Is RV Living Right For Me?

Every single person that I know who lives an RV lifestyle has thought this at some point. Regardless if contemplating an RV lifestyle, just starting out, or having done it for a while, the question, "Is RV living right for me?" seems to always come up. It's one of those questions that seems to linger in the air for quite some time after you ask yourself, and then still remains as you begin attempting to untangle everything in your mind that caused the question to erupt.

So, why is that? The main reason that we found is that people are very dissuaded by fear; the fear of failure, the fear of loss, the fear of change, or even the fear of others not accepting the choices we make for our own lives. There is a distinct moment...you know the moment I'm talking about...when the idea first came into your head and you felt excited and curious at the prospect of living a full time RV life, and that is why you are reading this right now.

So how do you find out if RV life is right for you? Well, first, I would like to start by saying that this lifestyle is different for every single person who lives it. Yes, there are a lot of similarities, but different people choose this lifestyle for many different reasons, whether it be personal freedom, job freedom, personal growth and discovery, wanting to see and do more...the list goes on. The biggest thing you can do for you is to find out your why. Why do you want to try live this lifestyle? Why do you feel it will be more fulfilling than the life you're living now? Why are you concerned that it may not be right for you?

Now that you know your "why", I am going to outline a few things that we, 4 Nuts In A Shell, have gone through that could either convince people to quit the lifestyle, or that could have the ability to strengthen it.

As of today, we have been full time RVing for nine months and seven days with our four and five year old sons. There have been many times where I asked this same question to myself and to my husband, knowing that I loved this lifestyle and wouldn't change it for anything. Everyone runs into things from time to time and it all comes down to your mindset, resilience, creativity, and ability to handle situations without emotion interfering.

For us, having an older rig, we ran into a lot of things very often, which I am exceedingly grateful for because we learned more than we ever thought possible in nine short months.

The first lesson we learned was that RV life will not be for you if you like everything perfectly scheduled all the time. If you are a person who is not willing or able to accept that things come up that are out of your control, then this life will drive you crazy! Whether you are planning on booking campgrounds or boondocking full time, planning ahead that you will be somewhere at a certain time on a certain day is not likely to happen.

For us, we drove closer to ninety kilometers per hour instead of the posted one hundred because we are in an older motorhome, didn't want to push things, and were in no hurry. We wanted to do this to enjoy the journey (which we will address in a bit). Thus, when we put our next stop into our GPS, the two hour drive that it said it would take, generally took us four hours, with stops for our kids (one of whom gets motion sick), needing to dump our tanks prior to leaving the area we were in, and so on. Mechanical issues...well, that can "set you back" up to two weeks sometimes. You need to realize it's all part of the lifestyle and part of the experience.

The second lesson we learned really early on is that when breakdowns happen, or things lean to the side of disrepair, you need to be able to stay calm, assess the situation, find a solution, and accept that it's a part of this lifestyle.

If you don't feel you can remain calm, or learn to remain calm during these types of situations, this life will be very stressful for you. I had to learn this, but am glad that I finally have. YouTube has become our best friend as well, and we do most of the work required on our own. This, for us, also creates more memories and gives us a huge sense of being able to completely rely on ourselves for everything, which feels really good.

The third lesson we learned was that we needed to slow down. Having come from a scheduled, fast-paced life; working, picking up and dropping off kids at daycare, stores closing early, and feeling like there weren't enough hours in the day; we struggled for quite some time with this very valuable lesson.

During the first couple months of our new lifestyle, while we did enjoy every moment of it, we realized that we were still rushing, and were not stopping at every single place we wanted to, even tough we had no reason not to. To be honest, some days, I still find myself rushing my kids when I feel I should do something faster, or get somewhere sooner, even though we really have nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there or get things done.

Reprogramming your brain to slow down and enjoy every single second of your newfound life is so important! Regardless what your reason is or was for wanting to RV full time, don't drive by that beautiful view, don't miss stopping to see something that interests you, and make sure you experience everything you possibly can! If you have children, let them live this life too. Stop to pet that cow or run through that field of flowers. That's what true living is...to feel ALIVE!

The fourth lesson which didn't affect us, but comes up a lot with other people we have spoken to, is that there is no privacy or excess amounts of alone time. If you don't like being outdoors, if it frightens you to think of your traveling companions seeing you naked, hearing you relieve yourself, or seeing you at your worst, most emotional times, then this life isn't for you. As a full time RV lifer, everyone in your rig will hear and smell your body functions. They will see you change your clothing, see you cry, scream, lose it, and feel completely overwhelmed at times. Being completely raw and having everyone know everything that is going on with you is part of the lifestyle. If you cannot learn to accept or handle this, then this lifestyle is not for you.

The fifth, and possibly most important lesson we learned was that if you need to always have a clean house, or everything just so, especially if you are immersing children into this type of life, it simply won't happen. While it takes a lot less time to clean a rig because it's smaller, it never stays clean for long. What with all the time spent outside and tracking mud, dirt, snow, and other bits of nature inside, as well as children getting bored and amusing themselves while stuck indoors due to weather, parents working, illness and the like, you will either be cleaning four or more times a day, or find you need to accept that fun and boredom comes with a mess.

There are times when it will feel like there are always dishes in the sink, always toys on the floor, and always dirt on every surface. That's RV life.

These are just a few of the many things you need to be prepared for, or be willing to learn to adapt to. While there are many more, I sincerely hope these five things have helped you decide if this lifestyle is something you still have a passion for. At the end of the day, the journey and experience will either be worth it and fulfilling for you, or it won't. It's all in your mindset and what kind of RV life you want to live.

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