Hi Everyone. Well, after 15 years the RV-Dreams Community Forum is coming to an end. Since it began in August 2005, we've had 58 Million page views, 124,000 posts, and we've spent about $15,000 to keep this valuable resource for RVers free and open. But since we are now off the road and have settled down for the next chapter of our lives, we are taking the Forum down effective June 30, 2021. It has been a tough decision, but it is now time.
We want to thank all of our members for their participation and input over the years, and we want to especially thank those that have acted as Moderators for us during our amazing journey living and traveling in our RV and growing the RV-Dreams Family. We will be forever proud to have been founders of this Forum and to have been supported by such a wonderful community. Thank you all!!
Hubby and I have had the full-timing dream for over 20 years, but we're just now reaching the point in our careers and our lifespans where it's beginning to get real. Hubby is 67 and I am 58, and right now our goal is to make the leap sometime around my 60th birthday in October 2018. He's already retired, but I am, of course, still employed. Given the 9-year difference in our ages, we just feel like it makes sense for us to get started on this dream while we're both still healthy and energetic enough to have a reasonable amount of time to enjoy the lifestyle.
We're immersing ourselves in books, YouTube videos, blogs, and forums to gather information. We've never spent time in an RV, but we have always enjoyed tent-camping--we're pretty good at traveling lightly and looking for cheap entertainment!
Looking forward to meeting you all, either virtually or on the road someday!
Welcome! Why not rent a number of different types of RVs to see what you like...if any?
__________________
Winnebago TT 2101DS & 2020 Silverado LTZ Z71. 300 watts WindyNation solar w/MPPT, 2 Trojan T-125s. TALL flag pole. Prefer USFS, COE, BLM, USF&WS, NPS, TVA, state/county camps. 14 year Army vet-11B40 then 11A - old MOS 1542 & 1560.
Welcome Suzanne, that's wonderful, and with the right preparation at the front end you'll love this lifestyle as much as the majority do.
You may want to get your RV a wee while before you actually plan to head out FTing, and enjoy a few long weekends exploring locally to where you currently live, and get some experience under your belt before it becomes your permanent home on wheels. We bought our first RV back in the late 90's with zero prior experience (5th wheel then), and we are still on our current Gas MH we replaced the 5er with in 2002. We love the lifestyle, flexibility and can't imagine enjoying any other form of travel moreso after all these years.
We started off with "making it happen", during busy career lives and kids still at school, even picking them up from the school gates on the last day before Easter break and the likes, to cram in a 10 day trip here and there, as well as lots of Friday afternoon to Sunday night trips. I think the minimum number of nights in the early years we logged were 31.
Over time, we then started doing longer and longer extended trips of 3 weeks, then 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 9 weeks etc, realizing life was too short to make excuses of being "too busy" or "not enough time" to not grab every moment we could to go "glamping".
Besides deciding on what type of RV you want (mainly this will be dictated by how you intend to travel/anchor down and what's most important to you), you'll also start to find what type of camping/RVing you prefer, ie; RV Resorts, Forest CG's, State Parks, Private CG's or as is our case 90+% of the time boon docking in remote locations. Obviously the later is not so possible when exploring more built up areas/major cities, but nonetheless it's what we have found we personally prefer.
Some folks pick a theme to follow for their travels such as Nat'l Parks, or Lighthouses, or Racing, or Sports Games etc etc. Others like ourselves, just look at each state/province one at a time and research what attractions, towns etc are in that particular locale and try to cover as much as we can of interest as we travel.
Exciting times for you Suzanne, and for sure old man time doesn't stand still for any of us, so make the most of realizing your dreams, goals and ambitions starting NOW, we've all read of too too many folks on these forums that kept putting it off and putting it off until it was too late for one reason or another. Hence why hubby and I maybe had an assault course in the beginning years whilst RVing, trying to balance "living for today whilst planning/saving for tomorrow", but at least we've got priceless memories no matter what the future holds.
We are just patiently waiting for our last property to hopefully sell before too much longer, and we WILL BE joining the ranks of other FT RVers, everything being equal at that time. Can't wait, but we are adamant we will to secure our future, and in the meantime we'll keep doing our longer extended trips that are great fun.
__________________
Breathtaking Alberta. Her Mountains Draw You But Her People Bring You Back
My wife and I are just about ready to set out full-time across America. We have owned several RV's in the past but didn't use them too much. Now, we are selling our house and stuff and hitting the road with our two big dogs.
Having to ecomize as much as possible to make this happen, we are setting out in an '04 Hurricane with very low miles and a Jeep Patriot 4X4 toad. The Hurricane gets fair reviews but some of the nicer coach owners don't prefer it for full-time. As hikers and tent campers, it should be pretty nice. The queen bed is the key to comfort.
I am an old pilot who learned to fly in the northern Rockies and have landed on about every dangerous airstrip (and non-airstrips) in North Idaho with only two incidents. Both wind and weather related. Later, I flew corporate for a company out of Marietta, Georgia when live radar was a monochrome screen that only showed what was immediately in front of you. I called it "turn around" radar! We also did some ranching in western South Dakota and I build custom homes in north Georgia.
The wife, Susan, is a social worker at heart having worked at Early Head Start and different nursing homes with memory care folks. She is a happy, bubbly girl who is the sunshine of my life. She is cautious about this new life but I am sure she will find it rewarding as long as there are new friends to make.
Our children being grown and involved in their own families, we have two big dogs. Riley, an old almost crippled Boxer and Rosa, a black-white-tan Aussie who is about six and still very active.
Susan and I have both taught school and I was a volunteer firefighter for a while. We look forward to making new friends and seeing America - from the ground.
You may want to get your RV a wee while before you actually plan to head out FTing, and enjoy a few long weekends exploring locally to where you currently live, and get some experience under your belt before it becomes your permanent home on wheels.
Hi, Someday!
Yes, that's exactly what we plan to do. We want to buy the RV about six months before we plan to leave. During that time we'll be doing some shake-out trips, while getting our house listed, emptied and sold.
By your first RV NOW. Don't wait, get something on the inexpensive side to learn on. We bought a Class C and had 2 wonderful years with it, very forgiving, easy to drive, and great for weekends and 2-week vacations. And it showed us that we needed something larger for fulltiming.
__________________
Barb & Dave O'Keeffe
2002 Alpine 36 MDDS (Figment II), 2018 Ford C-Max HYBRID
By your first RV NOW. Don't wait, get something on the inexpensive side to learn on. We bought a Class C and had 2 wonderful years with it, very forgiving, easy to drive, and great for weekends and 2-week vacations. And it showed us that we needed something larger for fulltiming.
LOL, we're working on it! We have our eye on a 30' rig, and we think that should be large enough for us. We've always lived in small spaces and so far we haven't strangled each other!
