Hi everybody, we are getting ready to start our full time adventure in about 24 months - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Bobc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hi everybody, we are getting ready to start our full time adventure in about 24 months

Dog Folks · RV-Dreams Family Member

All plans change, but when we started out we did north to south loops, and moved westward each year for another loop.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bob,

I don't know where you have been looking, but consider getting pricing from several DRV dealerships. Each one seems to do things differently, but two that have the best reputation are RV's for Less out of Tennessee and Rolling Retreats in Elk City, OK. With both of them, be sure and get in touch with the folks there instead of relying on prices on their websites. Alicia and Slade at Rolling Retreats even provide the full price/build option sheet, complete with DRV"s base price for each model. Not all dealerships to that.

Also, if you are interested, DRV Suites honors referral certificates that allow the buyer to select one of up to 4 different optional items and get them for free. If you are interested, I have some of those certificates, and if you send me a private message with your name and address, I'll send one to you.

Terry

Bobc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry I have been like at both of those sites and have even gotten build sheets from both. From what I can tell they both treat there customer very well and seem to be very helpfully. I will plan to make a field trip to the factory just before I am ready to place a order which still may be 18 to 24 months away. Thank you for your offer. We will see how thing go. You know how thing can change fast.

WestWardHo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bob and Carol,

We've only been full timing for a few months, although we've been RVing for several years so I believe you will get more experienced opinions from others. Some of what I've learned is that many beginners, run, run run putting lots of miles on going from place to place and then later settle down and move at a slower pace. Some keep moving and exploring continually. Some have a specific location north in the summer and south in the winter and go to the same place each year. Some go east one or two years and west in the others. I talk to so many who have all reservations made for months ahead and others who wing it with just a general direction in mind. Some have shows or events that they work at which directs their course. Some prefer full hookups and others prefer isolated dry docking and some a combination.

For us, just starting out, it worked for us to work camp in one place to get settled in. We're about to move on but we've learned a lot about what we needed/wanted to have with us so we've organized and reorganized, we've had time to really explore the area, we've gotten comfortable in our rig but I definitely have a big case of hitch-itch at this point after 3 months in one location. I do recommend having reservations for holidays but if a place tells you they're full don't hesitate to keep calling because we see that our current place is "full up" but cancelations and no shows happen all the time. We were full here a week before Labor Day weekend but ended up with 3 open sites.

The best thing about this lifestyle is that, for many of us, it's fluid and you can change direction for what suits YOU. You'll learn as you go and you'll get lots of support on here.

Sherry

Bobc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the advise Sherry I would think that in most cases i would need to spend at least 2 weeks in any one location to get a good feel for it and not feel rushed unless we have a place we just don't like and then we can just move on faster. I do like the idea thou of maybe the first couple stops being a little longer, just to get settled into the camper, it will be new and i am sure it will take some time to get orginized and to develope some type of system for living.
I would love to hear from another on how long they like to spend at each stop before you start to get the hitch itch

We have done all kinds of camping for many years from truck campers, motor homes, 5 th wheel's to a seasonal park model that we use now in the summer.
I understand that full timing it is a completely different ball game but at least we have some idea of what we are doing.
One of my biggest fears is when traveling making sure the routes we take handle the height of our trailer.

I am guessing the height of our trailer will be around 13'4" ( I have never had anything this tall before) how does everybody research there travel path to make sure the roads traveled will be ok for this kind of height.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bob,

Look into the truckers' atlas products, whether online or in book form. I think many, if not all, of them will indicate somewhere about height restrictions. Also, while I have no experience with any of them, some of the newer GPS products that are designed for truckers or RV'ers may also have height restrictions considered. My understanding with those is that one can "program in" one's RV's height, length and width and the product will then help with routes where size would be a matter.

