November 20, 2024 • 46 mins
Trading a bustling ranch for life on the open road, we've spent the past three years exploring the joys and challenges of full-time RV living in our 2024 Alliance Valor 44 V14. Join us as we share the unexpected turns and inspiring moments that led us to embrace minimalism and a life without a permanent address. This episode unpacks the emotional and practical shifts that come with leaving behind a traditional lifestyle, and how personal events, such as the loss of a loved one, can inspire a radical change.
We uncover the vibrant community we've found with the Alliance Allies, illustrating how these connections have enriched our travels and made the transition to full-time RV living smoother. From our first expedition to Disney's Fort Wilderness to handling the unpredictable elements of life on wheels, we offer candid stories that highlight the importance of adaptability and community support. Discover how our YouTube channel, Millers in Motion, serves as a real-time chronicle of our adventures, aiming to inspire others to consider this unique lifestyle.
Whether you're on the fence about trying RV life or are simply curious about the pros and cons, we tackle everything from financial considerations to the joys of discovering hidden gems across the country. We also reflect on the challenges of RV maintenance, campground logistics, and managing personal space in a mobile home. With practical advice for those pondering a similar path, this episode promises an honest look at who might thrive in this lifestyle and why flexibility is key to making it work. Don't forget to support our journey by sharing the podcast and rating us on your favorite platform, keeping the wheels rolling for future adventures.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
This week we're going to dive into the highs, the
lows and everything in betweenassociated with full-time RV
life and hopefully by the end ofthis we'll be able to give you
a little insight to whether ornot it's for you or maybe not
for you.
Welcome to the Miller.
(00:31):
My name is ryan and my wife islauren.
Together we are millers inemotion and we have been
full-timing for just over threeyears now.
In a couple of different is our2024 Alliance Valor 44 V14.
So we've had this request, alot to kind of chat about on the
podcast and it's essentially wewant to answer.
(00:53):
The question is what isfull-time RV life?
What's the realities offull-time RV life and whether or
not it's right for youessentially, or the person
asking us the question.
So let's dive into a little bitof what exactly is full-time RV
life.
For starters, there's a lot ofterminology out there and it
(01:14):
gets kind of cross-contaminatedquite a bit, and so when you're
talking about the differentstyles of RV life, you have what
we call part-timers,some-timers.
Pretty much essentially, youhave a home base somewhere,
regardless of the style, but youhave a sticks and bricks house,
an apartment, whatever.
It's not your primary residence, and you get in the RV and you
(01:35):
go.
Now you could spend 98% of yourtime out on the road okay.
But if you have somewhere tocome back to on the road, okay.
But if you have somewhere tocome back to, then I consider
that not necessarily full-time,even though you are almost
literally as close as you canpossibly get.
And the only reason I say thatis because it's a little
different if you know you havethat security of a house to go
(01:58):
back to versus not.
That, to me, is the really bigdistinguishing factor here.
Is not that to me, is thereally big distinguishing factor
here.
Then you have full-time, whichis exactly what it sounds like.
Whatever RV you choose is yourhome and so, regardless of where
it is, whether it's stationary,whether you move every two days
, at that point it doesn'tmatter.
That's just kind of how you RV.
(02:20):
So that's what I would considerfull-time.
Now there's different stagesand there's different levels of
both of those things.
Right?
So you could take four RV tripsa year.
You're a part timer you couldtake, you could be on the road,
you know, 50 weeks out of theyear and you're still part-time
because you still go home atsome point.
(02:41):
You can hit a reset button ifyou need to, whereas someone in
the full-time category is notgoing to exactly have that same
ability because they're justgoing to have to make it work
while they're on the road.
So let's talk a little bit aboutthe dream of full-time RV life,
in other words, why peoplechoose to do this lifestyle, and
(03:03):
I'm going to talk about somegeneric things as well as Lauren
and I's experience as we gothrough all of these things.
So why people choose tofull-time RV?
Well, at the end of the day,the freedom to travel and
explore is probably the biggestone that we've noticed in
talking to people.
So you know the whole I haven'tgotten to see anything.
You know a lot of.
You know a lot of.
(03:23):
You talk to a lot of theYouTubers out there and the
content creators and we're noexception to this is you hear a
very common story.
Well, someone in our liveseither passed away for us it was
Lauren's dad or somethinghappened that made them realize
that going to experience thingswith your significant other,
family, whoever, is moreimportant than grinding out an
(03:48):
80-hour work week and trying toget monetary achievements and
all of those things.
But there's been a shift inyour thinking and that's kind of
been the fuel to stoke thatfire, if you may, to get out and
experience and travel.
More.
Kind of going hand-in in handwith that is also breaking free
from the traditional nine tofive lifestyle.
(04:09):
I can tell you that when westarted our journey three years
ago, you know I was stillworking in the golf industry.
I was looking to get out of itbut I had.
I was still working in the golfindustry, I was independent and
I was teaching golf lessons andyou know, for me, you me, we
did the content side and nowthat's kind of become my
(04:30):
full-time job as well as eventmanagement stuff and I freelance
on all of them.
But for me, breaking out ofthat 9 to 5 was important.
Now I say that Lauren kind ofdid as well.
She left her job about the sametime that we decided to make
this change and she shifted to anew job and that job allowed
(04:51):
her to work improvised schedule,whether it be in person or
remote.
And so you know, I think animportant thing too is you don't
have to work full-time orpart-time if you have a
different kind of schedule, likeyou don't necessarily just have
to be retired to full-time RV,but it does add a layer of
complication to everything.
(05:11):
So the other side of this islike the downsizing or kind of
embracing minimalism.
So you know, lauren and I had aalmost five acre ranch in Texas.
We had horses, which we stillhave, the horses, we had donkeys
.
We had a very full ranch.
And you know something for us,what we realized is we're going
(05:33):
around and a typical week for uswould be like, let's say, we
start on a Monday.
Well, you know we have to getup at five ish, depending on the
.
You know what day it is, andyou know you have to feed the
horses and then you have to turnthe horses out and then you
have to muck stalls, do all ofthat stuff.
You still have to feed yourself, get ready and then you have to
be out the door by anywherefrom seven to eight o'clock,
(05:56):
sometimes six o'clock, dependingon what you're doing for work.
You know we had to get out.
Well, then you come home andyou have to do the reverse of
that, right?
So you have to make sure thehorses, any other little
projects that they have, thatgets done in the early evening
hours.
Typically we would make dinnerat that point, feed ourselves,
and then we'd bring the horsesin and then feed them and you
hit the repeat button everysingle day on that.
(06:19):
And then when Saturday andSunday rolls around, inherently
things break and horses likelike to break stuff and donkeys
like to break stuff and dogslike to destroy stuff and if
you've owned a house you knowexactly what I'm talking about.
Things just break and that'sSaturday and Sunday.
You spend most of the weekendjust trying to recover from the
(06:39):
week of anything that kind ofgot out of hand that you didn't
have time to fix during the week, in addition to still feeding
mucking, doing all those things.
And I'm saying this like wedidn't enjoy it.
It's not that we didn't enjoydoing it, it's just that we
realized how much of a time suckit kind of became.
So we fix all those thingsYou're mowing or knocking down
brush or trimming trees orfixing fence or fixing whatever
(07:03):
they broke in the barn.
You know that kind of stuffpicking up hay, getting hay
delivered, moving stuff aroundon the tractor it becomes quite
a bit, and so for us you know itvery much so was an
accumulation of not only thetime suck but also stuff.
You know a lot of people don'trealize time and things kind of
(07:24):
go hand in hand.
