I’m William (aka Bill). My wife Deborah and I have a motorhome. We’ve really got into the RV lifestyle and we might just throw our bonnets over the windmill as they say in France, and head out.

After all, retirement for both of us is just around the corner. Our three kids are all grown, married with lives of their own.

Why should we spend our retirement in a tract home with a dog next door who somehow manages to bark twenty-four hours a day?

Besides, we thought RVrs with experience might read this and offer a few tips.

Maybe you’re new to this too, so if you can learn anything we know, that would be an added bonus.

In any case, I thought that others might be interested. Maybe you’ve been thinking of buying an RV and heading out so this might help a little.

The idea sounds great. Just leave all your responsibilities behind while you camp near a pristine lake and deer come by to eat out of your hand.

Well, of course, nothing is ever that simple, but on the other hand, RV living has a lot to offer.

Now neither of us is a big shot. I’ve spent nearly thirty years as a sheet metal worker and have the scars to prove it. Debbie has twenty years in a printing facility and we’re both about to retire.

Buying an RV

I’m not quite sure why, but one Sunday over a year ago we passed a lot where a big RV sale was going on. Debbie wanted to stop and look, so we did.

Wow, they had everything.

As we inspected trailers, fifth-wheels, and motor homes one by one, we were amazed at the inside beauty, the luxury and clever multi-purpose furnishings.

Like wealthy big shots, we boldly let a sales person show us some gigantic first class RVs that were scratching at the million dollar mark.

We’re talking top of the line here. And that line is pretty high.

At the low end, there were tent campers, little trailers that had pop-up tents for overnighters. A host of other trailers surrounded us and we couldn’t stop looking.

Somehow, before we knew it, we both fell in love with a thirty-five foot Winnebago Adventurer.

I suppose we could have ordered a more basic model, but this baby with all its bells and whistles was — the associate assured us — a steal at $100,000.00. He showed us paperwork. The suggested list price was near $200,000.00 and the lowest this dealership had ever gone before was $120,000.00.

I don’t know exactly what happened but the upshot was that this particular Sunday turned out to be not only expensive but left me in a state of shock that lasted at least a week.

But there she was, sitting in our driveway, black and gold with a king size bed. And as an added bonus, a flat screen television had been mounted in just such a way that we could laze in bed and watch TV when we didn’t feel like getting up right away.

Learn to drive an RV

The fellow at the dealership helped me get used to driving around, giving me a few tips on turns and things. After all, a thirty-five-foot behemoth is not quite like driving a Nissan pickup.

Every weekend we began heading out for a two-day adventure and my comfort at the wheel grew with each outing. Just because these babies are big, they’re really easy to drive.

Once we got the hang of it, we began enjoying our outings more and more.

We made new acquaintances with people from all parts of the country and looked forward to the next weekend and our next adventure.

We’ve made some mistakes.

Without much guidance, it’s easy to do even with the tips we picked up from others along the way.

But all in all, the mistakes haven’t hurt us much and with each new problem you learn.

One of the first things I learned — the hard way — was the time we stayed overnight at a park where we hooked up our electricity and our waste tubes.

All the comforts of home, but the next day I hopped behind the wheel and took off forgetting all about the attachments. That little boo-boo not only hurt my pride, but my pocketbook as well.

Saving money

Being on the road presents other problems we hadn’t considered. We thought we could save money by parking in an all-night supermarket parking lot, but a little past midnight a security guard woke us up out of a sound sleep and ran us off.

We also greatly underestimated the cost of stopping at RV parks, campgrounds, and mobile home parks that advertised “Overnighters Welcome”. I can see why we’re welcome when they charge as much as some motels! And even the cheapest motels usually offer free hot coffee in the morning!

But in the end, we decided we’d rather be on the road.

The house suddenly seemed dull and lacked interest.

We talked it over and came to the big decision: We’d sell the house and become full-timers in our new Winnebago.

Prepping the house for sale

We know something about prepping the house for sale. We’ve seen it all on HGTV. Lose the personal photos, etc. Make the entire house as clean and spotless as possible along with a more impersonal look, just like a model home in a new subdivision.

We’ve already realized we’d better sit down too and determine a budget.

Just how much is it really going to cost to live on the road?

Our RV only gets about five miles to the gallon and at prices generally hovering around the three dollar mark, that alone makes me very nervous.

When we visit our kids or other relatives, we can park for free, but we can’t do that all the time and we wouldn’t want to.

And we don’t want any more parking lot experiences. So we have to take overnight parking fees into consideration.

We’ve learned that some RV travelers live off the grid, finding out-of-the-way places where they can park for free.

Good for them. If we ran into a spot like that, I wouldn’t be opposed to spending the night there, especially down by a river or stream, but…

RV needs maintenance

Of course, with any vehicle, there’s routine maintenance. On top of all that and knowing Debbie pretty well after forty years.

And I know she isn’t going to want to spend the day in our little kitchen trying to maintain her balance in a moving vehicle, so that means we’ll be stopping at attractive roadside restaurants.

These days, a couple of sandwiches and drinks can easily cost around twenty bucks plus tip.

Well, we have a lot to think about but at least our RV has everything we might need tucked inside. It’s beautiful and comfortable and personally, I like the more compact interior.

Even though our house isn’t considered large, it’s still large enough to make running around from the bedroom to the kitchen to a bathroom and so on pretty tedious, especially for a guy who is no longer in his prime.

RV into permanent home

So here we are now. We’re both ready to retire by the early part of next year.

We’re thinking seriously of putting our house on the market and turning our RV into our permanent home.

We’re going to follow the example of some previous neighbors and hold one or more Saturday yard sales. That will not only help us clean house, but the extra money will help too.

We certainly have questions.

Here we are with modest savings, very low credit card debt (we try to pay religiously every month), and of course, together with our pensions and Social Security, we feel we can hold our heads above water.

But despite all that information, we won’t know for sure just how our expenses will hold up to our income until we get out on the road.

I can’t help but worry about any possible future problems.

Fortunately, we’re in good health and don’t have much need for our Medicare cards right now, but we’ve both heard stories how healthy people suddenly collapse with some disease or another.

Safety

One other consideration I failed to mention is that safety can be a major concern. That’s one valid reason not to park on the street or in parking lots aside from any prohibitions.

Having a lethal weapon on board poses its own set of problems.

I do know that since an RV is your home, you can keep legally purchased weapons inside it, but the seriousness of lethal weapons has to be the individual choice of each person.

We’re seriously considering a pup that will turn into a Rottweiler, a Doberman or a German shepherd when it grows up.

Aside from the companionship, we feel it will give us a warm feeling of comfort just having him lying nearby.

So if we’d had the opportunity to read a pre-RVing blog before we ever considered the idea of becoming what they call full-timers, we wanted to know some of the things I’ve mentioned today.

Of course, I’ve probably failed to answer all the questions you might have, but this may be a start.

Good luck on the road!

—0—