Ready to Live on the Road and Excited

[Donna_Jean]

Hello All, I just joined today so I am a newbie, I look forward to getting to know all there is to RV'ing. My husband and I are planning to retire in the spring, sell our house and buy a used 40+ Class A and live it in for at least 6 months or maybe longer. We are active and want to spend a lot of time out west in the national parks, hiking, biking and so forth. We live in MI now and plan to settle down in TN after spending time on the road. My big question is for those of you that have or lived in an RV without a residence how do you handle state residency. When we sell our house we will never live in MI again so i don't know what to do about things like drivers lic. taxes, voters registration, and so forth. I know we have over 6 months to figure this out but LOL i can't sleep at night trying to think how it all will work.

[JimBollman]

Donna Jean wrote:

ghooos wrote:
There are many posts on this subject. Start searching including other forums and there are many options. Basically it's like moving to another state except you might have to periodically return to your state for whatever like DL, health coverage, etc. Many FTers use a mail delivery service. One popular choice is the TX Escapees.
Whatever state you select involves much more than you've posted. You'll get lots of opinions and while you're awake do your online research.

like others have stated 6 months or so is like a long vacation. For us we do not know exactly what month we will start this trip since we have to sell our house first so it could be the end of the summer; beginning of fall when we finally move out of our MI home. so we will just keep an address in MI and pay our taxes here. Come Jan. 1 we will get a rent contract from a relative in Tn and start the new year with residency there, this avoids multiple tax returns and so forth. WE DO NOT want the responsibility/expense of a house during this trip, we also don't want to spend time looking, finding the right home will be hard for us plus there is a chance we may want to build. I am assume you live in Franklin, that's very nice. My SIL lived there until recently when she moved to Spring Hill, we will be there for this Christmas. The area we are interested in is Lake Tellico, have you been to Tellico Village, beautiful community. Where did you move from?

I felt some of your answers/questions were addressed to me instead of ghooos so here goes. Not from Franklin, if you google State of Franklin you will see it was an attempt at statehood before TN was a state for an area that is now NE TN. We moved from Western NY, close to Lake Ontario. Our criteria for the move was less snow, less taxes and less politics, TN was a good match. Since then we have added more BBQ and more Bluegrass music to our list, TN again was a good choice. I have been in the general area of Tellico Village but not in it.

[CA_Traveler]

We for example fill a site in Bodega Bay CA (no hookups) at 42' but might squeeze in 45'. The car is on the road.

I bring this up because on most of the CA coast road 40' and above is prohibited. We get to Bodega Bay on county roads. No such luck with Ft Bragg.

[CA_Traveler]

OP I get your priorities. But look carefully at storage space inside and out. For our 4+ months on the road we fill a lot but not all of the space. Slide outs have overhead cabinets, no oven instead installed slide out drawers for good access.

Class Cs have a lot less outside space due to the drive shaft. We have 2x full width basements with dual acting slideouts (55"x96" extends to 5' on either side). However above 40' with a tag you lose 3' of storage on either side.

There is no right answer. RVs are limited to 400 sq ft with the slides in and that is a small area.

[CA_Traveler]

Grit dog wrote:
If a king bed is that much of a priority, I would t let that stop from buying the right rv.
With your husbands capabilities, fitting a king bed into most bigger RVs don't seem like a huge undertaking. Even if you have to remodel a little.
Just thinking out loud.

It would be major in our case as the bed is in a slide out that is not wide enough.

Besides space is a premium in a RV and the larger the bed the less space there is for everything else.

[CA_Traveler]

Donna Jean wrote:

1. do any of you have a mid 30"s with a king bed?
Be certain of what you think is a "King" bed. A king is 76x80 WL, queen 60x80. Our "king" is 2x 32x76 or 64x76 WL. Do we have a "king" in spite of advertising and labels?
2. For those of you with 40+' experience do you find it hard to find RV parks to rent spaces for a few weeks at a time. We want to spend a lot of time in CO, UT, AZ, CA, OR and eventually head south in TX, AL, and FL.
There are plenty of sites available all over the US for large rigs. However there are also plenty of CGs that have limitations on size as in only a few sites available or none.

Generally you will pay more for CGs with larger sites, 50A, etc.

[jplante4]

We own a Safari and a king bed is a popular DYI project. There are aisles alongside the queen bed and 2 nightstands on either side. The upgrade basically takes up the entire bedroom area in a 35 footer for a king bed. You have to crawl to the bottom to get out of bed, but it's possible.

So, include in you search a rear bedroom set up this way and you may be able to do the same thing.

Also, a setup with 2 twin beds on either side of the bedroom can easily be converted to a king by building a platform in the middle.

[Grit_dog]

If a king bed is that much of a priority, I would t let that stop from buying the right rv.
With your husbands capabilities, fitting a king bed into most bigger RVs don't seem like a huge undertaking. Even if you have to remodel a little.
Just thinking out loud.

[pianotuna]

Hi Donna Jean,

You may be hard pressed to find any RV with a "true" king size bed. I know my so called "queen" is not the same size as a residential queen.