You know, the more things youhave, typically the more time
you have to maintain thosethings, or time you have to
commit to maintain those things.
So you know, in addition tothat, when you live in a house
it's really easy to kind of getout of hand of like buying
Christmas decorations and justputting them up in an attic
crawl space and, you know,buying a set of gear for the
(07:45):
podcast or this and then justputting it in a in a closet and
kind of forgetting about it andthen slowly, next thing you know
that closet's full and you moveto another closet.
You know you have a closet anda half worth of clothes that
you're going.
Well, I don't wear hardly anyof this very often.
And so we kind of had arealization after Lauren's dad
passed that you know we have alot of stuff and we actually
before full-time RV life waseven really a thing had kind of
(08:07):
decided to downsize, and notdownsize in the sense of the
house.
At the time we hadn'tconsidered full-time RV life but
we wanted to declutter, I thinkis the best way to say that we
wanted to start living a littlebit more minimalistically so
that it would be easier to dothings that we want to do.
Now.
The last, and I would sayprobably potentially one of the
(08:31):
biggest things, would be beingpart of the RV community, and
this is something we didn't ahundred percent understand when
we got into full-time RV life.
But looking at it now, you knowbeing associated with the
community, whether it's ours,you know when I when I say ours
like everybody in rv space willcreate their own community and
it's on your terms and you willhang out with the people you
(08:54):
want to hang out with.
Um, some good friends of ourstalk about the circle of
community and, and you know, you, you end up with this really
close-knit small circle of youof a handful of people or
couples, and then you have thatouter ring where it's like, yeah
, we're going to go out of ourway, but you start to meet
people on the road and, becausethere's no guarantee you're
(09:16):
going to see them after that,you try to take advantage of
things a little bit more and, atthe end of the day too, being
in a bigger picture with the RVcommunity and I will say this
this goes.
There's extremes on both sidesof this.
Right, there's some people thatgo out there and maybe they're
working full-time at a job andthe RV is the way they have to
live and they're going to work10 hours a day.
They're not, you know,sometimes they're not, they're
(09:38):
just looking to get point A topoint B as quick as they can.
There's those.
Then there's the other peoplewhere they only go to things
because of the RV community.
Lauren and I land somewhere inthe middle of all of this stuff.
We love the community we'vebuilt through Millers in Motion,
rv Shenanigans, all of thatstuff.
We also are proud to be part ofthe Alliance community, so we
call them the Allies.
(09:58):
That's been a blast becausethere's kind of some shared
camaraderie with the style of RVwe have, and this goes for a
lot of the manufacturers havethis as well.
I know the Alliance one for usis super special because they
really you know the guys therego out of their way to kind of
help and promote and get thatcommunity kind of going and the
(10:20):
company as a whole actually doesa lot to help financially do
things, whether it be rallies,regional or national, you name
it.
So being part of that RVcommunity I think now is
becoming a bigger portion ofthat conversation if you're
looking to go full-time.
(10:41):
Now again, kind of the thoughtprocess for us as far as
deciding whether or not to gofull-time for us was really
about, you know, we wanted toget out and see more, do more.
Our slogan for the YouTubechannel is we just want to
experience more.
So experience more.
You see it quite a bit on theMiller's in Motion side, you
(11:01):
know.
The other side of it too was wewanted to be more nimble.
So you know, the thought ofbeing able to take our home with
us versus, you know, haveeverything that we own for the
most part with us, then that wasa big portion of our decision
in going full-time, knowing that.
You know, when we rolled up toDisney's Fort Wilderness, we've
only ever done Disney in a waythat allows us to.
(11:27):
How do I say this?
Right, we have to stay in ahotel and so you have to pack.
It's air travel, it's all thosestressful things and, and you
know, towing an RV for for usfrom North Texas down to Florida
is about a 16 ish hour, 16, 18hour drive, and so obviously
you're going to break that upand so a flight, you're going to
get there in half a day, youknow, between the getting up,
(11:48):
going to the airport, getting onthe plane landing, getting to
your hotel, getting reasonablyunpacked, assuming your room's
ready, and then you can have theevening.
But for us, knowing that thedogs can come with us, knowing
that we can have everything wedo, do laundry, have our normal
days and our normal morningsjust in a fun place, was a big
deal to us.
I know that I didn't have asmany fears.
(12:12):
I kind of have this weirdtendency to just dive in
headfirst, whereas Lauren hadsome more anxiety probably built
up around it, because there isa lot of uncertainty.
What happens if we're in anaccident and the RV gets totaled
?
That's things you have to thinkabout.
Luckily, our families had spacefor us.
If push came to shove and a bigshout-out to my parents because
(12:36):
you know they have had a houseas soon as I left the house they
got a bigger house.
Why I don't know, but um, theyhave an upstairs that they
really don't use very often, andso if we ever had to be in town
or the rv had to be somewherelike recently I had to take the
rv up to indiana.
We had a more ride.
Uh, 12 month independentsuspension, uh, maintenance
(12:56):
thing we had to do and we kindof used it as a crime of
opportunity to go see ourfriends over to Alliance and
shoot some videos and dealeropen house.
Well, during that time Laurencouldn't come up because she had
to work and unfortunately shehad a little too much in person
to do as far as work.
So she just went and stayedwith my parents and that gives
us the ability to kind offluctuate and do the things that
we need to do.
(13:17):
But there were a lot of fearsgetting into it and you know, if
you go back to some of ourfirst videos, you know we're
excited about it for like thefirst two, three months of
videos as we're still in thehouse.
But then I remember we filmed avideo where we were.
It was our last day in thehouse, in fact it was that
morning and we were completelymoved out, minus the things that
we had agreed to leave behindin the contract, and Lauren
(13:41):
wrote a nice note for the newowners left all the extra keys
and gate clickers and all thethings garage door openers, all
that stuff on the counter and wewanted to film a little, you
know, as we're leaving kind ofthing and then loading the dogs
up in the in the truck andhooking up to our original RV
and then pulling out was a veryemotional thing.
And so you know, after that,when we were in it, I think we
(14:04):
both had a small panic attackthat evening.
So we went after that andclosed on the house, you know,
got our monies and we went backto the RV at the RV park we
decided we didn't want to justbolt out of the area that
quickly.
We wanted to spend a month ortwo near everybody, kind of get
adapted to this full-time life.
(14:24):
We knew it was going to take asecond right, so we decided that
we were just going to kind ofhang out and we did that and to
say that we didn't sleep greatthat first night would be an
understatement.
I don't know that I went tosleep because there are a lot of
fears and things that go intothat.
But as it starts to settle inand it becomes more normal and
understanding what you can do inan RV and what you shouldn't do
(14:47):
in an RV and how to kind of fixthings and do all that stuff,
started to calm us both down alittle bit and we've never
really looked back since.
So what are some of the pros offull-time RV life?
Well, flexibility and freedomis one of them.
Obviously, go where you want,when you want, assuming you know
.
If you're fully retired ordon't have to work, you can
(15:08):
literally do whatever you want.
Now, with that being said, youknow, in picking your RV there
is that option of you can gosmaller and be more nimble, like
our friends Howard and Caitlin,the new state nomads.
They're in a pretty smalllittle class B with a fiberglass
back.
You're going to call it a.
B plus is kind of the term.
I'm using air quotes that youcan't see.
(15:29):
But you know B plus isn'treally a grade of RV.
Technically it's a class C.
It's just a small Class C.
So it's almost a camper van butit has the Class C body style
on the back of it, like on theback of the Mercedes chassis or
the Ford Transit chassis.
You know they have a lot moreflexibility in where they go.
