Just started making the decision - to RV or not - RV-Dreams Community Forum

TwoSurvivors · RV-Dreams Community Member

Just started making the decision - to RV or not

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

There are no right or wrong answers. I can tell you what we did. We gave all of our furniture to our daughter (her inheritance), sold the house, shipped art work to my sister (so we can visit it every once in a while) and kept only what would go in the motorhome. We chose the motorhome because we started with 2 cats and it was so easy not to have to move them from their home to a truck to travel, we have a great view out the front windows, we have a small car that gets great gas mileage for running around exploring the area we are in - including going geocaching, and it works for us.

I would suggest that you get rid of everything - most people who pay for storage of things end up asking why, since when they come off the road their tastes/house size aren't what they were before fulltiming. Often they pay more in storage fees than the stuff is worth. It is all just 'stuff'.

Barb

TwoSurvivors · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thank you for the advice. There are things in my home that have been passed down from one generation to the next. Perhaps I should pass them on before I die instead of after I die. I honestly look for wall size when looking for a house so my triptik from Alaska will fit. It's time to let it go.

Hugs.

pkhalin · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hey all,

Barb is pretty much right. In our case, we went 5th wheel. But we've had one since 2001. Just increased in size. We didn't sell the house. Our kid moved in and is taking care of the bills. We got rid of everything except our bedroom furniture which is in the basement, so we have a place when we come back to visit.

We've only been on the road since last August but have found people doing full timing in just about everything, tent, small trailer, larger trailers, 5th wheels, various size motorhomes, and we even saw a tiny home in Tennessee.

So, this is part of the adventure, to determine what's right for you and what you want to lay out in funds. If it's a motorhome, a lot of folks tow another vehicle. 5th wheel or trailer, what do you have or what will you need to get to tow the trailer. The bigger the trailer (5th wheel), the bigger the truck or SUV.

Have fun and good luck.

ToddandHeather · RV-Dreams Community Member

My advice: Go to an RV Show and sit in a few of each kind. Get a feel for the space and creature comforts you may not now know you really want or can absolutely live without. Imagine yourself hooking and unhooking (tow car, travel trailer or fifth wheel), cooking dinner, showering, using the restroom and physically go to those places to see if the specifications meet your needs. Stretch out on the sofa and bed. Do they feel comfortable? It won't take you very long to see what floor plans work for you - and which one don't. Take notes (and pictures with your smart phone) as you go through the various models. take a break, Grab a few snacks and narrow your choice. Them go revisit your favorites. Take your time. No need to rush the decision.

The beauty of this lifestyle is that it can (and should be) everything you want it to be. Do yourself a favor, and give yourself the time to know what that might be.

TwoSurvivors · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thank you everyone. This is all wonderful advice.

RonC · RV-Dreams Family Member

I would add that there NO MORE fun and CHEAP way to retire! We're selling the house which will give us a $500k nest egg for when/if we decide to come off the road. We can live on $4-5K per month ... while really having a good time, and save money (for new truck and "rainy day" stuff) and not touch our 401k. This is the easiest decision we've ever made. We expect to full time for at least 5 and hopefully 10 years. All that we had to do was get past the need to have all that stuff (which we haven't touched in years). Once we got emotionally "over it" it got better. We're giving almost everything to our kids (which would have happened anyway) and the rest goes to an estate sale or donated to goodwill. While that is truly "a process" ... it is very liberating. Good Luck with your adventure!!

BTW ... We went with a 5th wheel and big truck. All paid for so no debt ... I think that (no debt) is one of the keys to happiness! I felt that the 5th wheel was the best bang for the buck. Why spend an extra $100k to get a really nice class A and then buy a "high gas mileage" toad to avoid driving a big truck around? You can buy a LOT of diesel for $100k! But that is just MO. Plus I get to drive a big diesel truck around instead of a "smart car" (which looks dangerous to me).

-- Edited by RonC on Tuesday 12th of July 2016 09:40:53 PM

-- Edited by RonC on Wednesday 13th of July 2016 08:14:01 PM

-- Edited by RonC on Sunday 17th of July 2016 07:30:46 PM

Dreamsopen · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our answer is about the same, no black and white answers. We told the kids (8) this is your inheritance, come get what you want because lots of it are family heirlooms so they did, I did put some things into a storage but it is my cargo trailer and most is pictures and things I will go through a little at a time. Sold the house and moved into a class A seems more like a home to us and we have a small car with trailer to get around in. We love it our life is so much simpler now. Best of luck hope this helps, also I would not buy new lots of low mileage coaches on the market.

-- Edited by Dreamsopen on Tuesday 12th of July 2016 11:15:48 PM

Russ Ranger · RV-Dreams Family Member

It's amazing what can happen once you have purged all that "stuff" from your life. There is a wonderful freedom when you can follow a whim and travel as you please. I am writing from Prague, Czech Republic as we travel this summer. We don't miss having all those things that held us back.

We enjoy the nomadic lifestyle and can not imagine going back to a "normal" life anytime soon. We choose a class A motorhome, but I know we could be happy in almost any type and size of RV. It's all about the great adventure and not so much about what you are traveling in. We're just starting our fourth year and it keeps getting better every year.

We are going to downsize our 6' x 10' storage locker this Summer when we get home. It turns out we no longer feel attached to most of the stuff in storage.

The best advice I can give is, "Just do it".

RonC · RV-Dreams Family Member

Russ and Terri ... seems like you are in a VERY good place. I think happiness and peace of mind are the greatest treasures, by that measure you are very "well to do". Congrats!! Hope to be there with you someday.

