We all post pictures of the good stuff, the beautiful scenery the smiling faces of our children. We talk about all the places we have seen. People think you are living the dream when you are a full time traveling RV family-and in many ways you are. However, it is far from a “vacation.” You are still doing life. You are just doing life in different places, in a different way. There are still angry yelling teenagers, hungry children, dirty diapers and crying babies. There is also a lot more working together on a day to day basis for your marriage-this is for better or worse, for us-we fight & argue much more frequently when we travel. But we also have much more good times together too. There is A LOT of togetherness in this lifestyle.
We picked up our brand new 2018 KZ Connect 231bhs in January 2018. We drove 3 hours to our campground, spent the night and when we got up the next morning we had 2 flat tires. These were brand new tires on our brand new trailer.
When we turned the water on for the first time, water went everywhere under the sink. There were several leaks in our brand new plumbing.
One fine day a few months in, I was making a smoothie with my handy dandy hand blender when all of a sudden the entire kitchen sink fell through the counter top. I was using the counter top that goes over the sink (my rig has basically no counter space). In my basically brand new trailer.
We were driving through Iowa one Saturday evening on the final stretch of a super long trip when our trailer got a flat tire, only to see the cause of a flat tire was a snapped leaf spring on the trailer.
We came out of a restaurant one late night to find a flat tire on our trailer caused by part of the metal frame snapping-needing a weld to go any further.
We woke up in Moab one morning to find two flat tires on our trailer, only to find the sides had rubbed straight through. Due to a problem with our trailer axles, the wheel well was riding on the tires.
We stopped one time for gas near Portland Oregon, only to find the underbelly of our trailer was literally dragging on the ground.
Now all this might just sound like we got a crappy brand of trailer. I’m not going to argue that it is a great brand, however, after talking to dozens of full timers over the past 3 years, I have learned that you will have many issues if you travel frequently no matter which brand of RV you purchase-no doubt, some are better quality than others. HOWEVER they all have one thing in common: they are not meant to be lived in, especially not by families. They are meant to take a couple trips a year in. They are created to be as light as possible for travel purposes and they are mostly held together by glue and tiny screws.
One time, as we were navigating through the woods on a tight off grid road, a tree branch caught our awning and tore it, causing the entire awning to come off the trailer and need replaced-Did I mention these things are super big and there is almost no way to even fit them in the trailer or truck to haul them!?
We have been stuck countless times in the mud or sand or up against a tree or a fence post.
We have had many flat tires in extremely inconvenient places.
We have had many propane leaks.
We tighten screws somewhere on the inside or outside of the trailer pretty much every time we stop.
We have sat for hours at a random parking lot at a marital stand off about which direction to go next.
We have taken literal hours to park in an spot, pulling on and off leveling blocks repeatedly, getting more and more frustrated with each other the more time goes by. We have gotten in many, huge arguments while trying to park the trailer.
We have spends hundreds of dollars in quarters doing laundry in random towns and truck stops.
We have driven for hours in the middle of the night, from spot to spot, searching for good enough internet for Jon to work from the following day.
We have spent tons of cash on showers: truck stop showers, quarter operated showers, rec center showers- you name it-we’ve showered there. We have showered in the creepiest little spider covered campground facilites where one of you has to hold the button down while for the other to actually wash themselves.
Mail isn’t exactly convenient in this lifestyle. We have picked up mail & packages at general delivery post offices all over the country.
Just when you get to know a grocery store, you move on to a new town. Cooking for a family out of a tiny fridge and minimal food storage space isn’t exactly ideal. I have never head of an RV oven that worked well, I pretty much only cook simple stove top meals due to this problem. To my great disappointment, our electrical cannot handle our pressure cooker/air fryer when we are running off of solar. After much trial and error there are very few things I use the oven for- frozen pizza, and toasting bread & bagels is basically all. (Make sure you use a cast iron griddle or pizza stone for your baking attempts).
It can be lonely not having a community of people around, when you do make a new friend, you are generally parting ways very soon, with small chances of crossing paths again. Sometimes weeks go by before I have a good conversation with an adult woman.
SEX! If you have older children, you will have to figure out how to navigate the obstacles now in the way of your sex life (paper thin walls, lack of stability)
Fuel & repairs are expensive and difficult to budget for.
We have had more peed in pants and throwing up children on road trips than you can probably imagine. We have spent countless hours listening to babies cry and scream while driving.
We have taken turns crying, exhausted and hungry on a hiking trail we wish we had never attempted.
We have had some very close, scary calls while towing down the highway in bad weather.
We have had countless truck issues, from pouring water in the coolant every mile to get to the next mechanic to spending hours in a Napa parking lot silicone taping leaks and replacing parts.
Remember, as you ponder this list, we have lived in an RV stationary, we have also traveled campground to campground, but the majority of our time as full timers has been spent boondocking in off grid spots that can be very difficult to get to. This means we almost never have hookups of any kind (which is why we shower in random places and use our restroom as little as possible). You will avoid a handful of the issues listed if you are not a boondocker. You will avoid even more if you are stationary. But even stationary living in these things-stuff will break… frequently. These are just a few of the many, many challenges we have faced in the past 3 years of full time RV life.
When I look back on our time spent living in a tiny box, I don’t think of the things on this list, unless it’s of some of the great testimonies of God’s goodness that have come from some of our most difficult predicaments. I think of all the time we have been able to spend together as a family. I think of the places we have seen together, the hikes we have done, the lakes we have bathed in. For me, it has all been worth it. But it is not free of challenges-it is just doing life differently. And it is certainly not for everyone.