Then you have kind of thatmiddle of the road, like our
friends Phil and Stacey who arein a.
I think Ruby is like a 34-footClass A diesel pusher.
(15:59):
You know they're not huge, theyare bigger and it is very much
so more comfortable for them tolive full time but being able to
get in and out of stuff.
Then you have the other extreme, which would be us.
We're in a 46 foot fifth wheelplus the truck, so we're at 65
feet when completely hooked up.
We have to be a little morecautious when we travel and
where we go so that we don'tnecessarily get ourselves into a
pickle, because it's a lotharder for us to recover than,
(16:20):
say, howard and Caitlin.
So you know having thatflexibility and freedom and all
that stuff, you know discoveringhidden gems and lesser known
destinations A lot of times.
I grew up flying all the timewith my family.
My dad worked for AmericanAirlines.
It was pretty cheap for us toget on a plane and fly away.
So for us you know me I missedall this stuff in the middle.
(16:42):
We went to California, we wentto Florida, we went to the
Midwest my family's originallyfrom the Midwest, even though I
was born in Texas.
So we went up to Wisconsinquite a bit, you know.
We went to all these places butwe flew over all these other
things.
And then you know for me youknow when I was talking to
Lauren about some of the thingsthat we really wanted to do.
This became.
(17:05):
A big portion of it, at leastfor me was I wanted to see the
stuff that was in between,because I hadn't really seen it.
And for Lauren, she reallyhadn't traveled all that much
prior to us starting to date.
I mean, she had been toColorado once on a church ski
trip and she'd only been on anairplane once that was to
Houston to go visit her cousins,and so you know she really
hadn't done much travel.
She'd done some stuff likecamping trips and that kind of
stuff around the state of Texas,but that was about it.
Her family just didn't travel,whereas it's for me.
(17:30):
It's been a passion for a longtime.
I want to see everything, andwhen I say everything good, bad,
ugly in between, I don't reallyscare away, and you'll see that
in some upcoming video seriesthat I have that's going to be
coming up on the main YouTubechannel here in probably the
next couple of months.
I can tell you I'm gettingready to film it and I'm a
little scared not going to lieFirst time I've been anxious
(17:51):
around travel.
But yeah, I just want to seestuff.
The other side of that is andthis is going to come with a big
old asterisk.
As cost savings, there is thepotential that you can lower
your living cost compared totraditional home ownership and I
say that there's a chance.
I'm not saying that it'scheaper the way Lauren and I do
(18:13):
it.
Unfortunately, it's not thatmuch less expensive.
You just trade things if thatmakes sense.
So you know, the one thing Iwould tell people is you know,
if you're looking to trade intraditional home ownership and
moving into an RV, you knowthere's a little bit less
stability in your finances whenit comes to the RV and I'll talk
about finances and thinkingit's cheaper here in just a
(18:35):
little bit.
But you know, one of the thingswe always tell people is, if
you're considering doing this,understand if you're selling a
house, you're selling anappreciating asset.
For an RV, which is a vehiclewhich is a depreciating asset,
and so you really have to kindof pay attention to some of
those things.
And in doing some of that, youknow, it becomes this situation
(18:58):
where you think that, oh,campgrounds aren't that
expensive.
Campgrounds have gottenexpensive, like when we first
started out.
You could very easily find avery nice campground for 40
bucks, you know, a super, supernice like a Camp Margaritaville
or a Disney's Fort Wilderness.
Well, let me take Disney's FortWilderness out of it.
That's probably an extreme to adifferent level.
But you'd get a very niceresort style like a Camp Femme
(19:21):
for that, for maybe 80.
And so those would be splurgesand you could find campgrounds
for 20 bucks a night, reasonablyfull hookups, sometimes not
Even less if you don't have fullhookups or you're only 30 amp
that kind of stuff, have fullhookups or only 30 amp that kind
of stuff.
Now I mean, it's hard to findan RV site less than $80, to be
completely honest with you.
And you're getting into likewhere the Camp Margaritaville is
(19:42):
and the Camp Fimfo is of theworld.
And if you don't know what CampFimfo is, it's a really, really
big resort in Texas HillCountry.
They have one in Waco now aswell.
But you know you're starting at$110, $120.
Well, I can get a hotel for that.
Now, obviously there's somedifferences there.
I get a whole space, I have myhouse, the dogs can come.
(20:03):
There's a lot more amenitiespotentially at that campground
that I might use versus a hotel,and that's situational
depending on the hotel.
But there's so many things thatyou have to take an account for
when you're paying for things.
Now I would argue that we savemoney when we travel versus the
(20:24):
traditional way like getting inan airplane car, whatever
driving, staying in a hotel,because in that scenario you
almost have to eat outexclusively the way we do it,
and using Disney as kind of agood example, like Disney's
expensive right.
So if we were to go stay in ahotel we would have to eat
breakfast, lunch and dinner out,no matter what right.
There's not really an option ofcooking.
(20:45):
Well, if we take our RV all ofa sudden, you know we might go
splurge a couple of mornings andget some Mickey waffles and all
of that stuff.
But we don't have to.
We can have our coffee, we canmake our little egg bites, we
can do our normal thing and kindof keep our cost a little bit
down because you can provisionin stock before you get there.
Same thing for lunch.
(21:07):
We do this scenario when we dothe parks, that we eat breakfast
in the RV.
We'd go into the parks until wegot a little bit hungry or we
would just kind of snack alittle bit and I just go along
with whatever she wants to do.
But you know, for that scenarioit does allow us to be able to
lower some of those costs.
(21:37):
So there is a chance you couldlower your costs, but don't be
shocked if it's about the same.
The other side is that thesimplified lifestyle and that's
pretty easy as far as it's justless stuff, if you know what I
mean like it's just there's notas many things you have to worry
about.
Now you have to worry aboutweight in an RV and you don't
(21:58):
obviously have to worry aboutweight in a house, but you know,
because of that you end up withless things and so there's less
of everything that you kind ofhave to deal with and you can
focus a little bit more on someof those experiences.
We talked a little bit about RVcommunity, but that is a big
pro community and connection,meeting like-minded people,
(22:20):
whether it be at campgrounds,going to rallies and or events,
that kind of stuff.
And then also, like for us,we've met some of our best
friends in the world now throughRVing because we are so
like-minded and we're excitedbecause we've got travel planned
RV cruise, non-traditional withthese people and we would go
out of our way to spend timewith them and we plan stuff
around that now as well.
(22:42):
The other side and this is kindof like a subcategory, I would
say is personal growth.
You know learning.
A lot of people get into an RVand they're apprehensive about
like well, I don't know how anair conditioner works, believe
it or not.
A lot of the systems in an RVare fairly simple, and so taking
some time and learning some ofthese new skills like RV
(23:03):
maintenance, you know how tonavigate, you know driving with
it, all of those stuff.
It's part of it.
And I will say a phenomenalthing is the guys at the NRVTA
Todd, tony and everybody downthere have a great tech course
that you can buy into as well,and that's a great wealth of
knowledge.
It's online or they can sendyou a little USB drive and that
(23:24):
thing in itself has been anamazing tool for people to start
learning that.
Now, if you want more hands-on,you can go down to the National
RV Training Academy, which isin Athens, texas, which is
southwest of Dallas about anhour or so, but it's technically
the North Texas or East Texasarea.
It's kind of just south ofTyler, so over in that neck of
the woods, and they have aweek-long fundamentals class.
(23:46):
Now, if you're an Allianceowner, in addition to having a
week-long class, they also havea Alliance owner's fundamental
class specific.
So they kind of dial it evenmore specific to the systems
that Alliance uses.
