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Full Time RV living

63K views 518 replies 112 participants last post by  trekkingirl 
#1 ·
Hello,

I found a similar thread in the archives, but can't find a current one. Are you RV mommas still out there? I'm very interested in chatting with you. We are on a path towards full time RV and yurt living.
I've been looking at delight's website www.livelightlytour.com and getting very inspired!
Let's talk......
 
#177 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by IntuitiveJamie View Post
Cagefree (btw love your name)- Thanks for the heads up. How did you mostly cook then? Outside, bbq?

Does anyone use a crockpot or breadmachine?

Do you recycle?

Anyone all cloth (TP, Paper towels and Menstrual stuff)?
We are going green on this trip. Just as green as we live at home, so now I'm trying to figure out the logistics of that.

TIA!
We have a crockpot and use it about twice weekly. We don't have a breadmachine, but we don't eat grains all that often. We do have our huge Excalibur dehydrator with us. It rides in the underbelly, and when it's in-use, it rides under the kitchen table.

We use all cloth! (diapers (though we are nearly done with those!), TP, menstrual, paper towels) I would not do this if we didn't have our own washer/dryer. But it's no biggie to us. Also, recycling is very difficult, unless you commit to hauling your recyclables around until you can find a place to recycle it. My DH simply won't do it, and sometimes it's not even an option. For example, we will be at this spot for 5 weeks, and there's no recycling. We just have to take a deep breath....and throw it away!


Here is a quote from my blog about this subject:
"We are now trying to incorporate that lifestyle (green/sustainable living) in with our RV living. We originally packed the RV with our glass bowls and glass jars for storage. Then we had trouble fitting it all in, so we took out most of it and accepted the fact that we were going to need some plastic storage, so we purchased a set of Rubbermaid from Costco. I think I mentioned in a past post about a jar breaking on our first trip out of the driveway. So, before we left for the big adventure, I took most of the dry goods that were in glass jars and dumped them into Ziploc bags with a heavy sigh of acceptance. I will say that 2 weeks into the trip, we have not opened the box of Rubbermaid from Costco, so maybe we have just enough glass storage. Time will tell.

We still use cloth everything, homemade products, and eat organic foods. We still have a stash of meat from Oregon, and I've made arrangements to purchase more sustainably raised meats from Paidom in Texas, which is our supplier from when we lived there before. www.paidom.com

The other problem we are having is that there is carpet all over this RV. There is even a lot of carpet on the lower portions of some of the walls. I would really, REALLY like to get rid of it. Carpets retain a lot of allergens, plus they off-gas yuck. On top of that, our kitchen table is on top of carpet, and that doesn't work so well with children, especially babies who are just learning to eat! The carpet already looks like a disaster, and we've only been on the road for 2 weeks! But with no income just yet, it will have to wait.

And yet another problem is that this RV has a diesel motor, and the generator also uses diesel. This is just not good for anybody's lungs, nor the environment, but it's especially bad for an asthmatic child! I'm grateful that we can almost totally avoid the fumes. We can't avoid them when we are parked at an RV park with our windows open, and another rig has their motor running. (oh, and we can't avoid cigarette smoke from our neighbors either!)"
 
#178 ·
Pilgrim- Great info thanks! Did I miss your blog somewhere? I would love to keep up with it.

We are planning on changing the RV over to running on Veggie oil. I figured we wouldn't be able to recycle as much, but would prob. have to haul it around for awhile, like mentioned. We'll have to see how that works.
I too, can only see being all cloth if we have a washer/dryer, but do Class C's usually have those? I'll have to keep looking. I really want a washer/dryer but I just don't think we are going with a Class A. But never say never.
We are going to be promoting being green on our journey. So I have to figure out all the ways to be as green as possible and implement them.

I was thinking about the plastic problem as well and have already determined that we would have some plastic bins b/c I already know that will be much easier. I'm not planning on much glass for reasons you stated. I'm going to go with tin, stainless steel and wood containers as much as possible. I'm going to sew quilted pads to put between stuff that is noisy, or breakable.
So far those are my ideas. But I think for storage of undercarraige stuff, I can just see how plastic is the best option...keeps elements away, and you can see through it. I could use cardboard boxes I suppose and will consider it, but most likely use plastic.

