Celebrating Our One Year RV Life Anniversary

In the past year, we’ve traveled around 15,000 miles just in the RV (RV life for the win!), with even more miles put on our car (when we tow it, no miles are added, so in total we’ve actually traveled more than 30,000 miles).

In the RV, we’ve already traveled to many awesome places such as:

• The Pacific Northwest (Wes cycled 1,000 miles from Port Angeles, Washington to San Francisco, California while I drove myself and our two dogs in the RV). We went to Mount Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park, Kalaloch and Ruby Beach, Hoh National Rainforest, La Push Beach, and many other beautiful places. This was the trip of a lifetime!
• Utah (many times) – Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Moab, and many other places.
• Colorado (many times) – Rocky Mountain National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado National Monument, Dinosaur National Monument, and many other places.
• “Home” in Missouri
• Mississippi
• Arizona – Saguaro National Park, Tucson, Sedona, and many other places.
• California – This was a part of the Pacific Northwest trip, but we continued on and hopped along beaches all the way to Los Angeles.
• Wyoming – Yellowstone National Park and Grand Tetons National Park.
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park

And much, much more.

Here are some pictures from our RV life in the past year:

 

We bought an RV and sold our house in Missouri a little over a year ago. It’s crazy to think how much time has already passed!

We started out with a smaller motorhome when we first started RVing. Then, in early 2016, we decided to upgrade to something bigger. See, when we bought our first RV, we had no idea that we would be doing it full-time. We bought it mainly as a way to travel on the road, but we always thought that we’d still have a “real” house somewhere.

Well, we fell completely in love with RV life.

So, we decided to buy something a little bigger, so that my husband, me, and our two dogs would be a little more comfortable. Plus, we wanted to tow a vehicle, and our smaller RV couldn’t tow anything.

We ended up buying a 2016 Winnebago Brave. It’s a 33 foot Class A motorhome. Yes, we have one of those big RVs now!

A lot of people have called us crazy for living in an RV, and I’m sure even more people think we are. I still get the “you’re absolutely crazy” look or the “poor you, I can’t believe you are forced to live in a vehicle” look when we tell people that we live in an RV.

However, we absolutely love it.

I’m so glad I gave RV life a chance, because I honestly couldn’t imagine life any other way.

If you’re interested in RV life, check out these other blog posts on Making Sense of Cents:

• Becoming an RV Family – How We Travel Full-Time With 4 Kids and 2 Dogs
• How To Make Money While RVing
• How Much Does It Cost To RV?
• Common RV Questions – Yes, I Even Talk About What We Do With #2
• Beginner RV Tips – Dreaming Of A Life On The Road?

Below are some updates about our RV life.

 

Our lives have changed dramatically.

We often say to each other, “I can’t believe this is actually our life.”

When we first starting RVing, we told ourselves that if we ever got tired of being in such a small space, that we would stay at hotels occasionally or rent Airbnbs. Funny enough, that hasn’t even come up once!

Living in an RV full-time is the experience of a lifetime, and we completely love it. I never thought I would be a full-time RVer, but I’m so glad I gave it a try. If any of you are thinking about doing the same, I highly recommend it!

We’ve met many great people, we’ve made awesome RV friends, we are exploring so many amazing places, and we are doing all of this comfortably from our home. Plus, even our dogs are happy traveling this way!

Seriously, life couldn’t be any better.

 

We got rid of our storage unit.

In July 2016, we cleared out our storage unit. We were paying $185 a month for a small storage unit, mainly for photo albums and childhood items.

The storage unit wasn’t bad, but there were some negatives:

• It seemed wasteful to spend $185 a month to store things that we don’t use.
• When we got the storage unit, I had to sign a paper that said we wouldn’t store photo albums in there. In fact, I found out that this was normal. This felt like I was jinxing myself, and I was afraid that something would happen to the hundreds of photos albums that my dad left for me after he passed away.
• The storage unit was in an odd location. We put everything from our last house into storage. However, that was in a town where we knew nobody, and we knew that we wouldn’t be going back too often.

So, we rented a UHaul and had everything moved to Wes’s parents attic. Don’t worry, they lucked out as well. We gave them all of the expensive, new furniture that we had stupidly bought right before we fell in love with RV life, haha.

 

Being in a tiny space and downsizing has been great.

When we sold our house and decided to give RV life a try, we donated and got rid of a TON of stuff. At first it was difficult to get rid of so much, then it got easier and easier.

Now, all we have is what we have with us. We have a small amount of everything, and we like it best this way.

We are much more mindful of what we buy, we waste hardly anything, and this is allowing us to save money as well.

Read more at Downsizing Your Home? Here’s How I Went From A 2,000 Square Foot House To An RV.

 

Working and traveling at the same time is going fantastic.

One thing I have learned since being on the road in the RV is that my income and business have not been negatively impacted by our new lifestyle. In the beginning, I was a little nervous about what would happen. However, I now know that everything is going to be just fine.

I actually believe that full-time RVing has helped me. Being able to work while traveling is really amazing. It gives me great motivation and it’s very refreshing.

I’m still trying to focus on working ahead. Even though I’ve fallen behind dramatically, I’m hoping to get ahead in case I come across an area with bad internet, which happens all the time when RVing.

Also, I’ve had a lot of you ask what I’m using for internet. I am using a Verizon MiFi Jetpack. Then, I also have AT&T for our cell phones so that we are always covered. This may sound crazy, but every RVer we’ve met has the same set up.

Note: Read more about how I earn a living on the road.

 

Our future plans.

We are often asked about our plans for when we will buy and live in a house again.

I really don’t see that happening any time soon. We often say, “Oooh, this would be a great place to buy a house!”

Then we joke about how we’re just not at that point again.

Instead, we plan on RVing for a few more years, we want to try out full-time sailing, and living in numerous other countries.

But, for now, our RV plans for the rest of 2016 are as follows:

• The Rocky Mountains in Colorado
• Moab, Utah
• Bryce Canyon National Park
• Zion National Park
• San Diego, California
• Palm Springs, California
• Joshua Tree National Park
• Mojave National Preserve
• And, several other places located near these destinations.

Also, we just placed a deposit and are turning our Jeep Wrangler Rubicon into an overland vehicle, which means that we will be parking our RV in places and taking the Rubicon to harder to get to places.

For us, this is the best of both worlds and will allow us to see even more!

Are you interested in RV life? Why or why not?