And there's a bunch of otherAlliance owners there, so that
would be the other thing.
And then also adapting thechallenges on the road.
One thing I didn't do well withwas changes in the adaptations,
(24:08):
because I was so like this isthe mission kind of a thing when
it came to travel and whenyou're RVing, inevitably
something will happen.
You're going to get a flat tire, you're, you know, in our
scenario, you're going to take alug nut to your front cap and
it's going to look like somebodyput a 50 caliber bullet through
it and it's about to startraining.
There's always going to besomething, and so you really
(24:30):
learn to kind of roll with thepunches and kind of get past a
lot of those things.
So all right.
Segment three the cons offull-time RV life.
Though that was the good justpreviously.
Now let's talk a little bitabout the things that kind of
make you question justpreviously.
(24:51):
Now, let's talk a little bitabout the things that kind of
make you question.
I know for us initially.
We don't necessarily do thisall the time, but so the
challenges of consistent travelso you can have burnout from
simply just being on the moveall the time.
And this is where some peoplewill start spending more time at
campgrounds or like up to amonth in some area or seasonal
things.
And so there is a little bit ofexhaustion that can come with
(25:17):
finding, scheduling and planningthese things.
Especially if you move a lot,you know whether you're
boondocking looking forcampgrounds.
It all has its challenges,right.
There's going to be the goodsand the bads associated with
that, and some people that has atendency to stress them out
sometimes.
So you have to be a littlecareful of that.
Also.
I'm going to say this now butdifficulties in finding
campsites during peak seasons.
(25:38):
So RVing has become incrediblypopular, especially in the world
of COVID.
It was the only way peoplecould travel, so they did it.
Now, with that being said,nowadays it is slowly sliding
back to more of a normalstandard.
But I think campgrounds, whilethey're catching up it's just
now catching up and they'vegotten so expensive that it is
(26:00):
sometimes hard to find.
And I'm going to say this it'ssometimes hard to find
reasonably priced campgroundsduring peak seasons.
So reasonably pricedcampgrounds during peak seasons.
So Florida in the winter, youknow, upper Michigan, door
County, wisconsin, the Midwest,if you may, during the summer,
(26:22):
that kind of thing.
So you know you have to eitherplan way out or be super
flexible in what you do.
But that can be a con.
Now I talked about pros on RVmaintenance.
There's some, there's somenegatives there too, right?
So sometimes you're going tohave issues that can cause it to
be considered a con.
Now, I don't necessarily,because you can get a flat tire
in a truck just as easy as youcan get a flat tire in an RV.
And in fact I was coming backfrom Indiana and I was trying to
(26:45):
get about eight hours down theroad on my first day.
Now, I didn't get to startuntil late morning, so it was
like 10, 11 o'clock and I endedup experiencing a flat tire.
Now, luckily we have a tirepressure monitoring system, all
these things, but it took anhour to switch that tire out.
Luckily I found a crackerbarrel.
I can get to without having todo it on the side of the road.
(27:06):
If it would have been on theside of the road, that's a
massive stress.
I got super lucky that one ofmy pre-planned like one of my
first cracker barrels that I wasgoing to overnight at happened
to be within like a mile and ahalf of where I got the flat
tire and I was able to just kindof pull in there, do it on my
own terms, get cleaned up andthen, just if it went quick, I
(27:28):
might get back on the road.
It didn't.
It took over an hour and I justsaid you know what I'm gonna be
done for the night.
I'm gonna if this thingstressed me out, I'm a little
more exhausted now.
I'm just gonna call it.
And the nice thing about thatwas I was literally able to just
relax, put the slide, you know,get cozy, go get some dinner
(27:53):
inside Cracker Barrel, come backout, take a shower, get cleaned
up, get some good rest and getback on the road in the morning.
So the other thing too is andagain, a lot of these things are
kind of pros and cons but spacelimitations.
You know, adjusting to livingin a smaller space with very
limited storage can bechallenging, especially if it's
two people.
You know Lauren's used tohaving a lot of shoes and a lot
of clothes.
I've never had just an absoluteton of stuff, but I've had a
(28:15):
lot, and so both of us havingthe downsize and also taking
weight into consideration sothat we don't overdo some of our
capacities or GBWR, all of thatstuff becomes a little bit of
an issue.
So the other side is like forlauren and I in our first rv, we
didn't know how much we needed.
(28:35):
Occasionally.
We needed some privacy, and Isay that in terms of if there
was ever an opportunity for meto go play golf or something
while she needed to work.
That was one way we dealt withit.
But my office in our old rig wehad a rear kitchen that was
elevated and then a living roomdown below and then the bedroom
up front and bathroom in betweenthe two kind of, at that point,
traditional RV, and I had toset my office up in a way that
(28:56):
was kind of at like a bar topcounter that overlooked the
living room, and so if Laurenwas trying to relax and I had to
be on a conference call onSaturday, there was really
nowhere for anybody to go, kindof a situation.
And so you know that was a bigreason why we decided to switch
to our current toy hauler isbecause I could customize the
rear space, like right now I'mrecording this podcast in the
(29:19):
toy hauler section, which isalso my office, and now if I
need to be on a call and she'sjust relaxing, all I have to do
is close the door.
And so we understood theimportance of having that
differential, that differentspace so that we could both work
simultaneously or she couldrelax.
Also, I didn't know how much itwas important for me being that
I work from home to be able toleave my office here at the desk
(29:41):
and go into that other spaceand actually relax.
Like that became a really bigdeal for me.
So, yeah, obviously if you'resolo that doesn't matter quite
so much, but for us that was abig deal.
So, okay, now cost theunpredictable cost, so things
that move around like unexpectedrepairs.
Now we budget our livesessentially Lauren and I are
(30:02):
kind of penny pinchers when itcomes to that and so we budget
like a company would in terms ofwe have what's called a
maintenance budget every year,and so we put a dollar amount at
something and we say, hey,we're assuming that we're going
to have $5,000, $2,000, $9,000,whatever dollars of maintenance.
Now we don't know what thatmaintenance is going to be.
Some of it we do.
We know we're going to have torepack bearings, inspect things,
(30:24):
oil changes, all that stuff.
That's going to be things.
But then there's we didn'texpect to pay that or we end up
whatever could happen,especially once you're out of
warranty.
Then obviously we have to takesome of that into consideration
and we try to budget for that.
(30:44):
But there is that unexpectedrepair Fuel prices.
If there ends up being some sortof a trade issue or, god forbid
, another war in the Middle Eastwhich I think they're just
always at war over there, butanything that affects oil prices
, fuel costs could go throughthe roof.
And now all of a sudden it maytake you, let's say, $600 to get
(31:05):
to your destination.
Now it takes $1,200.
Like, can you?
Is that okay, or is that reallynot something that you budgeted
for, kind of a thing.
So I'm going to say this andthis is only going to be meant
for solo travelers but there isa chance of loneliness.
If you're an introverted solotraveler then yeah, you're not.
You know, you may have a hardertime trying to meet people and
(31:29):
get out and do things if youdon't ever leave your RV or you
only go boondocking off byyourself, and so loneliness is a
real thing and what we try totell people is, if you get in
that experience where you'restarting to get too lonely, go
to an RV rally and that'llinstantly meet people.
Like for us I would say likewell, actually, if you're a solo
(31:51):
traveler listening to this orconsidering listeners, come to
the United Rally.
The United Rally is kind of funbecause it's a bunch of
YouTubers that got together orcontent creators that got
together and we are able to thenkind of create these small
communities amongst a biggercommunity and you get to know
people and meet people a littlebit better.