Dahlea- I hear you. And my dh fully agrees with you. I have no plans on keeping my children running about if we are in traffic, or in a city or anything. I've told my dh that I'm okay if we are on long stretches of highway with very few to no other cars around. Still a running vehicle, yes, but I'm comfortable with that. Also, I don't plan on cooking. But making a sandwhich, sure. Someone earlier mentioned mostly prepping before actual driving and that makes good sense. Im guessing it is difficult while driving anyways.

Good to know about crockpot use. I'm also thinking about investing in a couple of Iron pans. Maybe one small and one large. There are so many things you can make in one, like one pot dish type stuff. Any thoughts on this?

LOVING the info ladies. Keep it coming. I am ingesting it all!!
 
#180 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by IntuitiveJamie View Post
Pilgrim- Great info thanks! Did I miss your blog somewhere? I would love to keep up with it.
My blog is private, but I don't mind sending you (or anyone on this thread) an invite. It is actually private because I don't want certain family members to read it. sad, but it is what it is. PM your email addy. Disclaimer - I haven't been keeping up with it these last few months, mainly because DD1 has been sick and on the couch - not much to write about. (she's doing much better these past couple of weeks!) But, the very beginning of the blog would be of interest to anyone just starting out, because I started the blog around the time of our first garage sales!

We most definitely keep our girls buckled while driving. Dahlea - I don't remember seeing anyone say they cook while driving. I do get up to make a "fast grab" of something if my girls have run out of the food/water that we provided before beginning to drive. I think it would be impossible to cook while going down the road! (though we do often have the oven roasting a chicken or something.) I also let my 6yo get up to potty, but only if she asks, and only if we are going down a long stretch of highway with no traffic.

Oh, and Jamie - I never even thought to mention about plastic bins. In my mind, that was just a given! LOL! Definitely don't even think about putting your stuff in cardboard boxes in the underbelly. When you get a water leak for the first time, you will be so happy your stuff is in plastic! (yes, we had our fresh water tank spring a leak, and yes, some of the stuff in cardboard boxes got all moldy. Including some maternity clothes I was going to give to my friend. UGH!) Plus, the visibility and stacking qualities are very helpful. We also have plastic bins inside the RV. Originally, we only had the bins inside until we got to my parents' house, and then we unloaded a bunch of stuff into their attic and were able to put all of our plastic bins in the underbelly. But we soon discovered that we liked having the plastic bins inside because we had (still have) a busy toddler that can get into everything. The bins helped us "babyproof" a bit and provided extra "counter space" to keep things out of her reach.

Pots & pans - we brought a huge cast iron pot that fits in our sink. About 99% of our meals get prepped in that. We also brought a smaller cast iron pan that gets occasional use. We also brought a large, medium, and small (stackable) SS pot set. We never used the medium size pot until we ruined our small one. (DD1 was/is getting salt water steam treatments daily, and the salt water pitted the pot!) But, we used the small pot intensely for reheats. (we don't use the microwave.) We also almost never use our large pot. But, we tend to eat "one course" meals here. If we cook a mess of veggies - that's our meal. If we roast a chicken - that's our meal. I make a huge pot of soup at least weekly (in my big cast iron pot.)

Our meals can look like this (in the big cast iron pot.) AM - cook bacon. Warm up some leftover chicken in the drippings for DD1 who can't eat eggs. Fry up some onions & mushrooms in the grease, scramble some eggs into that. Breakfast is done. Leave the pan on the stove. Lunch: throw more grease in the pan and cook some veggies (I've been loving brussel sprouts or sugar snap peas at the moment or some sauteed spinach at the moment.) Sometime later, use the same pan to reheat soup or make a new pot of soup. Evening, wash the pan so it's ready for breakfast again. Before moving into the RV, it never would have occurred to me to NOT wash the pot in-between all of those meal preps. In fact, I would have used a different pan for each of those various cooking things.

As far as having a washer/dryer or not - I think many people get along just fine without one. Personally, we just can't do that. DD1 and I have serious chemical sensitivities, and the residue from the laundry detergents and dryer sheets that are left in the public laundry machines would make us very sick! As it is, I can strongly smell the scents coming out of the public laundry room and I get nervous! When DD2 was only a year old, I did 2 loads of laundry daily. One load of diapers, one load of either clothes, towels, or sheets. Now, she's just about done with her diapers, so the load of "cloth stuff" gets washed about every 2-3 days. What a relief with the laundry!
 
