My RV Life: The Essentials for Happiness On The Road
Liking your partner is vital in such a small space. Here, Jeff and I celebrate our 14 year dating anniversary on Sept. 7th.
This month I’m sharing a blog series about life as a traveling photographer, living in an RV with my husband full time. The last time I shared why we chose this adventure, you can read that HERE.
This week, I thought I’d answer some questions about the logistics of living life on wheels. It’s definitely different, and we’ve learned a lot in the two years we’ve been doing it.
The RV Life Requires a Few Essential Elements
Some things we’ve learned are essential to successfully living in an RV. They’re basic, but without them, things go wrong in a big hurry.
First and foremost, since my husband Jeff and I both work from our tiny “home” offices in the RV, we must have an Internet connection. This has honestly proven to be a big challenge. I’ve been using a hotspot, but we’ve gone through four different systems in two years. We’ve learned that to get good, most reliable internet, we need a clear sky, so we park away from trees whenever possible. We primarily use Elon Musk’s Starlink now, which has proven to be the most reliable system so far.
The second essential for a happy life on the road is patience! This literally comes into play with everything technical we do with the RV. Whenever we move the rig, we have to be slow and deliberate. Everything has to be put away; cabinets must be secured, etc. Then once we’re actually on the road, we have to stay below the speed limit.
Patience also comes into play in everyday life. It also takes patience to deal with RV neighbors who have kids or dogs, especially in situations where we’re forced to park very close together. We’ve learned to take everything in stride, take deep breaths, and remember that this is an adventure we’re on and part of the reason we decided to take it was to experience the unexpected. A sense of humor helps as well.
Finally, planning is paramount for a successful mobile life in an RV. With no home base, we have to decide a year in advance where we’re going to go, so we always know we’ll have a place to park (especially with such a big rig). This is very time-consuming, but it’s also a fun adventure as we look into our bucket list every year and decide where we’d like to go next.
Downsizing Is Brutal
Because space is so limited, we’re able to take precious little with us. Since we have no physical home anywhere, storing things we don’t take along isn’t really an option. We’ve done the Swedish death cleanse a couple of times now.
I definitely had to downsize my closet and learn to live with very few clothes. I’ve also learned to work with much less photography equipment, we cook with just the basics in our tiny kitchen, and my husband Jeff’s misses having a whole garage full of tools. We got a new RV earlier this year and actually had to downsize again, even though it was bigger, because it has less storage space.
Even though we try “chasing 70” (moving to try to stay in 70-degree weather all the time), there can be huge fluctuations in the weather. That means, regardless of our limited space, we do have to be prepared for four seasons.
Hopefully this gave you a glimpse into how we live and plan our life on the road. Next week, I’ll be sharing the real, everyday RV life.
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