And now all of a sudden you maypotentially have friends or
(32:14):
anybody else that you can all ofa sudden get in with.
Also, as a full note, if youstart to hear some pretty heavy
rain, we have some storms comingthrough North Texas.
So if you start to hear thatsorry, now the last but not
least, internet or connectivityissues with the outcoming of
Starlink and those types ofthings, it has gotten
significantly better, so thisisn't as big of a deal anymore.
(32:38):
But just know that there is,you know you do have to pay some
attention to that, all right.
So moving on, essentially, is RVlife worth it and this is a
little bit of our personalopinion here Um, you know who
thrives in full-time RV life?
I'm going to say anybody thathas that desire to really just
(33:01):
want to get out, kind of thatadventurous spirit and kind of
enjoys a little bit more of achallenge, people that feel like
they can embrace a little bitof a flexible schedule and
lifestyle, to be completelyhonest with you, and anybody
(33:23):
that's going to prioritize likean experience over like a
material possession, if you may,at least to a point.
You know who may struggle ifyou really really really like
your routine and the stabilityof a home.
I'm going to say the stabilityof a home, um, and I'm going to
say the stability of a home.
And just because I'm saying itdoesn't work for full-time
(33:43):
doesn't mean you can't RV, itjust means full-time RV life.
You know, I think you're goingto struggle a little bit more.
Um, if you don't handle likeuncertainty or dealing with, uh,
frequent logistical challenges,whether it be planning,
executing all of those things, Iwould probably say you know,
whether it be planning,executing all of those things, I
would probably say you know,it's a little bit, it's going to
(34:04):
be a little bit more of astruggle.
So, as far as Lauren and I, youknow it, we're always kind of
assessing his full-time rightlife right for us, and we still
are very firmly in yes, now wedo it a little differently than
everybody else in the sense thatwe do we, we do travel quite a
(34:26):
bit, but we also come back toNorth Texas a lot because Lauren
does have to go to an in-personjob every so often.
So while living in and we don'thave a house here, we'd stay in
the RV when we're back back.
Um, you know, it has itschallenges, like I wish we could
travel more, but that's not thereality at the moment.
Um, and I think the big thingis, you know something that
(34:48):
we're willing to acknowledge,that maybe not a lot of other
people are that make content inthe space is like you don't.
You're no less a part of the RVcommunity if you only part-time
or still have a sticks andbricks, it's.
You know, living in an RV is anacquired thing.
It's not something that is foreverybody.
(35:09):
Now, traveling in an RV, Ithink that most people, as long
as you're willing, you know,you're up for it.
I think that that's one thing,living in it's a whole different
thing, and so I know that thislifestyle isn't for everybody.
Now I wanted to leave you with alittle bit of some tips for
(35:30):
deciding if it's right for you.
Okay, so try before you commit.
And so how in the world wouldyou try full-time RVing?
Well, for starters, you have todetermine if you even like
RVing, and so I would tell youmaybe try to rent an RV for a
few trips, or maybe take anextended vacation to test the
lifestyle.
(35:50):
So maybe rent an RV for acouple of weeks and hit the road
.
You can do that.
There are plenty of RV rentalcompanies out there.
In fact, one of our friends,rodney, he, rents on them, and
now he's more in the Alabamaarea.
But you know, getting into anRV and determining whether or
not you like it is a big deal.
Now, Lauren and I would do thisfor horse shows, so we would
(36:13):
rent RVs when we didn't have ahotel option.
We always like to stay onproperty when we go to horse
shows, because you're just thatmuch closer.
I can go back and get some workdone while she's doing the
things that aren't showing, andthen, when she shows, I just get
a text message and I wanderdown to the arena, I watch her
show, I help her with whatevershe needs help with, and then I
can head back while she wraps upfor the day.
The flip side of that is, youknow, you have to know that you
(36:36):
can do that small space withyour significant other if,
assuming they're going with you,I mean I guess you could just
leave them behind.
But I don't recommend that forthe sake of the marriage.
And so for us, we would rentRVs at horse shows quite a bit
and be there for upwards of aweek, sometimes less, sometimes
more and so we already knew thatwe liked the idea of it.
So the other big thing I wouldsay you know, when you're making
(36:59):
your decision on whether or notit's right for you is, know
your why, and I say that interms of understand your
motivation from wanting to gofull-time.
I would say, if you just thinkit'll be fun, I do honestly
think you need to have a littlebit more of a why than just this
could be fun, because I thinkthat that could hurt you in the
long run, because maybe youdon't completely understand what
(37:21):
you're getting into.
The other side of it is yourfinances, be realistic about the
cost of full-time RV life.
And if you think it's going tobe this massive money saver,
then I hate to tell you it'sprobably not Now.
There's ways you can do it.
That do you know?
If you're looking for like vanlife and you're okay with a
(37:42):
little bit of heat and it's justyou, then yeah, you might be
able to save some money stealth,camping, all of that stuff.
But if you're looking to getinto a bigger RV, stay at
campgrounds, that kind of athing, then unfortunately you
know you might not save just awhole lot of money over sticks
and bricks.
And I say that, you know,depending on the size of your
(38:06):
home, or it could cost more ifyou're coming from a really
small home, that kind of thing.
And RVs are expensive at theend of the day.
I mean just the initialpurchase of an RV is expensive.
I mean a lot of fifth wheelsnow on the luxury side of the
high end side are definitelygoing to be over $100,000.
I haven't seen a diesel pusherunder $175,000 new too, by the
way.
So, yeah, just that's one ofthose where I'd say you know,
(38:27):
understand your finances really,really clearly and, just you
know, make there some bufferroom just in case, because
there's a lot of uncertainty.
Start small.
You know, kyd always says startsmall, start now.
I think that's what they say.
But, you know, start slowlydownsizing to see if it works
for you.
So, like, if you're in a home,like, try to maybe separate some
(38:50):
of your clothes, what you thinkyou could put fit in an RV, and
just try to live off of thoseclothes.
You know, and doing laundry ata laundromat every you know four
or five days.
You know now, if you'replanning on putting a like we
always had a washer dryer in.
In fact our dryer is goingright now, right next to me.
We always have a washer dryerin our unit, but it does take a
little longer.
It's much smaller loads, thatkind of thing, but try, try
(39:12):
doing that.
Another thing is, if you'recurious about the people and all
that stuff, if you're curiousabout the people and all that
stuff, I would say, attend an RVrally or even an RV show.
So some of the bigger showsHershey, tampa, both of those
are in the winter, one's earlyin the fall and then one's going
to be more in January.
You know, those types of thingsI would absolutely go do and
(39:38):
then find some RV rallies, likeI know a line.
Well, anytime you're going tohave a rally, like I know, rv
unplugged rally.
I'm working on another conceptwith somebody else.
That would be a good one,because there'll be cabins,
other means to stay on propertythat don't require an RV, or you
can rent an RV for that, andsometimes campgrounds happen.
Sometimes you have to gothrough like an RV share or
(39:58):
outdoorsy that kind of thing.
But you know, test the watersbefore you maybe spend all that
money and that commitment, don'tjust dive into it.
First you go into those ralliesand those type things.
You can then ask questions.
I know if you go to an RV show,at least for Alliance, they
have the owner section wherethat's what we're there for,
that's what the owners are therefor, so that you can come in
(40:19):
and ask questions.
It's just a group of peoplethat are volunteering their time
, that are passionate about thelifestyle, that happen to own
alliances, and so you can askthat question of whether it be
technical, with theirexperiences with the alliance
that you're looking at, or ifit's just a generic full-time
question.