#181 ·
Ovens/pans: we have a gas oven but I also use an electric oven quite often. I got rid of my crock pot and just use the elec oven now for all that but it doesn't cook as slowly as a crock pot. We also use all cast iron and have a cast iron dutch oven that I have YET to use! lol

Being green: I use cloth diapers, menstrual pads and recycle. You could also use a menstrual cup if you didn't want to deal with extra laundry. Some areas have no recycling so we've had to throw things away a couple times OR we ended up carrying it around for a month. Space is limited for that. I use laundromat twice a week, it's very expensive! Like $4 per load and they are very small loads! I switched to using paper towels and paper plates but only when we're boondocking and have no water or elec for days at a time.

Plastic: we have also had to accept some plastic usage. It's also much lighter and you will have to watch your weight carefully. We outfitted the storage areas with plastic bins and I switched to using plastic bags for some food storage. We still use all glass plates (Corelle) and cups but have lost a few along the way.

It' is hard to find organic food on the road! I am about to die for not being able to find organic bananas anywhere! We just don't have time to scour a new town for items. I've resorted to stepping foot inside Walmart just because we can't be driving all over with the 5th.

Our carpet is also totally trashed. We will be replacing it very soon with hopefully hardwood but we might have to settle for plastic because of the weight.
 
#182 ·
I'm getting so much good information from these recent posts. My son and I will move into our van this week. I'll post picture of my home conversion at some point. I'm just trying to stock up on toys to work on while we are on the road. I plan on doing craft shows while traveling. I will also rent a workshop every now and then to restock. My workshop will remain in my parents barn, and I'll come back up north in the summer time to restock my supply, especially for Christmas time. I also need to finish moving out and cleaning up. :p
 
#183 ·
Okay, here is our official blog and official announcement to the world about our RV plans. This is the countdown.
http://livinginspiredtour.oxygenaddicts.org/
We finally told friends and family and everyone through my radio show yesterday!

So far, the response has been great. People keep telling me they think it's awesome and that if anyone can make it happen they know that I can. So that's good. Support is always nice.
First things first, paying off debt! Along with getting the word out and aquiring sponsors for our trip. There's a lot to do!
If you would like your familys tour blog listed on my blog, let me know. I think it will be good for people to see other experiences of it, especially before we take off on our own.
 
#184 ·
I am running into a few problems. Some of the Mobile parks don't allow more than 2 people per rv, and the RV parks want too much money, or a newer RV than we have.

If you want to stay put, in an RV, with a family, what is the best way to do it without paying $25 a night for a park, or fancy campground?

Also, anyone try hooking up your cellphone with internet access to your laptop for internet service? What other ways do you guys get internet service if you aren't in a park, again without paying thousands for it?

Thanks!
 
#185 ·
I'm looking for your best advice on living in an RV as far as things that need to be done daily/weekly that are different from living in a house. Like do you clean more often? How do you deal with dirt/shoes, wetness? Cleaning stuff/cooking stuff/shopping stuff/etc?
 
#186 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by IntuitiveJamie View Post
Okay, here is our official blog and official announcement to the world about our RV plans. This is the countdown.
http://livinginspiredtour.oxygenaddicts.org/
We finally told friends and family and everyone through my radio show yesterday!

So far, the response has been great. People keep telling me they think it's awesome and that if anyone can make it happen they know that I can. So that's good. Support is always nice.
First things first, paying off debt! Along with getting the word out and aquiring sponsors for our trip. There's a lot to do!
If you would like your familys tour blog listed on my blog, let me know. I think it will be good for people to see other experiences of it, especially before we take off on our own.
Checking out your blog! I love reading ones like that!
 
#187 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by gypsyfam View Post
I am running into a few problems. Some of the Mobile parks don't allow more than 2 people per rv, and the RV parks want too much money, or a newer RV than we have.

If you want to stay put, in an RV, with a family, what is the best way to do it without paying $25 a night for a park, or fancy campground?

Also, anyone try hooking up your cellphone with internet access to your laptop for internet service? What other ways do you guys get internet service if you aren't in a park, again without paying thousands for it?

Thanks!
I have not run into an RV park that doesn't allow more than 2 people per RV, but we have paid an extra fee for the kids before. It's fairly common to pay more for children over 6. You just have to do a lot of homework before finding the right RV park. (We are limited in our "carefree" ways sometimes.) I think some areas are easier than others to find a good RV spot. Here in Tucson, it was hard to find a family-friendly spot, but after lots of calling and asking, we did. btw, we are in a "big rig," (so we get the premium sites w/ 50 amps) but usually $30/night is about as inexpensive as it gets for us. Occasionally we find cheaper, but usually we pay more.

