5 Lessons I’ve Learned from Full-Time RV Living
283 days ago I left Indiana in my truck and Winnebago Micro Minnie to hit the open road. With ten months of traveling full-time in my RV, here are the top five things I’ve learned.
1. Do not be in a hurry, ever.
My dad told me this before I left and I’ve really begun to understand it. My first day of travel was 11+ hours. Now, I try to keep each of my travel days to 3-4 hours. I work 9-5, Monday through Friday, and I stay in spots from a few days to a couple weeks at most (for now) so I usually travel on weekends.
In order to keep my days short, I will travel to a mid-way point and book a Harvest Host location to stay. I usually like to choose a brewery or winery as they feel more low-maintenance and have easy parking opportunities.
2. Less is more.
Those outfits you think you might need if you go out? Ten pairs of shoes? Extra throw pillows for the bed? I promise you won’t need them. Because I don’t have a home base, I have a storage unit that I keep everything in. Nearly every time I go back to Indiana, I take even MORE out of my camper. Also, you don’t need every single RV accessory that exists. In fact, this is my list of the essentials to get you started. You’ll also want to consider how much you can pack in your camper based on the weight it can carry and the towing capacity of your vehicle.
3. There is always more to learn, but you’re doing great.
There is a STEEP learning curve for RVing, and when I took off, I knew absolutely nothing. Like, I set up camp for the first time in South Carolina by myself with no help and was taking things out of the package to set up my camper. Which explains why I also made a ton of mistakes. I spent the first few months sweating when I knew I had to back into a site, and I’d immediately find someone to help me when I got to the campground. Don’t feel like you have to know everything in order to get started because you will learn (I’m still learning things today), but you’ll also start gaining more confidence with each thing you accomplish.
4. Your people are important.
If you live alone, even if you LOVE being alone like me, you’re going to feel it. You’re going to feel sad when you have to miss dinners, birthdays, and events. You’re going to feel a little disconnected from your friends who are no longer a few minutes away to run an errand with. I’ve found that a few things have helped to keep me from feeling lonely:
Facetime: Scheduling Facetime dates. Make dinner together, go drink a coffee in coffee shops from afar, do a walk and talk to catch up. It’s weird to “schedule a date” with your friends or family, but life gets in the way so having these scheduled helps.
Play games! I have a group message with friends and we each share our NYT Games scores, Connections being my favorite (and mortal enemy some days.)
Make friends! I’m not the type of person to feel like I need to make friends at the campground, but it is nice to know the people around you. There have been many times when it was helpful to know someone around, be able to chat with someone about their RV experience, learn where I should go in the area, etc. Additionally, making friends online and sharing stories with each other is uber helpful.
Share your content. I started with 100 followers on TikTok, and ~1.4k on IG, and those have grown to 14k and 8k, respectively. Now, that’s not crazy numbers (I’ll get there!!) but sharing my silly little videos has helped me to connect and inspire others, and that’s a win in my book.
5. You’re going to have second thoughts.
Do you know how often I’ve wondered if I should have gotten a van instead of a travel trailer? It would be so much COOLER (I mean van life sounds cooler than trailer life, right?), easier to park, etc. I’ve thought about how easy it would be to be in an apartment and not have to flush my black water tank every week or wonder where that new water leak is coming from… It would be a relief to not have to worry about how to balance saving money by boondocking (camping without amenities) and finding power to work. These thoughts consume me sometimes. But the thing is, I know the good outweighs the bad and I know why I made each decision. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t have it any other way and I’m so thankful for everything that RV life has brought me.
Thanks for reading :)
