How We're Planning Our Full Time RVing Life

By Guest Author, James Shown

My wife Denise and I had already traveled the lower 48 states in a truck I drove for a living. She would come along with me on occasion. One time she was with me 19 straight months.

Eventually we decided we wanted to find a small rural town to settle in thinking this could be a solution to our wanderlust.

A delivery took us to the small north central Nevada town of Winnemucca. A small enough town of 8,000 people we truly loved it at first. Three years later we were talking about traveling again. However, I wanted no part of the commercial end of being on the road. Somehow the idea of living in a travel trailer got planted in my brain.

That's when I was faced with the task of figuring out how one gets started full time RVing.

Not so much as buying the trailer part, but where does one begin? Although we did spend considerable time weighing the pros and cons, for us, as to whether we should go with a motor home, a class c, a fifth wheel, or a travel trailer. But that was the easy part. What does one do after the RV is purchased, all the gear is loaded up, and you're headed for the interstate? Where to go and what to do where questions I found myself asking. It seemed as though many of the articles I read were directed toward the RVer who had already been at it a while and would benefit from some new additional information or to the novice who while needing such information still had no idea where they where going to go.

When we traveled in the truck we managed to visit many places for our own enjoyment, but not near as many as we'd liked to have been able. So I decided to do some research on the Internet and compile as much information as I could before embarking on our incredible journey.

One of the most valuable websites I found that was to become a constant companion was something called RVbasics.com. Seriously though, it is by far the RVers best friend before and during travels.

I have already begun compiling a notebook with many of the articles found there. Including Exterior Care of the Travel Trailer, Free Campgrounds And Overnight Parking Places, Public RV Dump Stations and Tips To Cutting Your RV Travel Expenses. Personally I think it could turn into an almost never ending collection of worthy data.

Still I wanted to know more about where we would go. We didn't want to waste time, which equals money, trying to figure out where to go first, then next and so on. We wanted some kind of a plan.

Aside from places like Yellowstone, Yosemite and other larger places I already knew about we wanted to know what else was out there.

First thing I accomplished was to go online and request a travel guide from all 48 states. We didn't want to have to hunt them down once we were out there. To my surprise I also started receiving Scenic Road Trip Maps, State Park Maps and some RV Parks & Campground guides. It's taking a while to get them all and we only have five left for the complete collection.

Selecting places where one intends to go depends a great deal on the couple or individual's personal interests of course. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Denise and I like many of the same types of places and things to do.

Several things I look for when researching places of interest is of course parking availability, schedule and admission price. If it is something we really want to see or is in an area of a number of other things then I explore the possibility of an RV park nearby. I'm not waiting until I arrive in Branson Missouri to look for a park. In many cases you have to reserve a spot ahead anyway.

All the while I was putting together pages of information about places to go I would find more things to see and stuff to do. The travel guides had already begun to pay off. I never knew that one of the largest air shows in the world was right in our own backyard (the USA) Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

While working and driving the truck we had already visited nine U. S. military ships and submarines and seven Aviation museums. We now have an additional eight ships and twelve more aviation museums to see, including the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon which houses Howard Huges' famous Spruce Goose.

Granted the travel guides may not be for everyone, but it's the way I plan to go and I feel a lot better having them.

See James' article Meet James Shown, Planning to Full Time RV.