Maybe I’m a little biased but I can find lots of reasons why living in a RV is better than living in a stick house, but far fewer convincing reasons for staying put in a stick house. As I look back on seven years of full-time RVing, here are the best reasons I found for giving up a traditional home:
Reason 1: Lower Maintenance Expenses
Even the fanciest RV usually doesn’t call for the same type of expensive repairs that a stick house does. When you factor in financial commitments like random repairs, insurance, property taxes and occasional upgrades, maintaining a stick house just costs more than a RV. If your home is on wheels, odds are that you’ll be in better financial shape than if you were trying to keep up with the Jonses in some anonymous suburban neighborhood – at least that was the case for us.
Reason 2: Better Neighbors
Mass media brainwashing has convinced Americans that all full-time RVers are stuck living in dilapidated trailer parks with neighboring meth labs. As many RVers know, that stereotype simply isn’t true (at least, all of the time). Sure those places exist, but when your home is on wheels you have the freedom to roam to better pastures if the neighborhood rolls downhill.
Reason 3: Cheaper Fuel Costs
It seems contradictory, but most full-timers I know actually spend less on vehicle fuel costs than they did when living in suburbia. Since the majority of us are either retired or self-employed, we aren’t committed to daily work commutes that consume massive amounts of gas or diesel. On those occasions when we do hit the road in our gas-guzzling RVs, we consume plenty but at least in my case, the annual amount Jim and I spend on vehicle fuel is still less than if we were part of the regular working world.
Reason 4: Less Stuff and More Satisfaction with Simple Things
Because you can’t carry tons of stuff in your rig, you learn to make do with what you have. Forget those weekly trips to Mega-Lo-Mart just for fun; a hike or a bike ride is far more stimulating than a shopping trip to satisfy material cravings and besides, unless you get rid of something first, you usually don’t have extra room to add to your collections. RV’s also don’t have the carrying space to fill your life with excess amounts of material things and social obligations that prevent you from learning more about yourself.
Reason 5: Ever Changing Scenery
When it comes to choosing a RV over a stick house, this is perhaps the best reason of all; living full-time in a RV gives you the freedom to really experience new sights, sounds and people that make this country so interesting and beautiful. A two week vacation is nice but it’s far too short of a time to truly submerse yourself in different cultures and scenery. The longer you can experience new places and the more often you can return, the more appreciative and happier you’ll be, be not just for your own homeland but for your ability to live a unique and non-traditional life.
Have I convinced you to pack up and hit the road? Good! Check out my previous blog posts and follow along with my full-timing adventures – it’s great to have you along.
Rene Agredano and her husband, Jim Nelson, became full-time RVers in 2007 and have been touring the country ever since. In her blog, Rene chronicles the ins and outs of the full-timing life and brings readers along to meet the fascinating people and amazing places they visit on the road. Her road trip adventures are chronicled in her blog at LiveWorkDream.com.
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