Jason When we set out on this journey we were calling it the “Trip of a Lifetime”. We had a goal of spending twelve months on the road exploring this fine nation of ours all the while looking for a new “home”. We had the budget for it and a “plan”. It didn’t take long however for that initial “plan” to change. We quickly decided that we wanted to continue to do this for as long as we could make it work. So the trip suddenly became a lifestyle change.
If you follow any full-time RVer’s you will hear the term “RV Lifestyle” used regularly. Seems fairly self explanatory, but is it? What exactly is the “RV lifestyle”?
I’m sure if you asked ten people you’d get ten different answers. So this is mine.
As I write this we’ve been on the road for over ten months. In the full-time RVer world that is very short and we would still be considered noobs. We are noobs. But we’ve been on the road long enough now to have a pretty good feel what this lifestyle is all about.
First, let’s get some myths and misconceptions out of the way.
We feel many think of our adventure as a vacation. They see our posts and pictures and I’m sure it seems that way. It is not, however, a vacation. It only felt like one for a week or two. Then it was just the “norm”. With vacations you try to fit in as much as possible, always on the go, knowing you just have seven days to get it all in. We can take as long as we want. We can spend a month or longer in one location if we choose to do so. We can do as little or as much as we want. For us, we have found a balance between seeing the sights and having normal days. On those normal days our lives are just like yours. We have laundry, bills, RV cleaning, maintenance and all sorts of things that need done. You normally don’t do those things on a vacation. No need to since you’ll be home soon enough to pick back up with your normal routine.
Another very large myth is that if you are living out of an RV you are doing so because you have to. You have no choice because of poor life decisions and just ended up this way out of necessity. That, for the large part, is false. Sure, there are some folks who already owned an RV, had some bad things happen that forced them into living in their RV. From our perspective, however, those are not the norm. By and large most folks who are full-time have done so by choice. A very calculated choice.
A common misconception is that full-time RVers are retired or of retirement age. I would venture a guess and say that for the most part, retirees do comprise the majority of full-timers. However, during our travels, we have met a much larger percentage of younger folks who live like us. It has been surprising to see folks in their early twenties living this lifestyle. We’ve met plenty of couples closer to our ages who were full-time. We can’t say what the percentage is but we can safely say that not everyone doing this are retired. Like us, many still work but do it from the road. We personally feel that this trend will continue into the future. More and more jobs are becoming remote and that lends itself to this lifestyle.
So now that we have a few of the things the RV lifestyle is not, what is it? For us, it was a mindset change. We shifted from the large house, corporate jobs and all the things that come along with the “sticks and bricks” life for a simpler more minimalistic lifestyle. We downsized our lives in order to spend time exploring and adventuring around America. We made some compromises. We walked away from the “safe” and comfortable life for a more adventurous and interesting one.
So for us, the RV lifestyle, in a nutshell, is about minimalism, adventure and experiences above all other things. It’s being a little more connected to nature and living a freer life with less stress. We’ve said “NO” to consumerism and “YES” to having just what we need to survive (and a few things that bring us joy of course).
We feel that as more and more American’s realize that the “American Dream” isn’t about “stuff” and more about a good life, they too will want to shed themselves of the materialistic world and view things a little differently.
We hope to see you on the road soon!