Another thing that I'm going toadd in here too is there's a
bunch, a bunch of like facebookgroups and all that where you
(40:41):
can kind of see peoplecommunicating back and forth,
search for stuff, all of thatstuff.
So, oh, yeah, okay, last butnot least, on our instagram.
So if you don't follow us oninstagram it's just millers,
underscore in underscore motion,or just search millers in
motion Our faces will pop up.
We did ask if you have anyquestions about full-time RV
(41:04):
life and we did get a handful.
So I picked out about three ofour top ones.
So this one was a popular one.
What's one thing you wish youknew before going full time?
I'd probably say a betterunderstanding of our schedule,
and I don't know that waspossible.
So if I thought that we weregoing to be more stationary, I'm
(41:25):
not 100% sure I would have donefull time initially, but I also
wouldn't trade it.
So, yeah, that's probably theeasiest one.
A second one we got this alittle bit, but I thought it was
a really good one.
How do we handle mail and billson the road?
So there are a bunch ofdifferent ways you can handle
this.
So, obviously, if you'reselling your sticks and bricks,
(41:45):
you know we just had an election.
You want to be able to stillvote.
You want to be able to get mailfrom people when you have to be
able to get mail from people.
So there's two different ways.
So for one, if you have familythat still has a sticks and
bricks, you can use them as whatwe call a domicile.
So like for us, my parentsspend half the year in Wisconsin
and half the year in Texas,depending on where it's hot and
(42:06):
cold, and so, like for us, theyforward their mail from Texas up
to Wisconsin when that happens.
So that doesn't work for us,because trying to get our mail
would be like pulling teeth.
So we use Lauren's family'shouse and they're nice enough to
just kind of toss our mail inthe corner, and then we make
sure to connect with them everyso often, or we'll pay for them
(42:29):
to FedEx it to us or UPS it tous or that kind of stuff, and
that allows us.
So like on our driver'slicenses and all that stuff.
We own multiple businesses inthe state of Texas, so we
actually need to reside in Texas.
Now there are other servicesout there that allow you to
create a domicile, escapeesbeing the biggest one, and they
have a couple of campgroundsthat essentially you buy a lot
(42:50):
which it's not that expensive.
One of the biggest ones is inKingston, so if you're looking
for a Texas residence, thatwould be somewhere where you
could potentially do that aswell.
And then, what's the best advicefor someone starting out?
We got this one a lot as well.
I will tell you.
It's be ready to go with theflow, like, don't take anything
(43:15):
too seriously, go with the flow.
Anything too seriously, go withthe flow it's.
It can get to a point whereyou're really starting to
question whether or not youthere are.
Things will happen in your RV,and this is a complicated thing.
Things will happen in your RVlife that will make you question
if you did the right thing ornot.
Um, and so just every take abig deep breath and just know
(43:40):
that there's a community ofpeople out there that are
willing to help.
But if you don't ask, theydon't know.
And so it is one of thosesituations where I would say
just go with the flow.
And and that is probably thebest advice I could probably
come up with so, oh, all right,before we leave you, I am going
(44:00):
to go get something real quickand I'm going to start trying to
end these episodes a veryparticular way.
So I will be right back.
Okay, on our Instagram, I usedto do a dad joke of the day and,
to be honest, you'd besurprised how much that starts
to weigh on you.
So I'm going do a dad joke ofthe day and, to be honest, you'd
be surprised how much thatstarts to weigh on you.
(44:21):
So I'm going to start doing oneat the backside of these
episodes.
So, if you heard it, please dome a favor and let me know you
heard the dad joke by maybegiving me your best one back,
whether it be in the comments.
If you're listening to this onYouTube or through the show,
note links that we have downbelow.
So, all right, you ready.
Why don't RVers ever get lost?
(44:44):
Because, naturally, they'realways going to take the scenic
route.
All right, that was bad.
That was actually really bad.
So do me a favor, send in yourfavorite RV-themed dad joke and
I might give you credit for itand read it on the podcast.
So, full-time RV life is anadventure like no other.
Okay, it has its challenges,but for the right person, it's
(45:07):
an incredible way to live andexplore.
If you enjoyed this episode,please don't forget.
If you're on YouTube, subscribeto the channel.
Also, make sure and check outour main channel, Miller's in
Motion.
You can find everything thereat millersinmotioncom.
In addition to that, a big, big, big, big, big help.
These podcasts don't magicallyjust promote themselves, so we
rely on you.
(45:27):
If you enjoy listening to thispodcast, please share it with a
friend.
Uh, if, especially if they'rethinking of getting out on the
road or just into rving and thatkind of stuff, we would love it
if you shared it with them.
Also, if you can, please do mea huge favor and rate and review
us on your favorite podcastplatform, whether you're
listening to us on Apple,spotify, google, all of the
(45:49):
other things.
There's so many of them now.
I was looking at our directorythe other day.
Wow, I didn't realize we're onlike 40.
So wherever you're listening tothis, do us a favor, hit the.
So, whether, wherever you'relistening to this, do us a favor
, hit the little follow buttonand set us up for an automatic
download so you can listen to uson the flight, on the drive,
wherever, and all of thosethings.
Thank you for tuning into therv shenanigans podcast.
Until next time, keep thewheels rolling and the venture's
(46:11):
coming.
See ya, you.
This week we're going to dive into the highs, the
lows and everything in betweenassociated with full-time RV
life and hopefully by the end ofthis we'll be able to give you
a little insight to whether ornot it's for you or maybe not
for you.
Welcome to the Miller.
(00:31):
My name is ryan and my wife islauren.
Together we are millers inemotion and we have been
full-timing for just over threeyears now.
In a couple of different is our2024 Alliance Valor 44 V14.
So we've had this request, alot to kind of chat about on the
podcast and it's essentially wewant to answer.
(00:53):
The question is what isfull-time RV life?
What's the realities offull-time RV life and whether or
not it's right for youessentially, or the person
asking us the question.
So let's dive into a little bitof what exactly is full-time RV
life.
For starters, there's a lot ofterminology out there and it
(01:14):
gets kind of cross-contaminatedquite a bit, and so when you're
talking about the differentstyles of RV life, you have what
we call part-timers,some-timers.
Pretty much essentially, youhave a home base somewhere,
regardless of the style, but youhave a sticks and bricks house,
an apartment, whatever.
It's not your primary residence, and you get in the RV and you
(01:35):
go.
Now you could spend 98% of yourtime out on the road okay.
But if you have somewhere tocome back to on the road, okay.
But if you have somewhere tocome back to, then I consider
that not necessarily full-time,even though you are almost
literally as close as you canpossibly get.
And the only reason I say thatis because it's a little
different if you know you havethat security of a house to go
(01:58):
back to versus not.
That, to me, is the really bigdistinguishing factor here.
Is not that to me, is thereally big distinguishing factor
here.
Then you have full-time, whichis exactly what it sounds like.
Whatever RV you choose is yourhome and so, regardless of where
it is, whether it's stationary,whether you move every two days
, at that point it doesn'tmatter.
That's just kind of how you RV.
(02:20):
So that's what I would considerfull-time.
Now there's different stagesand there's different levels of
both of those things.
Right?
So you could take four RV tripsa year.
You're a part timer you couldtake, you could be on the road,
you know, 50 weeks out of theyear and you're still part-time
because you still go home atsome point.
(02:41):
You can hit a reset button ifyou need to, whereas someone in
the full-time category is notgoing to exactly have that same
ability because they're justgoing to have to make it work
while they're on the road.
So let's talk a little bit aboutthe dream of full-time RV life,
in other words, why peoplechoose to do this lifestyle, and
(03:03):
I'm going to talk about somegeneric things as well as Lauren
and I's experience as we gothrough all of these things.
