense, of course I'm not going to go to a big city or expect a magical experience. I have friends who would let me stay at their house or place of business I'm sure. Heck there's even a couple rvs always parked down the road from my apartment. I also mentioned my age to imply I don't have many items to bring, aside from furniture which can be sold.. I've read of people getting by on 1400 bucks or less a month.. I didn't expect so many negative responses. Sure I could have looked up more stuff on the forums but I wanted to make my own, geez.

[tatest]

You started at "Beginning" forum, a good place to start with questions like these. There is also a "Full Timing" forum here too, with a lot more discussion of full timing specifics.

Does anybody do it? I've seen one estimate that puts the Full Time population at about two million, but that estimate was not all full time RVing, it included RV snowbirds who might still have permanent homes somewhere, and street people. Many RV full timers are here, in the Full Timing forum.

Full timing is mostly about being able to move around. People who live in RVs permanently located somewhere are no more full time RVing than people who live in other classes of manufactured housing that are permanently located. Sticking a travel trailer on a lot in the desert or in a rural area is not really full timing, it is just a low cost house or cabin, and something that gets harder to do as health, sanitation and building codes work their way out into the countryside.

Being able to move around is pretty useful, since most RVs are best suited to moderate climates, and can need lots of energy to deal with very cold or very hot places. A lot of full timers follow the best of the weather in North America.

A lot of full timers are following jobs. There is a class of work campers who get a place to park in exchange for the work they do supporting the RV infrastructure (a forum here for that too) but many more working seasonal or short term jobs in agriculture, construction, infrastructure maintenance, mining, etc who choose to bring their RVs to live in, rather than staying in local motels or hotels. Although living in boxes built as RVs, they are not so much RVing. The RV functionally replaces the house trailer, which used to be much more mobile than today's mobile home which seldom gets moved more than once.

Full timing is not necessarily less expensive than staying in one place. Moving costs something. In many places, you must rent a place to park, you must pay for your utilities or alternative services. While there are places you can stay for free, not all are legal or welcoming, some are time limited. Few "free" places have connections to power, water and sewage disposal.

To have water, power, a way to dispose of sewage, you end up in a place built to support RVs: campgrounds and RV parks. Just as with houses and apartments, rent varies quite a bit with location and facilities provided. I've seen long-term parks at $150-200 a month to more than $2000 a month. Public campgrounds range from a few days free, through $5 - $18 a day with limits of a couple weeks to a month, to $30-50 a day for really great, high demand locations like beach parks. Some of those in the $30-50 range don't even have utility hookups, that's just the cost to park on the beach.

There are some people who live on the street, off the grid, in RVs. It is an alternative, something of an improvement, to living in a car. The estimate for New York City is a few hundred, among the few thousand living in vehicles of some type. There are tens of thousands of people living in vehicles in southern California, where the climate is more suitable year round; some of those vehicles are RVs. Like other street people, they must make some effort to stay ahead of those who don't want people living on their streets.

There are a few off-the-grid communities, on public lands, mostly in the southwestern deserts. There are "keep moving" requirements on Federal public lands to limit squatting, enforcement is variable. There are some state or municipal public lands where a community of squatters has become an permanent fixture. One would be "The Slabs" which is a former military installation on the Salton Sea, but that community is becoming more tenuous as services dwindle.

Transitioning from a home to a RV, the hard part can be shedding your collection of possessions, paring things down to a RV lifestyle. How far you go with that depends on the size of the RV, but the largest RVs, 45 foot motor coaches, cannot carry all the things most Americans accumulate over their life, not even pulling big cargo trailers.

How much a RV feels like an apartment depends on your apartment experience. My 30 foot motorhome has about 200 square feet of living space, in two areas. The total space is less than most motel rooms, but I've lived in an apartment that small in Asia. I've never lived in an apartment smaller than 600 sq ft in North America. The largest RVs will be 400 sq ft (by definition, any larger and it becomes manufactured housing with different building codes).

I've never been pulled over on the highway in my RV. They don't usually attract that kind of attention, and it is your behavior that gets you pulled over, more so than what you are driving (unless what your are driving says "junk"). I have had to stop for customs and immigration screening, but so does everybody else when going through the screening points. That's a location matter, not a RV thing.

You can go anywhere you want, sort of, but depending on the size of your RV there will be places you can't go because you don't fit. What you can't do, legally, is just stay anywhere you want.

There is one limitation that can be important. RVs don't work well in big cities; even if you can get around you will find few places you can stay. RVs are often not welcome in the posh suburbs in large metro areas. I find that I have to get out to the fringes or commercial/industrial areas where the trailer parks are.

Full time RVing works pretty well in rural and small town, small city America, particularly where agriculture is important. People who live in these places are accustomed to having a transient population of working people and recreational travelers. You might be considered an outsider, but you will usually be welcomed, will not encounter the hostility suburbanites often show strangers or street people.

If you are thinking of full timing as a less expensive way to live, in the same place you live now, it is probably a bad idea. It will likely turn out to not be less expensive. Usually a better idea is to move to a place where it is less expensive to live. Rent for a small apartment can range from $200 a month to more than $5000 a month, rent for a room (which might be the size of a RV) can be less than $200, in the right part of the country.

[K_Charles]

We travel for a couple months at a time a couple times a year (plus some shorter ones). When we're traveling we spend more money then we spend on our house. Campground fees, fuel, attractions, dish tv and eating out cost way more then taxes, phone and a light bill at home.

[Go_Dogs]

Full Timing is not for beginners. Especially, if you are approaching it, as any type of an economical adventure.

[concord32]

2oldman wrote:
Here we go again.

OH BOY!

[donn0128]

Free? No unless you have a relative that will let you. Full time means different things to different people. Parking in one place? A motor home is your worst choice. Moving every couple of weeks? OK maybe.

[2oldman]

Here we go again.