I have not really found a way to NOT pay the expensive campground fees, other than staying weekly or monthly (going monthly can save a lot of money!), or sometimes you can find a very good deal if you pay the Passport America membership fee, which I found to be a worthwhile thing to do. The caveat to that is that often you don't get the 1/2 off discount during "in season" times, or you are limited to a night or 2. Some people manage to boondock a lot, but that just doesn't suit us too well unless we are literally overnighting it somewhere and are on our way the next morning.

afa internet goes, we pay AT &T for a wireless card, and it runs about $60/month. We are on that 3G system they are so heavily advertising. We've been happy with it, and DH uses it for work. However, it's limited in the amount of data that can be transferred, so there's no TV watching when we use it. I don't even use it for youtube. Most RV parks have free WiFi, and it's something I usually require when I'm figuring out where to stay, but because it was so difficult to find a family-friendly place in Tucson that actually had a spot, we had to take this spot. There is free WiFi at the rec center, so when we need to download a big file, we take the PC up there.
 
#188 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpeppers View Post
I'm looking for your best advice on living in an RV as far as things that need to be done daily/weekly that are different from living in a house. Like do you clean more often? How do you deal with dirt/shoes, wetness? Cleaning stuff/cooking stuff/shopping stuff/etc?
I definitely vacuum more often, and we leave our shoes at the door. Even so, our carpet is ragged and I can't wait to replace it with wood. It looks like even though we are planning to move out of the RV sometime between June and December, we are still going to replace the carpet because we want the best air quality in here for our asthmatic DD.

The range is always a mess, so I do a lot more stovetop cleaning than I'd like. (take it all apart, scrub, put it back together.) There are also extra places that require attention, like the vents and air conditioners get a regular vacumming (so make sure you have hose attachments). Our window sills get fairly dusty quickly, so I wipe those fairly often. You also either must stay very organized and disciplined about putting things away a lot, or run the risk of junk everywhere (and our RV is in the latter category! lol!) But, on drive days, we do have to put everything away, so those naturally become our "clean up" days too. I like the German motto "a place for everything, and everything in it's place." (we just aren't the disciplined types, and often we don't know where to put stuff, so it sits in our driver/passenger seats until we have a drive day.) At the moment, homeschool books have taken over!

If you are in a Class A, you have to clean off the front of the RV like you would a car - it gets dusty. (the dash, steering wheel, cup holders, etc.) I like only having one bathroom to clean, and I clean it about once/week like I did in a house. I think everything else I clean up like I would do in a house.

Oh, if we have a wet/muddy day, everything goes straight into the washer. I would go nuts if I didn't have my own washer/dryer. When we spend time at the beach, the RV tends to get sandy, so I just vacuum more.
 
#189 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by IntuitiveJamie View Post
Okay, here is our official blog and official announcement to the world about our RV plans. This is the countdown.
http://livinginspiredtour.oxygenaddicts.org/
We finally told friends and family and everyone through my radio show yesterday!

So far, the response has been great. People keep telling me they think it's awesome and that if anyone can make it happen they know that I can. So that's good. Support is always nice.
First things first, paying off debt! Along with getting the word out and aquiring sponsors for our trip. There's a lot to do!
If you would like your familys tour blog listed on my blog, let me know. I think it will be good for people to see other experiences of it, especially before we take off on our own.
Congratulations Jamie! And I think it's great you are taking a good long time to plan for it. We did it all from "decison to move-in" in about 2 months! THAT was a whirlwind! LOL!
 
#191 ·
sweetpeppers, I clean up a few times a day but it only takes a few mins. I do vacuum twice a day. We turn the hot water heater on once per day or sometimes not at all. That gives me a chance to do dishes and showers, or we use the campground showers. Of course there's the whole dumping of the gray and black tanks once a week. It is very important that things go back where they belong when not being used because of the small space. We go to the store more often because we have less space to store food. You do have to wipe the condensation off the windows sometimes if it's cold outside. Hanging up wet towels is an issue and most parks do not allow you to have an outside dry line but people do it anyway.

gypsyfam we haven't run into many issues finding parks. There are lots of old RVs in the parks we've been to. Like I said though we use almost exclusively Passport America parks which aren't five star resorts most of the time. They are usually smaller family owned places with few rules and plenty of long term residents. They often charge an extra couple bucks for the kids. We average $16 per night. Most all parks have free wifi or I use wifi at a library or Mc Donalds. We're looking into getting a Verizon air card though but it's $60 a month!

lightinmyhands my kids have been super excited about all of our travels. They love it! We've had so much fun and learned so much.
 
