From This:
To This:
Lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed by the "stuff" we've accumulated. We live in a 42-foot box.
4 years ago, I felt the same way. We lived in a 3-story house.
In my opinion, living in an RV doesn't feel much different than living in a house. Well, besides the obvious differences. Like how we can go wherever we want, just about whenever we want.
We always felt a bit limited by that while living in the suburbs. And sure, you can go on trips. Modern times bring modern conveniences like planes, trains, and automobiles. But you're still paying for your home and paying for wherever you stay. With an RV, you get to cut out the double payment.
On the topic of money, I will say that we naively thought we would save loads of money. I mean, in our ignorance, we said, "Hey, we're getting rid of all of our suburb-living expenses, and moving into a literal box. That should be pretty affordable, right? It's a trailer for goodness sake."
It turns out that, yes, living in a trailer means you don't have to double-pay your bills while traveling. However, contrary to how this may sound, the longer you stay somewhere, the cheaper it is.
Yes, that's right. We once tried to book a 2-week stay, and they told us we could spend $100 less by booking the full month. Let me explain.
We mostly live in RV parks, and the rates are set by length of stay. For example, it might cost $89 to stay for 1 night. If you want to stay a week, they may offer a discount, so the total stay is $550. But if you're willing to stay a month, they might charge $1,000.
The good news is that you can shop around and control how much you spend each year based on how often you want to move and how desirable a destination you want. And don't forget that the more you move, the more you need to fuel up, and you already know what gas prices are these days (it's even more expensive for diesel).
But the day-to-day living? It feels much the same as a house or apartment. We've got a normal bedroom with separate closets and a queen size bed, one and a half baths, a full kitchen with oven, stovetop, microwave, coffee maker, and double door fridge and freezer, a living room with couch, tv, and fireplace, a laundry room in our garage, and a full office set-up for us both with standing desks, office chairs, monitors, and gaming consoles.
So you get all of the comforts of home with the freedom to choose where you wake up in the morning and what adventures you'll have that day when not working.
I realize that this lifestyle is not for everyone. And we never would have believed you if you told us 5 years ago that we'd be doing this. We were dreaming of keeping our house and living abroad for a month or so at a time. But once we started mapping out some trips, we were astounded at the prices. How could we afford to see the world and have a home?
We identified our goal and the life we wanted to live.
We uncovered the obstacle.
We found a solution.
Stay Cheesy,
Kyle & Ariana
(and Totoro🐱 and Achilles🐶)