One Year Living in Our Camper

In our first full year of retirement and living in our camper, we had some grand adventures. It is a lifestyle we love and plan to keep doing for the foreseeable future. So in year one:

• We became residents of Florida. Florida, South Dakota, and Texas are the 3 states most friendly to full-time RVers.
• We bought a new camper and a new truck midway through year one.
• We pulled our camper (the first and second combined) 14,000 miles and stayed at 80 campgrounds.
• We visited a lot of family and friends.
• We added Zazzy to our life. She’s a tortoiseshell kitten–>cat who is an amazingly great traveler.
• We (mostly Joe) took over 8000 pictures.
• We traveled through two countries (US and Canada), 25 states, and got wet in two oceans. Remember the song lyrics “From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters”? We did that, but backwards.

• We visited 11 national parks, 5 national monuments, and many more amazing places not in the national park system.
  • Joe’s Favorite Place:  Grand Teton National Park.
  • Jane’s Favorite Place:  Butler Beach, FL (just south of St. Augustine). We camped for a month 200 ft from this beautiful beach.

• Best dumb luck experience: we ended up near Kennedy Space Center when a Falcon 9 launch occurred. We watched from Cocoa Beach.

• Favorite Restaurants:
  • Redfrog & McToad’s near St Augustine, FL. They make a fantastic mac ‘n’ cheese with shrimp and lobster and some of the best ribs Joe’s ever had.
  • Papa Wheelies in McKinleyville, CA doesn’t look like much, but great burgers and a super nice owner/cook.
  • Sunset Grill in St Augustine. Open-air dining near the beach.
  • Pitchfork Steak Fondue in Medora, ND. It’s a unique picnic with the steaks cooked on a pitchfork dunked in a 55 gallon drum of a very hot fluid.
• Favorite Beers:
  • I-10 IPA brewed by Intuition Ale Works, Jacksonville, FL.
  • Midnight Star Black Ale brewed by Bull Falls Brewery, Wausau, WI
  • Pile O’ Dirt Porter brewed by Crow Peak Brewery, Spearfish, SD.
  • Steelhead Extra Pale Ale brewed by Mad River Brewing, Humboldt County, CA.

• Favorite Drives:
  • Beartooth Highway in Wyoming and Montana. Amazing views along a highway 10,000+ ft in elevation.
  • Highway 199 and 101 in Oregon and California. Smith River views and old growth redwoods alongside the highway. Lots of tight turns and a bit of a white knuckle drive when pulling a 41-ft camper.
  • We would like to include the Blue Ridge Parkway, but we’ll have to go back when it isn’t too foggy to see it.

• Best place to see Bald Eagles: Minocqua, WI, where we started and where we lived for 4 years.
• Best place to see Osprey: Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. They are everywhere you look.

What we envisioned vs how it actually transpired:

We chose to live on wheels so we could escape the snow and always stay warm while seeing the country. Joe had a stated goal of wearing shorts every day for the rest of his life. After leaving Florida, that fantasy fell by the wayside. Jane had an appointment in Wisconsin in March, and we got very cold for several weeks. We even got snowed on a couple of times. In June, the average high temperature at the coast in the Pacific northwest is in the 50s and 60s. And Shaun will graduate Michigan Tech in December 2020. Brrr. Go ahead. Make fun of us for thinking we could get away.

We wanted to be able to swim (in a heated pool) almost every day. We haven’t had that option since we left Florida.

We thought we would walk at least two miles most days, for better fitness. It has been more sporadic than that – Joe walks pretty regularly, sometimes up to 10 miles, but due to fibromyalgia, some hikes cause Jane to take several days off to rest.

As our destination desires evolve, we can adjust some reservations, but not others. Since we depend on having reserved campsites, we are not as flexible as we originally thought we could be. On “moving days” we thought we could stop spontaneously if we saw a store or attraction that interested us, but since we have a dog and a cat in the truck with us, we tend not to stop until we get to the next campground.

Jane wanted to go to the occasional movie in a theater, but due in part to having animals that don’t like to be left alone, and in part to camping in relatively remote locations (no theater nearby), we haven’t gone to any.

What is not so great?

Health care. We have insurance with nationwide providers, but when we need health care and are not in St Augustine, FL, we go to Urgent Care and see doctors who don’t have access to our health records. Joe had sciatica in Minneapolis and lost an entire week of time with our grandkids and struggled to get appropriate pain relief in a timely manner, in part due to the health care system he went to not knowing anything about him. Jane is having knee pain and hopes to some day (soon) get a replacement. We’ll need to plan a stay near Mayo Clinic Jacksonville for awhile to get it done.

What are we going to do a little differently? First, slow down – the first year we have acted a lot like we are on vacation, which can get exhausting. Starting in 2020 we aren’t going to move as much, in order to really enjoy each place we go. What about the rest of 2019? We are starting to slow down, with 3 weeks in Redwood National Park, 4 weeks in Yosemite National Park, and several other places with two week stays. This helps with the problem of having rain every day we’re at a location, so we don’t get to do the things we had planned. Also, in most RV parks the longer you stay the less you pay per day, so this makes financial sense.

What have we learned: Fuel prices vary dramatically in most towns. Joe uses the app GasBuddy to find the lowest fuel price. We also try not to fill up at truck stops. They cost more than any gas station when buying diesel. When you have a 36 gallon tank and average about 10 mpg, it makes a big difference.

We also learned that reservations made far in advance are needed to stay in well-known destinations during their best seasons. We needed to make reservations one year in advance for January through March in Florida, 6 months or more for Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Yosemite, Olympic, and Mount Rainier National Parks. One reason for the big lead time is that most RV camping sites are not long enough to accommodate us, so we need to reserve early to get one of the few long sites. Another reason is that there are more and more people who enjoy RVing, especially on weekends. Having a place to sleep only 5 days per week doesn’t do it for us!

So what are we doing in year two? We left Minnesota May 20 on our way to spending most of the rest of the year in California, Washington, and Oregon. Here is our plan:

July: Oregon Coast, Mount St Helens, Mount Rainier, Olympic National Park, Columbia River Gorge, Mt Hood

August: Eugene OR, Crater Lake National Park, Lava Beds National Monument, Mt Lassen National Park, Lake Tahoe

September: Yosemite National Park

October: Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, Joshua Tree National Park, Palm Desert, Sedona, AZ

November: Petrified Forest National Park, Phoenix, Tucson

December: Las Cruces NM, Carlsbad NM, Dallas TX, New Orleans LA, Mobile AL and on to Florida to meet our son Shaun for his Christmas break..

If our travel plans bring us close to you, let us know and we’ll figure out how to get together.

Best thing about our lifestyle: Getting to experience so many places in our country. We learn so much about so many things!

Worst thing about our lifestyle: Leaving our friends. While we talk with many people everywhere we go, we have not made any new long term friends. Yet.

What’s different about living in a house on wheels vs a bricks and sticks house: There is maintenance required for both, just different kinds. With a camper it is about tires, brakes, wheel bearings, and the seals that keep the camper weather tight. And tightening everything that vibrates loose while driving over bumpy roads. But there’s no yard work and a lot less square footage to clean and only one bathroom. We still have to pay bills, but there aren’t as many. Also, internet and cell service is not reliable. We are never certain if we will have service.

What do we do when we aren’t hiking or having other outdoor adventures: We read, work jigsaw puzzles, cross-stitch, edit and organize photos, write the blog, other computer browsing (including paying bills), watch TV, clean the camper, do laundry, and camper maintenance.

The traveling lifestyle isn’t for everybody, but we wouldn’t trade it for anything else.