Now, having said all that, I know of one person whose GPS product (GM's OnStar) routed them off of their scheduled route and to a route that did not allow RV's and trucks. In order to miss that freeway, they ended up hung up in a "downtown" area of a major city where they then encountered a low overpass that literally peeled back the roof of their fifth wheel. For that reason, while I might have a GPS, my research for traveling will definitely include Trucker's atlas, and two other books, those being the Mountain Directory East and Mountain Directory West atlases.

I see from their website (linked in last sentence) that they also have those available in an E-book, but I'll stick to the physical books.

Terry

Bobc · RV-Dreams Family Member

That looks like a huge Help Terry. i will save this for future help and order before we leave.
i have seen that good sam offers a aftermarket GPS for RV's have you heard any input on theres

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

I haven't heard much on theirs, although I don't know who actually makes their unit. I have heard both good and bad about the Rand McNally GPS systems, and there are others that also are designed for RV's and trucks. Use the search feature in the blue bar above and type in "GPS" and you'll get a number of threads with that as the topic.

This link is to another forum over on SOITC (Suites Owners International Travel Club) and has a very extensive (8 pages) of comments on a comparison between the Magellan or the Rand McNally systems.

Magellan or Rand McNally

I think there are other brands, but I can't recall them right now, but they might be mentioned in that SOITC link.

Terry

laurly · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bob:

Welcome to the forum, and the full-time lifestyle. You will find so many helpful people on here, as we did when we went full-time. We can highly recommend the Rand McNally Truckers' GPS. There is a place to enter weight, length, and height of your rig/truck. In the full year we've been on the road, we can honestly say it has not 'steered' us wrong! We have the RV version, which can show RV parks as you are traveling, as well as other important things.

To echo others, when we started our first trip, we left from PA and needed to go to South Dakota to obtain our driver's licenses. After that we kept to a southern route to avoid the cold temps. So far it has worked!

Good luck as you begin your researching, and finally hit the road! We recommend one of RV-Dream's rallies as well. We learned so much!

French Bikers · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm a bit like your situation because we have planned to hit the road around sept - oct 2015. In our case fulltiming in an RV as been a dream plan for many years therefore we've started to educate ourself until the date of departure. We are Canadian and the main goal is to get away of the snow and the cold weather in winter. We have been to many places with our motorcycles in the USA but there is so much to see and it was always for a short period of time. As an example I shipped my motorcycle two years ago to New Orleans, I flew from my hometown took the bike and came back across 12 states. It took me close to a year to plan the ride because I wanted to see specific things along the way like French Quarter in New Orleans, 4th of july in Baton Rouge, Mississippi River, Graceland, Jack Daniel's distillery, Delta Blues Museum, Joliet Penitancery, just to mentionned these places.

I do beleive that you are american so it will be much more easier to plan and travel across the country, in our case we have so much time aloud to spend at the same time before being able to go back.

I don't know what kind of things you like, your hobbies, what you prefer about the outdoors, etc... therefore I think you need to sit down and write down those types of things. After making your list you willl be to start your search for your travel. There is so many good books on the market to use when it's time to plan, National Geographic have some good books, Reader Digest, books written by experienced fulltimer could also give you a way to start your planning. Browse the internet with your favourite topics it will give you a lot of choice. Don't just rely on other's suggestions, what they like might not be your best choice.

In our case we know where we want to go and what we want to see but we are realistic we won't see everything it in a year or two or maybe 5, and not to forget that even if you have a good travel plan things might change along the way, you might decide to go see a place that another r'ver spoke about around the camp fire.

I can't really answer your question about where to start or where to go but my best suggestion would be to write down your preference and then start planning your trip. My last word would be not to put a date to hang up the keys unless you have a specific reason.

For an example, we want to see Alaska and there is a certain time of the year to go, therefore we will make our travel plan with that consideration, I have relatives living in Victoria, BC we will stop visiting and when winter will arrive we have the intention to drive along the west coast. Again like I was saying, the drive on the west coast might took us longer than we would thaught but hey... it doesn't really matter we are Retired, Fulltimer R'ver and like a song "Time is on our side"

Good luck with your planning