RVing Lifestyle

We are not new to RVing since we have been semi retired for the past 5 years working in the winters in our home city of Nashville, TN and traveling during the summer months. Our first summer we spent in a tent. By no stretch of the imagination does a tent fit into any RV category. But we were on the road for 6 months, staying in campgrounds all over Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado. It was big fun but a lot of work pitching and taking down camp at least 2 days a week, usually more. We thought the solution to that problem would be a pop-up camper.

We loved our pop-up. It had all the conveniences of home. We could eat inside if the weather was bad. It had a refrigerator. It was tiny and I had to sit on the floor to retrieve anything, but it was a refrigerator none the less. Best of all it had a potty. No more night time trips to the bath house. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We took two major trips with the pop-up—the first to Alaska and the second to Michigan.

During the tent and pop-up years, we spent the winters in Nashville in an apartment. The first year of our semi-retirement, we had sold our home with the anticipation of full timing some day. That may seem a bit drastic, but there were many other reasons for selling our real estate. Anyway, we wanted to see if we really liked being on the road and away from family for an extended period of time before we invested in a more livable rig. Having an apartment for 6 months out of the year meant moving twice. That was a lot of work. We thought the solution to that problem would be a 5th wheel.

That is how we got to where we are today—living full time in our Montana 5th wheel. We are starting our third year full timing, and we love it. Finally, after about 4 years of traveling for 6 months at a time, we are no longer in “vacation” mode. I think that is a hard concept for most people who are not familiar with this lifestyle. Most people associate travel with vacation and on vacation you rarely do laundry, cook, vacuum, or go to the grocery. If you’re lucky, you have 2 weeks to explore your destination and you race around trying to see it all. It has taken us a long time to realize we are not on vacation. I have my home to clean, cloths to wash, and food to buy and prepare. I just do it in a different location month to month. And the places to explore and the new friends to meet are, well, endless. That is the RVing lifestyle.