Ever since we started full time RVing, we’ve been asked some funny and interesting questions. And, over a year ago, I published Common RV Questions – Yes, I Even Talk About What We Do With #2. Some of the questions I answered in that article included:
Do you shower?
What do you do when you have to use the bathroom?
How/what do you eat?
What do you do for internet?
Do you ever do laundry?
What do you do for a living, so that you can RV full time?
How do you receive mail?
While they seem funny to us now, I know that we asked some of these same questions before we started full time RVing. Due to that, I knew I had to write that first post to answer some of the most common questions we’ve been asked about full time RVing.
Some of the questions are from people who think we are crazy to RV full time. Whereas, others are from people who are interested in RVing but are unsure about certain things. Either way, I hope to clear up even more of the common RV questions we receive.
You never know- maybe, I’ll convert some of you 🙂
Related articles on full time RVing:
It’s always an interesting time, trying to explain RVing to strangers who stop me at the store after they’ve seen me get out of our RV. And, it’s certainly more than just strangers that ask us questions.
It’s a lot of fun, though. I love answering RV questions and getting others hooked on this lifestyle!
So, here are even more of the questions we’ve been asked by readers, friends, family, and even strangers about full time RVing.
Common questions about full time RVing:
I could never live in a small space with my spouse. Don’t you hate each other?
This is one of the most common things about full time RVing that we hear from others in relationships – that they wouldn’t be able to do it because they think they’d end up hating their spouse.
Our RV is around 38 feet long and 8.5 feet wide. However, when the slides are out, we are about 13 feet wide.
That means our living space is less than 500 square feet, which probably doesn’t sound like very much space for the average couple. We share that with our two dogs as well, and one of them is around 80 pounds.
Even with all of that, we definitely don’t hate each other at all. We are just fine with the small space and it’s never really gotten to us. Sure, there are times when it rains all day and you can’t go outside, but there are always other things to do, such as read, work on the business, and just relax.
Why would you make $100,000+ and live in an rv?
I’ve received this question so much that I plan on turning it into its own blog post.
We live in an RV even though we have a high income because we LOVE RVing. Full time RVing isn’t about saving money – our house was much cheaper than our RV, so if we wanted to save money, then we would have just continued to live in it.
What do you do for health insurance?
When we started taking RV life seriously, we found out that we had no realistic health insurance options. I didn’t want to pay the penalty for not having health insurance, and I also didn’t want to go uninsured.
For full-time RVers, it is difficult to find health insurance companies that will cover you.
Some health insurance companies won’t cover you once you travel out of your state. If they do offer out-of-state coverage, they usually require that you at least live full time in your home state. While we do have a home state and address, it isn’t technically where we live full time. So, it was important to find a health insurance provider that wouldn’t possibly void a medical expense if they found out that we were trying to get around this loophole.
Plus, the only policy that we qualified for (in our state) had an astonishing deductible of $39,000 for out-of-state medical expenses. And, as full-time RVers, we are excluded from the majority of policies anyways due to the loophole described above, so that just didn’t work for us.
Paying a high monthly health insurance premium that comes with a $39,000 annual deductible, and the fact that many of our claims would probably be voided, made this decision a no-brainer.
So, in January of 2016, we started a membership with Liberty HealthShare. For the both of us, we pay just $249 each month.
With this monthly fee, 100% of our eligible medical bills- up to $1,000,000 per incident, are covered after the $1,000 per couple annual unshared amount (think of this as your annual deductible).
Now, belonging to a health sharing ministry is not perfect. Liberty HealthShare is not traditional health insurance, which means:
They are under no requirement to cover your medical expenses.
You cannot deduct Liberty’s monthly costs from your business taxes.
You cannot contribute to a Health Savings Account.
Pre-existing medical conditions are not covered until years later.
Health care sharing ministries all have some sort of ethical rules that you must abide by, such as no smoking, no drinking, and so on. If you incur a medical expense due to something that is against their policies, there is a chance that they will not cover it.
You can read more about Liberty HealthShare at We No Longer Have Traditional Health Insurance – Liberty HealthShare Review.
Sometimes people want to camp at the spur of the moment and find it difficult to locate places. Is that possible in an RV?