So why people choose tofull-time RV?
Well, at the end of the day,the freedom to travel and
explore is probably the biggestone that we've noticed in
talking to people.
So you know the whole I haven'tgotten to see anything.
You know a lot of.
You know a lot of.
(03:23):
You talk to a lot of theYouTubers out there and the
content creators and we're noexception to this is you hear a
very common story.
Well, someone in our liveseither passed away for us it was
Lauren's dad or somethinghappened that made them realize
that going to experience thingswith your significant other,
family, whoever, is moreimportant than grinding out an
(03:48):
80-hour work week and trying toget monetary achievements and
all of those things.
But there's been a shift inyour thinking and that's kind of
been the fuel to stoke thatfire, if you may, to get out and
experience and travel.
More.
Kind of going hand-in in handwith that is also breaking free
from the traditional nine tofive lifestyle.
(04:09):
I can tell you that when westarted our journey three years
ago, you know I was stillworking in the golf industry.
I was looking to get out of itbut I had.
I was still working in the golfindustry, I was independent and
I was teaching golf lessons andyou know, for me, you me, we
did the content side and nowthat's kind of become my
(04:30):
full-time job as well as eventmanagement stuff and I freelance
on all of them.
But for me, breaking out ofthat 9 to 5 was important.
Now I say that Lauren kind ofdid as well.
She left her job about the sametime that we decided to make
this change and she shifted to anew job and that job allowed
(04:51):
her to work improvised schedule,whether it be in person or
remote.
And so you know, I think animportant thing too is you don't
have to work full-time orpart-time if you have a
different kind of schedule, likeyou don't necessarily just have
to be retired to full-time RV,but it does add a layer of
complication to everything.
(05:11):
So the other side of this islike the downsizing or kind of
embracing minimalism.
So you know, lauren and I had aalmost five acre ranch in Texas.
We had horses, which we stillhave, the horses, we had donkeys
.
We had a very full ranch.
And you know something for us,what we realized is we're going
(05:33):
around and a typical week for uswould be like, let's say, we
start on a Monday.
Well, you know we have to getup at five ish, depending on the
.
You know what day it is, andyou know you have to feed the
horses and then you have to turnthe horses out and then you
have to muck stalls, do all ofthat stuff.
You still have to feed yourself, get ready and then you have to
be out the door by anywherefrom seven to eight o'clock,
(05:56):
sometimes six o'clock, dependingon what you're doing for work.
You know we had to get out.
Well, then you come home andyou have to do the reverse of
that, right?
So you have to make sure thehorses, any other little
projects that they have, thatgets done in the early evening
hours.
Typically we would make dinnerat that point, feed ourselves,
and then we'd bring the horsesin and then feed them and you
hit the repeat button everysingle day on that.
(06:19):
And then when Saturday andSunday rolls around, inherently
things break and horses likelike to break stuff and donkeys
like to break stuff and dogslike to destroy stuff and if
you've owned a house you knowexactly what I'm talking about.
Things just break and that'sSaturday and Sunday.
You spend most of the weekendjust trying to recover from the
(06:39):
week of anything that kind ofgot out of hand that you didn't
have time to fix during the week, in addition to still feeding
mucking, doing all those things.
And I'm saying this like wedidn't enjoy it.
It's not that we didn't enjoydoing it, it's just that we
realized how much of a time suckit kind of became.
So we fix all those thingsYou're mowing or knocking down
brush or trimming trees orfixing fence or fixing whatever
(07:03):
they broke in the barn.
You know that kind of stuffpicking up hay, getting hay
delivered, moving stuff aroundon the tractor it becomes quite
a bit, and so for us you know itvery much so was an
accumulation of not only thetime suck but also stuff.
You know a lot of people don'trealize time and things kind of
(07:24):
go hand in hand.
You know, the more things youhave, typically the more time
you have to maintain thosethings, or time you have to
commit to maintain those things.
So you know, in addition tothat, when you live in a house
it's really easy to kind of getout of hand of like buying
Christmas decorations and justputting them up in an attic
crawl space and, you know,buying a set of gear for the
(07:45):
podcast or this and then justputting it in a in a closet and
kind of forgetting about it andthen slowly, next thing you know
that closet's full and you moveto another closet.
You know you have a closet anda half worth of clothes that
you're going.
Well, I don't wear hardly anyof this very often.
And so we kind of had arealization after Lauren's dad
passed that you know we have alot of stuff and we actually
before full-time RV life waseven really a thing had kind of
(08:07):
decided to downsize, and notdownsize in the sense of the
house.
At the time we hadn'tconsidered full-time RV life but
we wanted to declutter, I thinkis the best way to say that we
wanted to start living a littlebit more minimalistically so
that it would be easier to dothings that we want to do.
Now.
The last, and I would sayprobably potentially one of the
(08:31):
biggest things, would be beingpart of the RV community, and
this is something we didn't ahundred percent understand when
we got into full-time RV life.
But looking at it now, you knowbeing associated with the
community, whether it's ours,you know when I when I say ours
like everybody in rv space willcreate their own community and
it's on your terms and you willhang out with the people you
(08:54):
want to hang out with.
Um, some good friends of ourstalk about the circle of
community and, and you know, you, you end up with this really
close-knit small circle of youof a handful of people or
couples, and then you have thatouter ring where it's like, yeah
, we're going to go out of ourway, but you start to meet
people on the road and, becausethere's no guarantee you're
(09:16):
going to see them after that,you try to take advantage of
things a little bit more and, atthe end of the day too, being
in a bigger picture with the RVcommunity and I will say this
this goes.
There's extremes on both sidesof this.
Right, there's some people thatgo out there and maybe they're
working full-time at a job andthe RV is the way they have to
live and they're going to work10 hours a day.
They're not, you know,sometimes they're not, they're
(09:38):
just looking to get point A topoint B as quick as they can.
There's those.
Then there's the other peoplewhere they only go to things
because of the RV community.
Lauren and I land somewhere inthe middle of all of this stuff.
We love the community we'vebuilt through Millers in Motion,
rv Shenanigans, all of thatstuff.
We also are proud to be part ofthe Alliance community, so we
call them the Allies.
(09:58):
That's been a blast becausethere's kind of some shared
camaraderie with the style of RVwe have, and this goes for a
lot of the manufacturers havethis as well.
I know the Alliance one for usis super special because they
really you know the guys therego out of their way to kind of
help and promote and get thatcommunity kind of going and the
(10:20):
company as a whole actually doesa lot to help financially do
things, whether it be rallies,regional or national, you name
it.
So being part of that RVcommunity I think now is
becoming a bigger portion ofthat conversation if you're
looking to go full-time.
(10:41):
Now again, kind of the thoughtprocess for us as far as
deciding whether or not to gofull-time for us was really
about, you know, we wanted toget out and see more, do more.
Our slogan for the YouTubechannel is we just want to
experience more.
So experience more.
You see it quite a bit on theMiller's in Motion side, you
(11:01):
know.
The other side of it too was wewanted to be more nimble.
So you know, the thought ofbeing able to take our home with
us versus, you know, haveeverything that we own for the
most part with us, then that wasa big portion of our decision
in going full-time, knowing that.
You know, when we rolled up toDisney's Fort Wilderness, we've
only ever done Disney in a waythat allows us to.
(11:27):
How do I say this?
Right, we have to stay in ahotel and so you have to pack.
