Are you looking to become a full time rver? I’ve discovered that it’s a trend that has been slowing developing for years.
My family and I are working, right now, to become full time rver’s. I can tell you that there is a lot of hurdles to overcome to meet our goals. The biggest is money.
If we decide to become a full time rver, then we need to find a constant source of income. Unfortunately, being Canadian’s we cannot legally work in the USA and to boot, working usually requires you to be stationary. Kinda defeats the purpose.
So, I’ve been working hard to find ways to replace me previous income with a more mobile stream of income. This has been quite difficult to date. It has required me to really re-think the way I do things and I’ve discovered a lot of my ‘soft skills’ that did me well in the corporate world simply don’t cut it in this new paradigm.
One avenue that I’ve pursued is Internet marketing. I have had some success but I can say that it has been quite the journey. This is not easy. And don’t let anyone fool you either in this regard. But I’ve begun to see some progress, so in my eyes, it’s really a matter of time.
Also, trying to find the right RV to become a full time RVer has been quite interesting. To date, we’ve not been able to find the ‘right fit’ for us. I’ve seen a couple of close ones. Right now, a Jayco model is in the forefront. Time will tell.
Also, there is the issue of space. And stuff. We’ve moved overseas a number of years back and we got rid of all of our stuff last time. Kinda sucked, so we are currently in the process of pruning our stuff to either fit in the space we will have in our new RV, (when we get it), or go into a reasonable amount of storage space.
Finally, dealing with larger assets such as vehicles and homes is also an issue. Do you sell or do you rent it out? In our case, I need to sell two vehicles and purchase a diesel pickup truck capable to pull a 5th wheel. That in itself is a challenge.
So these are some of the things we are currently dealing with. If you are thinking of becoming a full time rver or already are, I’d love to hear your comments and how you’ve overcome the obstacles. Thanks!
My husband and I are thinking about doing RV full time. We have lived aboard a sailboat for 2 years and loved it. We moved back to land to be near grandkids and family. Now we are thinking about doing something different. The liveaboard RV life looks very interesting. If you can live on a 36foot sailboat, you should beable to live in a RV! Looking forward to seeing what comments you get and what you find out about different RV’s.
Very, very true. If it’s any interest, we started this whole idea of a journey from looking at doing a sailing trip. We eventually decided against the sailboat and decided upon a landboat instead, lol.
Thanks for your comment!
Frank
Greetings! We searched for months for a used RV. I saw one that I loved, but the price was too high. So I wrote down everything I loved about it and I put a note on Facebook to let people know that I was in the market. I rec’d 2 responses from people who knew people who sell RVs. I contacted the RV salesperson nearest to us. I sent the list of things I loved about the used RV I had seen, but was too costly. He found a used RV that had the floor plan, I wanted and it listed at nearly $4000.00 below blue book value. It’s a 32 foot Cardinal, two slide outs, front kitchen, ect.. and I love it.
When I retire in two years I doubt that we will be able to afford to stay in our home. At that point we will sell our house and move into the RV full time. My hope is that the sale of the house will give us enough to buy a small lot, so we can build a pole barn to house the RV, our 2 cars and give us a laundry room. We live in Michigan and the economy has tanked here. The value of our home has dropped 35 thousand dollars over the last 5 years. I am looking forward to simple living..I have come to realize that less “stuff” can mean more “life”.
Cool site! I’m diving into the RV lifestyle in one week. On the topic of money, I’m lucky in that I work in the IT industry and focus primarily on small businesses. This makes it very easy for me to move from place to place and job to job. If you’re shooting for a computer job, get your skill up and take some freelance/contract jobs. I’ll probably aim for 1 and 2 year gigs which will let me save cash for my travelling time. Staying put for a while in an rv can be very inexpensive indeed! By ditching my apartment and moving into a park, I’ll be doubling my savings each month. One year of that to pay off the camper, then the road will be my home for a while. Find a cool place, stay put for a while, then move on again. Heck, maybe I’ll eventually buy a plot of land and build a pad and hookups for a home base.
I don’t think you need to be very concerned with not being legally able to work in the U.S. ,there is ‘casual’ work everywhere paying cash/no documentation etc.
To stretch your funds further it seems wise to plan on spending even less time at KOA’S etc.I believe with experience and or more research ,you will find a couple to 4 or 5 days per month in such a place would be adequate.
Also you can try posting on places like Craigslist,in areas where you plan to visit,probably setting up parking and or temporary employment in advance . 🙂
Good pointers Notjoe,
Yea, I know about the KOA traps – very expensive. If you take a few moments to just look around, you can normally find something that is more reasonable without purchasing the extras that come with KOA’s. As to Craiglist, never even thought about that. Good pointer too.