RVing Changed My Life - And it will for you, too
Picture this: It’s a beautiful sunny 70° day. Out your window is a small group of palm trees and other exotic foliage. A small lizard skitters up the tree nearest to you and pauses - just bathing in the sunshine all the while looking for another tasty bug morsal to snatch up and eat. You turn back to your left and continue typing your e-mail and hit send. Stepping out of the front door, you stretch and take a short break, enjoying the sunshine and vitamin D soaking into your veins. It’s February. It is warm. And all is perfect with the world.
This is not something I just made up - this actually happened. A few months before, we had sold our house back in Montana and, while hoping we could find another one before the cold weather set in, we decided to hit the road and head south to beat the chill. We found ourselves in a little island off the coast of south-east Florida - a tropical paradise, and we had reservations that would last quite a while. Beautiful beach strolls within walking distance of our RV spot, the sounds of waves and the excitement of our children - this was our reality.
This is not to say there weren’t days when we questioned what we were doing - we had plenty of those, like when a string of tornadoes and violent lightening and rain storms came in with flooding in our direct area and RV spot, but it was the full experience that really left an impact on why we do what we do. Most days were great!
To say that I’m an RV enthusiast may be an understatement. Actually, some close to me say that I eat, breath, and dream of RVs and the RV lifestyle. I frequently watch many channels associated with RVs showing factory tours, construction and fixes for 5th wheels, travel trailer reviews, RV accessories, motorhome repair, and general lifestyle videos of people out on the road living their best lives - free and adventurous. Sometimes we are them. And other times we’re more normal - staying planted for the school year or for a life season.
The truth is, part of our heart is out “there”. “There” is a relative term - it means our heart is wherever we go - excitedly planning and driving to the next experience. We love to stay in areas long enough that we become one of the locals - where we begin to establish regularity of places we go and people we see. Funny enough, I used to have a barber back in a small town in Florida that I went to several times. We’d laugh and reminisce about life back in the 90’s and talk about how culture has changed and how good life used to be when we were younger.
You can’t take these experiences back. And you’ll never have these experiences unless you take steps forward in the right direction.
Often people have asked me how I got to this metaphoric spot in my life. I always explain it the same way: if you want something bad enough, you’ll find a way to do it. No, I’m not rich. Yes, we did set small goals to get where we are. No, we don’t spend our money on ski trips or vacations to Hawaii. Yes, we focus our efforts on our RV hobby - that’s all there is to it.
How we did it
It started with a small exercise recommended by my friend and radio host, Spencer Hughes, around 2012. We assembled a vision book where we cut out pictures of what we wanted to do in life and where we wanted to go. One of the first things I searched for in a magazine was a photo of an RV. I found one that had a picture of a father and his children around a campfire with an RV in the background. THIS is what I wanted. While I had already RV’d before for years when I was younger with my grandfather in his truck camper, I now wanted to share the same thing with my emerging family.
The next few moves were trivial. We used to be avid off-roaders with a side-by-side (RZR) touring Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado - but we always longed to stay for more than a day in these remote areas. With that on our mind, we eventually sold our small Chevy Colorado and bought the bigger Tahoe - a 1/2 ton vehicle that had a V8 and more tow capacity. We knew this was the next logical step to get us closer to an RV that would fit us.
A couple years later we had made significant progress on our finances and we felt it was time to make the next move to actually purchase an RV. Money was still tight, but we couldn’t wait any longer as our children were aging and we really wanted to give them the same gift my grandfather gave to me all those years ago. We were super excited but soon found ourselves sorely disappointed with the cost of the RVs in our local area - both new and used - they were just so EXPENSIVE.
But, as stated above, if you want something bad enough, you’ll find a way.
And so we did…
Our First RV
I was pretty busy in my career and couldn’t have another large project on my hands - let alone the expense of buying part after part for repairs. So we expanded our search until we found a dealership located near Elkhart, Indiana. They specialized in high volume sales, so their pricing was within our range.
We won’t go into the details of how that went (although that certainly merits another blog post as we learned some critical lessons there), but we eventually emerged with a compact Keystone Bullet. A bit crushed by the faux pa that happened at the dealership (again, a story for another day), we were finally free to start our adventure.
From there, we toured Ohio and then headed back through South Dakota to Mount Rushmore - all the while so proud of what we had accomplished.
