I am a planner, always have been, always will be, but this life has taught me to hold those plans very loosely. However, having plans made and being very organized, makes it easy to cancel / change plans with short notice. In case you're wondering what kind of things have caused us to change our plans, and there have been many, here's a small list:
Fridge failure - needed to stay longer to replace the cooling unit
Truck upgrade - changing the travel route, parts delayed, changed plans again, cancelled an art show.
Evacuation due to flooding
Wind - causing changes to travel days
Death in the immediate family, had to cover 1000 miles in 2.5 days

Now for those of you thinking that's not bad for people who have been on the road for 3.5 years, those all happened in our first 8 months!! LOL, if someone had told me that before we embarked on this crazy life, I would have been having second thoughts.

Since then we've had 2 major mechanical failures, truck engine and 6 months later axle replacement on due to the failure of a never lube bearing, both leaving us stuck in the same region for over a month each time. I've recently been laid off from my corporate, work from home job, and it appears I'm going to be rehired, but still waiting for all the final HR approvals, so that threw yet another monkey wrench in all our plans.

If you can't deal with the unexpected and you feel your plans are set in stone, this is not going to be an easy life to manage. Early on the changes in plans caused a bit of angst, at this point, we just laugh, go look at my spreadsheet and see who I need to contact to change reservations, etc.

We have learned to adopt the idea that all our plans are set in jello!! Not an easy ideal for a "Type A Planner" to adapt, but that's where we are.

 Out of curiosity, what are the one or two biggest frustrations you recall facing when you decided to hit the road or become mobile home dwellers?  How did you resolve these "opportunities"?  Wow that's tough to limit to just two.  I would say getting used to being together all the time initially was often frustrating.  I traveled for work frequently and with a larger house we always had our own space.  Working through how to exist in the same space was more difficult than I thought it would be, but ultimately rewarding as we have so much more time together and genuinely like each other.  Secondly, I would say learning to not barrel through problems.  Stuff happens, and happens frequently in a mobile lifestyle.  Learning to just stop take a breath, and figure it out before continuing was an important life lesson for us.

What would be your pearl of wisdom about FT/Extended RV Living?

• Develop a friend network of others in the lifestyle and rely on it for support through the tough moments.  If nothing else they can tell you, you are not alone, but often they can provide real life, practical solutions to problems as they have already dealt with them.
• Be willing to let go of the plan.  It usually takes a lot of planning to get to the point where you are a full timer and then you go on the road and things start to change.  I went from a 5 year plan, to a two year plan, to now I know what I am doing until December.  Some people never plan at all but go where the wind takes them, but others need more structure to feel comfortable.  That's ok, but if you are an uber planner, try to loosen your grip sooner rather than later.  
• Stuff breaks, know it will happen.  When you are rattling your home around, things break.  Either buy warranties or have funds in the bank to cover those eventualities because they will happen.  They will probably also affect your travel plans at some time or another.  It;s just the cost of living the lifestyle and again the sooner you make your peace with it the easier it will be.
• This will probably cost more than you think, but less than your old life cost you.  There is a learning curve and for most people the first year in particular can be pricey.  Try not to beat yourself up about that, but understand that you are just learning, especially if you weren't avid RVers before (as we weren't).  
• Life is full of beautiful pictures but there is other stuff outside the beautiful picture as well.  I have seen some absolutely amazing things in the last two years, and look back on my time as a series of wonderful images.  But along with the beautiful there are other things as well.  There is more poverty in this country than I ever imagined for example.  There is also traffic, bad weather, noisy neighbors, and crappy campgrounds. It is life, not a vacation and even though you know that intellectually, accepting it emotionally takes some time.  At least it did for me.  It is a great life, but it is not without its challenges so when you hit those rough moments (and you will) try to accept them with as much grace as you can.  I am still working on that :) 

Great question,

Trace

First of all, I try to not focus on frustrations, as they tend to just be life as we know it.

We have been living full-time in our fifth wheel now for 5+ years, although we don't travel much.  We purchased in 2010, started living in it in 2011 while we were still working in Oklahoma City.  After retiring in 2014, we moved to Colorado for about 20 months and now we have been in Oregon for the last six months.

When we started planning for our full-time life, we decided to be different from most by staying in one place for extended periods of time.  That allow two things for us; one being that we weren't spending a lot of money for fuel for the F450 for towing from place to place, and two, with our second vehicle, we could use it to explore more attractions and places where we happen to be.  As it has turned out, both of those factors are working for us.  I'm 70 years old and still in pretty good health, so I don't feel the need to see everything at once, and if I like something well enough, I can still go back next month and see it again.

We like the area where we currently are (Grants Pass, Oregon) and the volunteer job we are doing, enough so that we may stay here as long as a total of 2 1/2 years.  In addition to seeing more stuff and saving fuel costs, our utilities are also paid here, so the extra money is going for things that will free us up even more in the future, such as paying off all our credit card debt.

Terry

My biggest words of wisdom have to do with worrying about dirt/scratches/dings on the rig. So many folks obsess over this, wash the rig every month and pass up on lost of neat places because they don't want to go on gravel roads. 

Us…we bought the rig to use and took our NH 5ver to Alaska year before last. Some dings on the front end underneath where gravel kicked up…but ya know, a couple thousand bucks sometime and we can fix that. The alternative is to only drive down I-95 to Fort Lauderdale…but then you miss all the fun.

One suggestion I saw in the thread was not to set an alarm clock…we've discovered that after 35 years of setting an alarm daily…we're up by 0630 most days even if we don't set the alarm.

We've also wondered…a lot…how we ever had time to work back in the day…our lives today seem fuller than they were while we were working.

Neil and Connie wrote:

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My biggest words of wisdom have to do with worrying about dirt/scratches/dings on the rig. So many folks obsess over this, wash the rig every month and pass up on lost of neat places because they don't want to go on gravel roads. 

Us…we bought the rig to use and took our NH 5ver to Alaska year before last. Some dings on the front end underneath where gravel kicked up…but ya know, a couple thousand bucks sometime and we can fix that. The alternative is to only drive down I-95 to Fort Lauderdale…but then you miss all the fun.

One suggestion I saw in the thread was not to set an alarm clock…we've discovered that after 35 years of setting an alarm daily…we're up by 0630 most days even if we don't set the alarm.

We've also wondered…a lot…how we ever had time to work back in the day…our lives today seem fuller than they were while we were working.

 

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 I have had no trouble getting over the "35 years of setting an alarm clock" ... for the last 25 years I have set the alarm clock for 0530 ... now retired, I have NO TROUBLE sleeping until 0730-0800.  Life is good and getting better!!