Here is an example of a class B 20 foot that claims a king size bed. Some how I doubt that:

https://youtu.be/RQ51gCCIB0I

Here is one that is 30 feet 6 inches--much more suitable to your requirements:

https://youtu.be/Vr-b5lPl5f4

[Donna_Jean]

so listening to all if you i thought i would check out the RV for sale web sites to see if we could get something smaller, even if we just did with the single bathroom we cannot sleep six months in a queen or smaller bed, 30 years of sleeping in a king, and now cannot change, we have done it on vacation and have been miserable, it will not work for 6 months. Anyway so far i cannot find something in a DP with a king bed. Pisses me off i put in king bed as my key word and all the buses wind up with queen beds. Let me know if anyone of you that had a 30 some DP had a king bed.

[JimK-NY]

You have already received a bunch of advice and links so I will just add a couple of comments.

My wife and I did the same thing 8 years ago. We sold the house, moved into an RV and traveled full time. I highly recommend South Dakota for mailing service and residency. SD makes it easy and there are no incomes taxes or vehicle inspections. The mailing service can handle your annual registration renewal. A few months in advance set up a mailing service and start to transfer addresses to that service. Make sure to do a change of address for your banking and get new checks. When you arrive in SD, you will have a bank statement with your SD address. You will need a campground receipt with both your names on it. The campground mangers will know exactly what you want. We visited DMV and an insurance agent and were done with new licenses, license plates and insurance by noon.

You seem set on a Class A. I will still recommend you think smaller. My wife and I and 2 cats full timed in a truck camper. That may be too small for many but small is better. Also be sure you have solar and are self sufficient. Many areas in the West you will want to visit are long drives from the nearest campgrounds and hookups. It is also great to save on RV camping fees by staying in national forests, blm land, etc. Why travel in beautiful scenic areas and then have to stay in an RV parking lot?

[pianotuna]

Hi Grit dog,

I'm just trying to understand their needs so I can offer helpful suggestions. I mostly boondock.

If you read the thread carefully you would see the exchange on driving the RV which Donna suggests she will have no problems with.

I mentioned the size of my unit in regards to just how much can be tucked into a smaller length--with no slides. I thought that might be helpful information. You decided I was being negative.

I'm on a fixed income and live comfortably--but there is not a lot of room for extras. In the last month I've spent $4200.00 on repairing the suspension and ball joints on my RV. Fortunately I put money aside for repairs based on mileage driven, so I had the funds available.

Grit dog wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
I don't understand the need for a bath and 1/2. I'm assuming that means two thrones?

My floor plan has an almost full size shower, and a separate water closet all packed into a 28'5" class C.

And the OP wants a 40'er. Why are you and others trying to talk them out of it?

[Donna_Jean]

Grit dog wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
I don't understand the need for a bath and 1/2. I'm assuming that means two thrones?

My floor plan has an almost full size shower, and a separate water closet all packed into a 28'5" class C.

And the OP wants a 40'er. Why are you and others trying to talk them out of it?

I am not sure if it was you that posted some funny comments, i read them but did not have a chance to reply, and now they are gone. This website is not unique in people always questioning why you want or have something and insisting their's is the better way to go. I have spent 20 years on an offshore boating web site almost identical to this and i think it's even worse over there, you have guys that sit behind their typewriter questioning every move you make, every boat you buy, every rig you use or every part you buy and LOL some of them either don't own a boat or have one that floats:R However through the years we have met many people from the site, been on their boats, attended boat races and parties with them, so you learn to take the good with the bad. I was laughing about this Sunday morning with my husband. I told him I found a website for RVs just like Offshore Only and just like Offshore Only I have found a lot of good information already as well as a lot of questions and comments regarding the choices we plan on making.

LOL I think i like it here, so ya'll should get used to seeing me around:B

[Donna_Jean]

ghooos wrote:
There are many posts on this subject. Start searching including other forums and there are many options. Basically it's like moving to another state except you might have to periodically return to your state for whatever like DL, health coverage, etc. Many FTers use a mail delivery service. One popular choice is the TX Escapees.
Whatever state you select involves much more than you've posted. You'll get lots of opinions and while you're awake do your online research.

like others have stated 6 months or so is like a long vacation. For us we do not know exactly what month we will start this trip since we have to sell our house first so it could be the end of the summer; beginning of fall when we finally move out of our MI home. so we will just keep an address in MI and pay our taxes here. Come Jan. 1 we will get a rent contract from a relative in Tn and start the new year with residency there, this avoids multiple tax returns and so forth. WE DO NOT want the responsibility/expense of a house during this trip, we also don't want to spend time looking, finding the right home will be hard for us plus there is a chance we may want to build. I am assume you live in Franklin, that's very nice. My SIL lived there until recently when she moved to Spring Hill, we will be there for this Christmas. The area we are interested in is Lake Tellico, have you been to Tellico Village, beautiful community. Where did you move from?

[Grit_dog]

pianotuna wrote:
I don't understand the need for a bath and 1/2. I'm assuming that means two thrones?

My floor plan has an almost full size shower, and a separate water closet all packed into a 28'5" class C.

And the OP wants a 40'er. Why are you and others trying to talk them out of it?