It’s possible, but in some areas it may be more difficult. Places around popular national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, and more will be more difficult in the summer time, due to the increasing amount of people who are RVing and families taking summer vacations.
But, if you book a popular area ahead of time, you will solve this problem.
Usually, we don’t make reservations too far in advance. Sometimes we even wait to book until the night before. However, we have booked mostly everything for this summer because we know exactly where we will be due to scheduled events that we have had to plan for.
Can you just park anywhere you want?
Hardly a week goes by without someone saying that we should visit them and that we can park in their driveway, some random lot next to their house, inside their garage, and so on and so on.
I always laugh – you can’t really just park anywhere in your RV. Full time RVing isn’t that easy!
There may be rules and laws against RV parking in some cities on public streets, there may not be enough space, it may be too slanted, low hanging trees, or there may be a 9 foot bridge to drive under.
There are plenty of places to stay, though, so for the most part you won’t have a problem. We have stayed in people’s driveways (Google Satellite and Street views are your friend in these cases), free public land, RV parks, state parks, national parks, and everything in between.
However, we always make sure to research where we are going so that there are no difficulties.
Should you lie about whether you are part time or full time RVing to save money on RV insurance?
No!
I’ve heard so many “tips” from people who don’t RV, and many of them are about saving money on RV insurance by saying that we are just part-timers. This is a bad idea because if the insurance company finds out that you lied, any of your claims may be rejected.
It’s best to just tell the truth if you’re full time RVing.
How is full time RVing with a big dog?
Sadly, there are some who don’t think we’re treating our dogs well due to the fact that they live in an RV. I’m really not sure how this is any different from someone who keeps their dog in a house or an apartment, as our dogs still have multiple sleeping spots. They are definitely able to stretch their legs, eat and drink, and more.
They are actually more active now than when we lived in our house because I take them for hikes every single day. Our bigger dog walks around 5-10 miles a day and sleeps the rest of the day. Our smaller dog, on the other hand, hates going outside, so he is definitely perfect for living anywhere.
Our dogs go on fun hikes all the time. They also enjoy paddle boarding (yes, they LOVE it), and lots of lovin’ while in the RV.
Considerations you have to make for a wi-fi connection- do you schedule your trips around connection time or wing it?
Internet at RV parks is notoriously bad. If you plan on working online while full time RVing, I highly recommend having some sort of internet connection of your own.
We currently have AT&T for our phones as well as for our internet connection. We used to have both Verizon and AT&T but we recently switched to just AT&T and we have been really happy with it.
Even with that being said, sometimes our internet connection is not that great, especially around RV parks. This means I always try to work ahead as much as I can so that internet does not create any stress.
I’m a sucker for “A Day in the Life of” stories (including nitty gritty details, like dumping blackwater).
An average day for us varies greatly. On travel days, Wes will handle everything related to the RV and I take care of the dogs. We usually limit our travel days to around 250 miles in the RV, as it takes longer to do everything in an RV than it does in a car.
We usually move the RV after about a week to around one month. Still, there have been cases in which we loved an area so much that we have stayed for longer. Other cases, we may just stay for a day or two.
Wes handles everything with the RV – driving the RV, dumping the tanks, hooking us up, backing us in, the maintenance, washing the RV (washing it usually takes around 6-8 hours), cleaning the inside, and more. He literally does it all, which doesn’t tend to be the norm for most RV families. However, we each have our roles and mine are to handle the business and the dogs for the most part – whereas he manages everything with the RV and the household 🙂
How do you handle winter, don’t the water lines freeze?
This one is pretty simple, we just move to a warmer place. We like to follow the good weather when full time RVing.
Places like Arizona, Texas, and Florida are very popular for living in an RV during the winter months.
What’s the best part? What’s the worst part?
I’m not sure there are any bad parts (for us, at least), and we love full time RVing for many reasons:
We love to travel. RVing allows us to visit so many more places than if we lived in one spot.
We love being able to take our home to fun destinations without having to pack up every single time.
It’s a relatively affordable way to travel and live at the same time.
It’s much more comfortable and easy to bring our home with us to all of the places that we want to visit.
What would you do differently?
Nothing. We absolutely love everything about full time RVing!
What other questions do you have for me about full time RVing? From my answers above, what do you think about full time RVing? Anything surprise you?
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