For the past year, me and my husband, as well as our two dogs, have been living in an RV.
Some people think we’re crazy (okay, most people think that), others are extremely interested and want to do it as well, but the most common question we receive from anyone is “What is it like living in an RV?”
Makes sense, as living in an RV isn’t the “normal” American dream.
Just over a year ago, I never thought I’d live in an RV either. It was never a dream of mine or anything like that. I never gave it a second thought.
However, one step into an RV and I knew it was for me. Living in our RV full-time has been the best thing ever, and we truly love living in an RV.
In case you’re new here, below is a picture of our home:
In the past year, we’ve traveled around 15,000 miles in the RV, with even more miles put on our Jeep.
We’ve already traveled to many awesome places in our RV, such as:
The Pacific Northwest (Wes cycled 1,000 miles from Port Angeles, Washington to San Francisco, California, while I drove myself and our two dogs in the RV). We went to Mount Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park, Kalaloch and Ruby Beach, Hoh National Rainforest, La Push Beach, and many other beautiful places. This was the trip of a lifetime!
Utah (many times) – Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Moab, and many other places.
Colorado (many times) – Rocky Mountain National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado National Monument, Dinosaur National Monument, and many other places.
“Home” in Missouri
Mississippi
Arizona – Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Sedona, and many other places.
California – This was a part of the Pacific Northwest trip, but we continued on and hopped along beaches all the way to Los Angeles.
Wyoming – Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
And much, much more.
If you’re interested in RVing, check out these other blog posts on Making Sense of Cents:
Here is what it’s like living in an RV.
You can park your home wherever you want to.
This is probably one of the best things about living in an RV. Going on vacations is nice, but I love being able to bring my entire home with me. This way I’m not forgetting anything, and because my home is always with me, I still get to live comfortably.
We get to park our home wherever we want. This means that we can follow great weather, visit family and friends whenever it’s convenient for everyone, move to awesome new places whenever we want, and so on.
Following the weather is something that we truly love. We really only have clothes for one season, so we avoid places that are cold.
I pretty much wear flip flops, shorts, and tank tops year round, which is really nice.
It’s exciting living in new places all the time.
You cannot beat the kind of views we’ve had out of our RV window.
And, there have been a lot of them.
We’ve seen beautiful national parks right outside our window, amazing mountain ranges, all different kinds of landscapes, and more.
This means that there are always plenty of things to do. Boredom is a thing of the past, and I really cannot remember the last time I said I was bored. We can go on hikes all the time, paddle board, try a new restaurant, go Jeeping, biking, and more.
Not seeing friends and family all the time is different.
I’m not going to lie, when we first started RVing, I was a little sad.
Not seeing friends and family as much as we were used to was hard, especially knowing that we’re missing out on big life events and all of the little things in between. We still try to go home as often as we can.
However, this feeling has passed a little bit. I no longer get that FOMO (fear of missing out) feeling as much as I did in the beginning.
Now, we really just try to enjoy the times when we do go back, even if they are brief.
Working while living in an RV is a great thing.
Living in an RV has taught me to better manage a comfortable work-life balance, work ahead, as well as seek ways to increase my passive income.
Due to all of this, my business income has significantly increased, and I now manage everything much better.
Working while living in an RV is super nice, as you can probably tell!
Plus, having great views while you work is very motivating. It’s really refreshing to sit in the passenger seat up front, and just work while glancing at the scenery right outside our front window.
Also, I’ve had a lot of you ask what I’m using for internet. I am using a Verizon MiFi Jetpack. I also have AT&T for our cell phones so that we are always covered. This may sound crazy, but every RVer we’ve met has the same set up.
Note: Read more about how I earn a living on the road.
Watching scary movies in an RV makes them even scarier.
If you’re a fan of scary movies or TV shows involving zombies (like The Walking Dead), everything becomes even more enjoyable (i.e. scarier) when you’re watching it in an RV.
Note: Good luck letting the dogs out at night after doing this.
Driving an RV can be fun, but also stressful.
Wes always drives our RV, and I’m always sitting up front with him so that we can have a second set of eyes watching the road at all times.
Driving an RV isn’t necessarily hard, but there are a lot of bad drivers out there who are especially bad around RVers. Plus, you have to watch for construction areas, big dips in the road, and so on.
Due to this, we limit our driving to 250 miles a day on travel days. However, because we travel fairly slowly, travel days don’t come around too often.
Making friends when living in an RV is interesting.
Whenever we make new RV friends, it’s like we’re long lost best friends. There’s always an instant connection, lots of laughs after just a few moments of meeting each other, and going our separate ways (a normal thing in RV life) is always a little sad.
One time we had a young couple knock on our RV door and ask us if we wanted to hang out with them for drinks that night. We had never met them before, but they said they saw us roll into the campground and that they wanted to hang out.
This is a completely normal thing when living in an RV, haha!
Downsizing is liberating.
Living in an RV means that you’ll have to downsize. While some people dread this, getting rid of nearly all of your stuff is extremely liberating.
When we sold our house and moved into an RV, we donated and got rid of a lot of our belongings. At first it was difficult to get rid of so much, but it became easier as time went on.
These days, all we have is what we have with us. We have a small amount of everything, and we like it best this way.
We are much more mindful of what we buy, we waste hardly anything, and this is allowing us to save money as well.
Plus, when you’re RVing, you no longer have a need to buy as much stuff because the outdoors take up all of your time. Whereas before we would waste time by going to the mall, Target, and other stores- we hardly ever do that now. Now, we spend a lot of our time exploring new places.
We still get along in close quarters.
One of the top questions I hear is “Do you guys get along even though you’re in such a tight space?”
Yes, we do. If we didn’t, RVing would be near impossible. We’ve been near RVers who’ve gotten into heated fights, and let me tell you- fighting in an RV isn’t fun, haha.
Everyone can hear you, and there’s really nowhere to escape to.
Yes, RVers take showers.
For some reason, some people believe that RVers don’t take showers or use the bathroom. We have both a shower and a bathroom in our RV, so you don’t have to worry about that any more 🙂
Showering in an RV isn’t as nice as showering at home. We have to watch the amount of hot water we use, but we haven’t really had any problems with that so I don’t have any complaints.
Food tastes better when living in an RV.
Me and Wes always talk about this, but it’s true – meals in an RV always taste better. I think it has to do with always having great views.
Are you interested in living in an RV? Why or why not?
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