Let’s Buy An RV

One evening after chatting with our grandkids, age 2 to 11, we realized that with us in Hawaii, and them in Washington and Arkansas, we sure don’t see them very often. They grow up so fast, so what can we do to make sure they know us better?

Things got quiet for a while, then Jan pipes up with, “Let’s buy an RV and be full-time so we can see our family AND a lot of friends we haven’t seen in a while!” I gotta admit, the first thing that came to my mind was that she was out of hers! Those things are expensive, and it cost a lot of money to drive one. Nice idea, but just too expensive!

Well, the next thing we did was do a lot of research. To my surprise, living full-time is a lot different that just vacationing in an RV. In fact, we found out that living in an RV full-time is actually less expensive than a home. Say, I was beginning to warm up to this idea! Then Jan mentioned that there would be no grass to mow, no digging, not a lot of chores, and no after-sale remodeling. Wow! Sign me up!

We also found out that there are over a million people doing this, and many are in their 30’s with 2-4 children. This was sounding better and better.

The advantage is that we can spend time with family and friends, and not disrupt their lives or kick a child out of a bedroom for a week or so. They can live their normal life, and also spend time with us. When they are busy, we can go explore the area or do things on our own.

After a year of listening to podcasts, watching videos, and reading everything we could get our hands on, we began looking at every style of RV. We looked at Class A, B, C, trailers, and 5th wheels. We settled on one, then a month later we settled on something new. When we went to the mainland, we snuck off to go look at RV’s.

In May, we decided on a specific 5th wheel model, and the search for one began.