VACATION MODE – DEACTIVATED

We live in an RV but does this mean we’re always on Vacation?

We’ve now been full-time on the road for two months.  You’ll notice that our videos are a few weeks behind.  We never announce our current location, simply for safety reasons. 

Let’s look at how we’ve been doing.

Living on the road is just like being on constant vacation; or is it? We set a budget and we’ve absolutely stuck to it; or have we? We chose our RV with great care and ensured every detail was perfect for us to live full time.  Or did we?

Ok, Ok… enough of the rhetorical questions. Let’s actually address some of these points.

Let’s begin by saying unequivocally that this life is amazing and seeing all the incredible locations we’ve already experienced is incredible and somewhat overwhelming, but it doesn’t come free.

The fact is that living in an RV can put you in constant ‘vacation mode’ and this is a dangerous habit.  ‘Vacation mode’ for most people equals eating and drinking to excess and checking out all the local sightseeing spots.  Well, we don’t drink, but man we sure can eat!  Not only that, sightseeing isn’t free and April/May saw us spending money like water which resulted in us going way over our original budget.

We had tentatively planned for this when we allowed ourselves two weeks of vacation following Kev’s retirement, plus the cost of traveling the entire width of the USA.  But everything is costing more than we’d estimated.  People warned us, but did we listen… No!

In the vein of being open and honest, we’ve seen our annual income drop by over 50% which has had an enormous effect on our spending habits.  Or putting it more realistically – it should have. We are having to learn not to buy something just because we think it might be useful or because it’s cute and reminds us of our trips.

This is our first major learning curve and it’s a tough one for sure. So, what have we learned so far that will ensure we not only have fun, and see what we want but stay within budget? Here are some tips so far. (Links to all apps and websites at the end)

• If you’re full-time or even planning a long trip, do NOT be afraid of using Harvest Host or Boondockers Welcome!  
  • We cannot stress this enough.  The annual membership fee has paid for itself in just one visit.  Having said this, membership has increased from $100 a year to $169.  Even so, so far, we’ve stayed five nights at a Boondockers Welcome location which has completely paid for our membership.  Free Camping – you cannot beat it.  *Remember – if you don’t feel comfortable when you arrive at a location, you can always refuse to stay.
    
• State Parks are not always the least expensive choice if you’re not a resident in that state.  Some are crazy – $22 a night for residents but $75 for out-of-state visitors. Watch out for this when booking as the website we visited for MA did not mention this until checkout! Needless to say, we did not book that park!
  
• Don’t be afraid to ask private RV parks if they offer discounts. Some offer senior, military, or Good Sam discounts.  They also have reduced nightly rates for longer stays.
  
• Using public transport once you’re at an RV park saves on gas and parking in big cities – download the app for that city’s metro/bus routes.  So much easier to get around plus, bonus… less stressful.  Also, you can pay with your phone when entering and leaving the station or bus.
  
• Download the GPS My City app.  This has helped us navigate both large and small cities to visit all the places we wanted to without a guide.  It not only offers different walking tours for each city, but it also gives the history of each point of interest.
  
• Stop buying mementos – this one is specifically for me (Cat)!  LOL.  Take lots of photos and make albums on your phone to relive the memories.    Little mementos add up fast and take up prime real estate/weight in your rig. Stickers from each location are great too.
  
• Shop at low-cost grocery stores.  We love to support local businesses, like coffee shops and bakeries, etc. but when it comes to basic groceries, we choose wisely.  Small grocery stores in remote areas are crazy expensive – stock up before you head into the sticks.
  
• Gas prices are a huge issue right now for everyone traveling full-time.  Coming from California, we are actually finding the gas cheaper overall.  However, we use the Gas Buddy app to find the cheapest gas closest to us.  We’ve saved over 20C a gallon doing this!

These are just a few examples of how we will continue to strive to stay within budget.  Watch this space to see if this actually happens.

Our next point is the RV is not perfect! Our Grand Design Imagine 2670MK comes close, but…

Our first statement about the perfect RV is really a joke.  We’re not new to RVing and we completely understand that there is no such thing as the perfect RV – but man this one is almost there!  We adore the opposing slides and the light and airy feel.  The office space gives me a place that is dedicated to work time – which helps me focus and finally our storage space is wonderful.

That being said, we’ve already met with some issues; one of our own making and others that are just annoying design issues.

The first major problem was the shelves in the pantry.  They are pathetic – sorry Grand Design, but even for a weekend with four adults – they’re pathetic!!  The shelving is less than 1/4” thick and held up with staples onto the same thickness of the wall.  After three weeks on the road, the shelving in the lower pantry completely gave way and we had to invest in a Rev-a-Shelf at a cost of $200.   We take some responsibility for this though as we should have known better than to stock up with canned produce and then stack them on the flimsy shelving.

The second pet hate for this and let’s face it every single RV, are the tank indicators.  They don’t work.  They never work.  They haven’t worked in any RV we’ve ever owned and in researching other RV forums, they don’t work in any single RV currently on the road.

Why do we owners within the RV community put up with this?  If this was a problem in the automobile industry there would be worldwide outrage.  Imagine if the gas gauge on your vehicle always showed 2/3rds full.  Imagine if you had no idea how much gas you actually had for a journey you were planning.  Imagine having to wing it when planning your route.  There’s simply no way this would be entertained as acceptable.

Yet, here we are in the RV Community saying things like ‘Oh well” or ‘It’s just the way it is’ or ‘Welcome to the RV life’ as though it’s perfectly OK to have no clue how much freshwater you have or when your grey tanks are full or even worse, when your black tank may overflow!  Keep in mind, we paid big bucks for these rigs.  Ours cost $40K in 2021 and it now sells for close to $55K.

We boondock (camping without any electric or sewer hookups) the majority of the time at Boondockers Welcome locations, Bureau of Land Management (BLM – free national land) areas, or State Parks, and the lack of exact information for our holding tanks is infuriating.  We know from experience roughly how long we can last, but it sure would be nice if those pretty illuminated lights gave us anything close to correct information!

How do we fix this?  How do we insist the RV Industry solves this infuriating problem?  What will it take before the industry gets the message? We have no idea!  We’re buying RVs in greater and greater numbers and still this issue persists.  Let us know in the comments if you have a solution for this.

Rant over….. For now.

Finally, we packed too much crap!  LOL The final day of packing we were manic and literally grabbed arms full of stuff and just packed them in wherever we could.  It’s a huge understatement to say we overpacked! 
We have already had a sweep and cleared out several items.

Pans that were too heavy. 
Coffee machines that took up too much space. 
Silverware that we just had too much of. 
Gadgets that we thought would be handy but weren’t.
Storage containers – that we had too many of. Yes, that’s a thing.
Clothing!   Way too much clothing.

I’m pretty sure there is still more that we can eject from the house, but for now we’ve settled into a quiet truce with our stuff.

All this to say that we’re going to commit to staying on budget, we still love the RV life, we adore our RV and we’re learning a lot.  Now if I can just stop buying those mementos.

Here are the links we promised.  
Boondockers Welcome
GPS My City
Gas Buddy
Rev-a-Shelf from Amazon

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