Full-Time RV Lifestyle Tips From The Pros
May 3, 2021
Your research on full-time RV living is going well. You now know what RV fits your needs, learned about finding campsites, what grey water is and how to heat tape hoses. But what if you just want to know what full-time RV living is actually like for someone who lives on the road full-time? You may not know anyone personally who could give you a few tips from their own experience, but never fear, we have compiled some great tips from some full-time RV life pros.
Use a service to get your snail mail.
Heath and Alyssa, a full-time RVing couple, use a service called Escapees for their mail forwarding. Escapeesspecifically serves those living the full-time RV life with a variety of services. For an annual fee, Escapees handles your mail forwarding, with options to have your mail read to you over the phone, opened and scanned to your email, or forwarded to your next destination.
Build a social life for you and your family.
Other families are full-time RVers too! The family that runs the Ditching Suburbiablog uses several methods to find other families on the road. Instagram and Facebook are great ways to find RVing families near you. Check out Facebook groups dedicated to location-independent families or full-time families. Email RV family blogs if it seems like they might be near you. Consider slowing down and staying in one place for a little longer than usual so you are more likely to be able to connect with families passing through.
Get tactical with showers.
Full-time RV couple Eric and Danielle Hannanrecommend trying a showering technique called a “Military Shower” for when you are trying to conserve water or have limited hot water, a situation you may find yourself in if you try boondocking. Boondocking, simply put, is camping away from an established campground with no access to hookups. Whether you are boondocking in a Walmart parking lot or out in nature, the Military Shower method can help. Simply rinse your body, turn off the water, lather up and then rinse off to finish!
Learn before you leave.
Kevin and Ruth Read, longtime full-time RVers recommend learning about your RVs mechanical systems before taking off. They recommend researching the electrical system and getting some good solar panels. Solar panels can give you a lot of freedom when choosing where you camp since you will not be tied to electrical hookups.
Take breaks when needed.
On her blog Snomads.blog, Kristin Snow writes that occasionally booking a hotel room or Airbnb can help alleviate any cabin fever that may be brewing from living in cramped quarters, especially when the weather is bad. The luxury of soaking in an actual bathtub and having a little more space can do wonders for recharging your batteries and keeping your morale up when times get hard.
Bring your own wifi.
Wifi at campgrounds is inconsistent, slow, and sometimes nonexistent. If you are working remotely while living full-time in your RV, being able to connect to the internet reliably is pretty important, to say the least. The Let’s Travel Family keeps three different cell phone providers with hotspots so they can stay connected across most of the country. That said, there are some places that will not get cell service so make sure to line up those destinations with times you can be disconnected from the internet.