We spent significant time in this RV - usually around Montana and Wyoming because it was pretty compact and our family was growing and we couldn’t go longer time periods comfortably. But this set us up for our next move as we were hooked and wanted more.
As our financial status continued to improve, we opted to buy a better tow vehicle as our Tahoe just didn’t have enough “guts” to really get our RV around. Plus, the gas milage was completely terrible averaging around 6.5 MPG.
And so we did…
Upgrade No. 1 - A New/Used Truck
We purchased our used 2017 RAM 2500.
To say that the difference pulling our small RV from the Tahoe to the Ram was large would be an understatement. The handling improved dramatically and the milage went from 6.5 MPG towing with the Tahoe to about 10.5 MPG - it was completely amazing!
But we were targeting a 5th wheel, and with that firmly in our sites, we sold the Bullet RV and started our search. Unfortunately, and after much more research and looking, the 5th wheel was a definite NO because of payload issues with our 2500. Yes, people everywhere were saying that we could get one, and the truck would tow it easily, but the numbers just didn’t add up. As a side note, in my personal sessions with my clients, I always advise they pick out their RV FIRST, then worry about the tow vehicle later - talking from first hand experience, as you can see.
However, a 3/4 pickup can still handle a fairly decent-sized travel trailer because the tongue weight is significantly lighter on a travel trailer vs a 5th wheel. And after a few more months of searching and research, we found the perfect match.
Upgrade No. 2 and a Test - Our New, Larger Travel Trailer
We have taken our Grand Design everywhere over the past 5 years! It is large enough to fit all of us comfortably, handles well on the interstate, and has just enough amenities (especially after our upgrades) that we found that we could easily stay out longer than our 2-week limit we originally had when we first got it.
The next step I had already been working on in the background was “Could I find a work position where I didn’t have to physically be in the office every day?”. This seemed somewhat feasible because I already worked in I.T. Nothing I did required me to be physically in the office. Our answer came, unexpectedly, with COVID, which had already been going on for a while. If I had a really good internet connection and power backup, could my “home” location change without being a disruption to work?
We took a trip up to the coast to test our theory over a three week period. I would try my new mobile internet solution and also see if I could stay on task and actually get my work done. And, strangely, it actually worked! Only a few select people knew I was not even in the state anymore. By this time, I was already fully remote in a new job and, since productivity was unaffected, my bosses didn’t really care where I was.
Emboldened of this new ability, we did it again the next year, except we went for a longer period of time and for multiple trips. Still no connectivity or productivity problems. Actually, I was more productive when we were out on the road because I was more relaxed and was having fun in the evenings and weekends. But, could we take this to the next level….
The Perfect Set-up for a Family Vacation
We sold our house in Montana with the intent to take a trip out to the California coast, work there for a month or so, and try to buy a house back home in Montana while we searched online and worked remotely with a local realtor. We came very close once, but that deal fell through. We returned to Montana, but we still didn’t have any good leads as this was a tough housing market and houses were skyrocketing in price. We had already lost one bidding war.
However, we anticipated this would be the case. While we were still out in California we thought, “Could we possibly go on the road full time and head south for the winter?” My wife was already into homeschooling the children, so this wouldn’t be much of a leap, and our stuff was already secure in storage. Could we just leave it there and take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Well, yes - yes we can.
Take Every Opportunity
We slowly made our way southward - stopping by to visit family, staying for weeks - something we could have never done before. We continued our trip southward to Roswell, NM, again staying for a couple weeks. We eventually traveled through Texas, where I spent a couple of (long) weeks going to the office. We then made our way toward Florida - no reservation, no plan - aside from we wanted to make it to the Keys and somewhere else on the coast with direct beach access from our RV spot.
And so we did…
It was quite a struggle to find something on the west coast of Florida, so we expanded our search. We eventually found something on the east coast after another couple canceled a reservation. It was on an island off an island, as we like to say. The rest is history. We kept finding spots based on cancelations and moved every once in a while, but still staying in the same area. We even made it to the Keys when there was a cancelation there.
What’s the lesson here? If you want something bad enough, you can get it with determination and persistence. Take the right steps now that will set you up to your goal later, no matter what it is. Do you need help through this process to get to your RV dream? We can help with that! And we have personal experience that may greatly accelerate your process, give you more clarity, and give you the encouragement you need to do it.