#192 ·
One of the things I've been wondering most about lately is how the kids transistion and what a routine looks like on an RV. Mostly because of being in different places a lot. When you first got on the road what was it like with the little ones (Mine will be 5 and 3.5 when we go)? I imagine you just find a new routine like what it's like to wake up in the morning on RV and not have very much space. My children wake up b/n 5-6AM. This is actually one aspect I'm not looking forward too b/c at least on the weekends, hubby and I take turns sleeping in. But I am a light sleeper and will not be able to sleep in with the children being noisy 5 feet away. It's not too big of a deal to me. But it is something I'm thinking about. I know our experiences will outweigh the negative. But I'm a thinker and I am def. thinking about all aspects of our upcoming journey.
 
#194 ·
We found a new routine so easily. It's just like back home really. You're right though the noise is an issue with two kids. If we stay up late watching a movie it's easier to watch it in our bedroom so the noise is further away from the kids. It was nice at first because I could cook our meals and keep an eye on the kids so easily! lol

Accessories like RV accessories? A tankless water heater would be so nice.
 
#196 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by MoonStarFalling View Post
I'm checking out http://cheaprvliving.com/ and all the van dwelling blogs and yahoo group. Very interesting stuff!

I have some RVing books available if interested pm me.
LOL, I live on that site. That and someone's post on here about vandwelling inspired me to take the plunge. I'm about 3 days in, and it's going okay. We're trying to make it down to Florida where it will be warmer, so we've been doing a lot of driving. I haven't managed to hook up my inverter so I can't use my blender, which is the only electrical thing I really miss. Right now I'm on Tybee Island, Georgia. My parents are actually staying down here while my dad is on business in Savannah, so we were able to stay with them for the night. We should make it to Florida today. I'm having trouble keeping everything organized in such a small space though. I took a lot of toys and stuff to sell at craft shows/online/etc. But I'm doing it! I still can't decide whether I'm crazy, inspired, or just desperate.
 
#198 ·
Sweetpeppers - Congratulations! FL is very nice this time of year, but expensive too if you go far south enough (where it is the nicest! LOL!) But my FL friends have been complaining about the cold this year.

afa how children adjust? Naturally, that answer will depend on your children's personalities and the rhythm of how you do your travels. Both of my children are highly social and love having other friends to play with. I'm so glad that they can both just "hook up" with just about any other little girl at the playground. However, departure days can be tough. My 6yo wants to be bff with everyone she meets! But, she's now used to it that departure days are a little sad and a little exciting. We talk about it. Also, for the first year that we were in the RV, we visited a LOT of family, family that my children had either never met or not seen in years. That was also rough on my older DD to be leaving family all of the time, especially her Mimi!

Departing this spot we are in now will be particularly difficult. We have sort of "hit the jackpot" with a circle of friends, and we will have stayed here 2.5 months before we leave. I'm so glad that we'll be heading to visit my parents next, because that eases the sting of leaving here to have something to look forward to.

Other than that, I think the kids get a lot out of life on the road. We go/see/do as much as we can, so there's usually something exciting to look forward to. Now that DH is actually working, we spend 5 days a week doing "normal" stuff around the RV (like schoolwork, playground, shopping, playground, chores, playground
- just like you would in a house.) And then the weekends we try to go do something exciting at least one of the days.

The one big thing I miss is having a yard. I think I may have mentioned it before. With my 2yo wandering all over the place, I can't just "send" the kids outside, and I'm sure they would get more outside time if I could do that. DD1 likes to do her schoolwork outside, so we get out as much as we can, but I still am chasing DD2 around. I would *love* to be able to just sit and relax and have the kids just "be" outside playing without having to be on duty like that.
 
#200 ·
My son has been adjusting okay. He still wants to go home and see his Nana and Poppop. But we've been going to the beach every day, so that's something he can't do in NJ.
 
#201 ·
Just a thought Pilgrim, you know about those Superyards, they are baby gates that connect up to make a removable, repositionable fence? We are currently experimenting with the idea of storing large plastic toddler items like that on our roof, if you don't have space for something like that, that may be an option!
 
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