-- Edited by RonC on Sunday 17th of July 2016 08:05:23 PM

mds1 · RV-Dreams Family Member

All great advise. We are still in our planning stage and have not decided if we will keep a small storage shed or not. The only reason we came up for renting storage is as insurance just in case we decided fulltiming was not going to work out. If forced to decide now I would not rent one.

As for a fifth wheel or class A; we took many months to decide and after two RV shows we heard some good advise. A fifth wheel could be more comfortable when you are parked and a class A could be more comfortable when traveling. We plan to workcamp at times and frequently parked for a month or longer so a fifth wheel is our choice.

JayKim-no regrets · RV-Dreams Family Member

Some great advice here, I think Mds1 hit it on the head. We just traded a 40ft Class A DP in, we lived in it for over 4 yrs and loved it. There are just the 2 of us and our furbaby Bella. A class A is great for going down the road, handy for the restroom, snacks etc and the dog loved it. But, we don't move around too much for now, Jay still works as a Civ' working for the AF and we follow the work, right now we are at a base nr San Antonio and will be for another 18 months before he retires completely. When we looked at trading in our Class A, we looked at tons of newer Class A's, we talked to lots of other owners and got the impression that they need to be run, sitting in one spot for a month or more then driving a couple hours to your next spot to do the same again, is not good for a DP.

We started looking at 5th wheels, we just couldn't find the same workmanship or solid build that the A had but we kept looking, we actually found ours by accident, it was sitting on the lot off by itself with a 'sold' sticker on it, the sales guy said we could have a look, but we would have to factory order if we liked it because they couldn't keep them on the lot long enough to use one as a show model even. We knew as soon as we walked in that we were 'home' and after we heard who built it (Tiffin family) we ordered it that same day. We got it in May and we love it.
huggs Kim x

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

JayKim-no regrets wrote:
we looked at tons of newer Class A's, we talked to lots of other owners and got the impression that they need to be run, sitting in one spot for a month or more then driving a couple hours to your next spot to do the same again, is not good for a DP.

Some one gave you very bad advice. We park our DP for the winter - just make sure we fill up with fresh diesel before we park her, and then let her sit. Not a problem at all. What is bad is if you don't RUN her for at least 30 minutes after starting to get everything up to temperature and everything moving and lubricating.

Barb

JayKim-no regrets · RV-Dreams Family Member

Barbaraok wrote:
JayKim-no regrets wrote:
we looked at tons of newer Class A's, we talked to lots of other owners and got the impression that they need to be run, sitting in one spot for a month or more then driving a couple hours to your next spot to do the same again, is not good for a DP.

Some one gave you very bad advice. We park our DP for the winter - just make sure we fill up with fresh diesel before we park her, and then let her sit. Not a problem at all. What is bad is if you don't RUN her for at least 30 minutes after starting to get everything up to temperature and everything moving and lubricating.
Barb

We would run the engine for an hour every month, generator too. We have read on lots of other groups that diesels don't like to 'sit' in one spot for months on end and that they are made to run long and hard. We had a few issues with the engine during the 4 yrs we owned the Alfa, expensive issues. A lot of our RV friends have 5th wheels and in the end it came down to living space vs basement storage space, we plan on living in this RV for a long time and found the layout of this new 5th to be exactly what we wanted.

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

Worse thing you can do for a DP is to start the engine and run it, but not get out on the road. Far, far better not to turn the key over as you need to get things moving. Generator - running it is MOVING it's parts, so that is ok. Generally we run generator after about 3 months to charge up the batteries then again about 1 week before we are ready to leave to charge batteries back up. In between we through the disconnect switches on both sets of batteries. Lots of different types of diesel engines sit for months at a time - the engine starts up when the equipment is needed, works well, then is shut down until the next season. What engine did you have in the Alpha?

JayKim-no regrets · RV-Dreams Family Member

Barbaraok wrote:
Worse thing you can do for a DP is to start the engine and run it, but not get out on the road. Far, far better not to turn the key over as you need to get things moving. Generator - running it is MOVING it's parts, so that is ok. Generally we run generator after about 3 months to charge up the batteries then again about 1 week before we are ready to leave to charge batteries back up. In between we through the disconnect switches on both sets of batteries. Lots of different types of diesel engines sit for months at a time - the engine starts up when the equipment is needed, works well, then is shut down until the next season. What engine did you have in the Alpha?

Well, now I am confused, in your first response you said the engine needs to be run for at least 30 mins to get things running, in your 2nd response you say it's bad to start it and not go down the road? I had already said we ran ours for at least an hour every month to get things running and to make sure the engine warmed up. We had a CAT 330 in the Alfa. I would not want to put anyone off buying a DP, for full time travelers they are a great choice, for us at this point in out RV living, we chose a 5th wheel.

Kim x

Barbaraok · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'm sorry, when I said run for 30 minutes, I meant run as on the road, not sitting idling. I see I wasn't very clear about it. Our rule of thumb is once we start the engine, she doesn't shut down until we are at least 50 miles down the road (assuming that is where our next stop is) - so everything that can be done, is done ahead of starting the engine, then the jacks come up, we pull the jack pads out, do the light check and pull out if in a pull through, or pull out and hook up if not - but the engine isn't shut down as we need to get everything warmed up. Sorry you had trouble with your Cat - our Cummins runs like a champ - other things we've had to fix.

Again, it just isn't getting the engine temperature up, it is running the rig out on the road so that all fluids move through their hoses, etc., all parts of the chassis come up to temperature and get a work out.