It's air travel, it's all thosestressful things and, and you
know, towing an RV for for usfrom North Texas down to Florida
is about a 16 ish hour, 16, 18hour drive, and so obviously
you're going to break that upand so a flight, you're going to
get there in half a day, youknow, between the getting up,
(11:48):
going to the airport, getting onthe plane landing, getting to
your hotel, getting reasonablyunpacked, assuming your room's
ready, and then you can have theevening.
But for us, knowing that thedogs can come with us, knowing
that we can have everything wedo, do laundry, have our normal
days and our normal morningsjust in a fun place, was a big
deal to us.
I know that I didn't have asmany fears.
(12:12):
I kind of have this weirdtendency to just dive in
headfirst, whereas Lauren hadsome more anxiety probably built
up around it, because there isa lot of uncertainty.
What happens if we're in anaccident and the RV gets totaled
?
That's things you have to thinkabout.
Luckily, our families had spacefor us.
If push came to shove and a bigshout-out to my parents because
(12:36):
you know they have had a houseas soon as I left the house they
got a bigger house.
Why I don't know, but um, theyhave an upstairs that they
really don't use very often, andso if we ever had to be in town
or the rv had to be somewherelike recently I had to take the
rv up to indiana.
We had a more ride.
Uh, 12 month independentsuspension, uh, maintenance
(12:56):
thing we had to do and we kindof used it as a crime of
opportunity to go see ourfriends over to Alliance and
shoot some videos and dealeropen house.
Well, during that time Laurencouldn't come up because she had
to work and unfortunately shehad a little too much in person
to do as far as work.
So she just went and stayedwith my parents and that gives
us the ability to kind offluctuate and do the things that
we need to do.
(13:17):
But there were a lot of fearsgetting into it and you know, if
you go back to some of ourfirst videos, you know we're
excited about it for like thefirst two, three months of
videos as we're still in thehouse.
But then I remember we filmed avideo where we were.
It was our last day in thehouse, in fact it was that
morning and we were completelymoved out, minus the things that
we had agreed to leave behindin the contract, and Lauren
(13:41):
wrote a nice note for the newowners left all the extra keys
and gate clickers and all thethings garage door openers, all
that stuff on the counter and wewanted to film a little, you
know, as we're leaving kind ofthing and then loading the dogs
up in the in the truck andhooking up to our original RV
and then pulling out was a veryemotional thing.
And so you know, after that,when we were in it, I think we
(14:04):
both had a small panic attackthat evening.
So we went after that andclosed on the house, you know,
got our monies and we went backto the RV at the RV park we
decided we didn't want to justbolt out of the area that
quickly.
We wanted to spend a month ortwo near everybody, kind of get
adapted to this full-time life.
(14:24):
We knew it was going to take asecond right, so we decided that
we were just going to kind ofhang out and we did that and to
say that we didn't sleep greatthat first night would be an
understatement.
I don't know that I went tosleep because there are a lot of
fears and things that go intothat.
But as it starts to settle inand it becomes more normal and
understanding what you can do inan RV and what you shouldn't do
(14:47):
in an RV and how to kind of fixthings and do all that stuff,
started to calm us both down alittle bit and we've never
really looked back since.
So what are some of the pros offull-time RV life?
Well, flexibility and freedomis one of them.
Obviously, go where you want,when you want, assuming you know
.
If you're fully retired ordon't have to work, you can
(15:08):
literally do whatever you want.
Now, with that being said, youknow, in picking your RV there
is that option of you can gosmaller and be more nimble, like
our friends Howard and Caitlin,the new state nomads.
They're in a pretty smalllittle class B with a fiberglass
back.
You're going to call it a.
B plus is kind of the term.
I'm using air quotes that youcan't see.
(15:29):
But you know B plus isn'treally a grade of RV.
Technically it's a class C.
It's just a small Class C.
So it's almost a camper van butit has the Class C body style
on the back of it, like on theback of the Mercedes chassis or
the Ford Transit chassis.
You know they have a lot moreflexibility in where they go.
Then you have kind of thatmiddle of the road, like our
friends Phil and Stacey who arein a.
I think Ruby is like a 34-footClass A diesel pusher.
(15:59):
You know they're not huge, theyare bigger and it is very much
so more comfortable for them tolive full time but being able to
get in and out of stuff.
Then you have the other extreme, which would be us.
We're in a 46 foot fifth wheelplus the truck, so we're at 65
feet when completely hooked up.
We have to be a little morecautious when we travel and
where we go so that we don'tnecessarily get ourselves into a
pickle, because it's a lotharder for us to recover than,
(16:20):
say, howard and Caitlin.
So you know having thatflexibility and freedom and all
that stuff, you know discoveringhidden gems and lesser known
destinations A lot of times.
I grew up flying all the timewith my family.
My dad worked for AmericanAirlines.
It was pretty cheap for us toget on a plane and fly away.
So for us you know me I missedall this stuff in the middle.
(16:42):
We went to California, we wentto Florida, we went to the
Midwest my family's originallyfrom the Midwest, even though I
was born in Texas.
So we went up to Wisconsinquite a bit, you know.
We went to all these places butwe flew over all these other
things.
And then you know for me youknow when I was talking to
Lauren about some of the thingsthat we really wanted to do.
This became.
(17:05):
A big portion of it, at leastfor me was I wanted to see the
stuff that was in between,because I hadn't really seen it.
And for Lauren, she reallyhadn't traveled all that much
prior to us starting to date.
I mean, she had been toColorado once on a church ski
trip and she'd only been on anairplane once that was to
Houston to go visit her cousins,and so you know she really
hadn't done much travel.
She'd done some stuff likecamping trips and that kind of
stuff around the state of Texas,but that was about it.
Her family just didn't travel,whereas it's for me.
(17:30):
It's been a passion for a longtime.
I want to see everything, andwhen I say everything good, bad,
ugly in between, I don't reallyscare away, and you'll see that
in some upcoming video seriesthat I have that's going to be
coming up on the main YouTubechannel here in probably the
next couple of months.
I can tell you I'm gettingready to film it and I'm a
little scared not going to lieFirst time I've been anxious
(17:51):
around travel.
But yeah, I just want to seestuff.
The other side of that is andthis is going to come with a big
old asterisk.
As cost savings, there is thepotential that you can lower
your living cost compared totraditional home ownership and I
say that there's a chance.
I'm not saying that it'scheaper the way Lauren and I do
(18:13):
it.
Unfortunately, it's not thatmuch less expensive.
You just trade things if thatmakes sense.
So you know, the one thing Iwould tell people is you know,
if you're looking to trade intraditional home ownership and
moving into an RV, you knowthere's a little bit less
stability in your finances whenit comes to the RV and I'll talk
about finances and thinkingit's cheaper here in just a
(18:35):
little bit.
But you know, one of the thingswe always tell people is, if
you're considering doing this,understand if you're selling a
house, you're selling anappreciating asset.
For an RV, which is a vehiclewhich is a depreciating asset,
and so you really have to kindof pay attention to some of
those things.
And in doing some of that, youknow, it becomes this situation
(18:58):
where you think that, oh,campgrounds aren't that
expensive.
Campgrounds have gottenexpensive, like when we first
started out.
You could very easily find avery nice campground for 40
bucks, you know, a super, supernice like a Camp Margaritaville
or a Disney's Fort Wilderness.
Well, let me take Disney's FortWilderness out of it.
That's probably an extreme to adifferent level.
But you'd get a very niceresort style like a Camp Femme
(19:21):
for that, for maybe 80.
And so those would be splurgesand you could find campgrounds
for 20 bucks a night, reasonablyfull hookups, sometimes not
Even less if you don't have fullhookups or you're only 30 amp
that kind of stuff, have fullhookups or only 30 amp that kind
of stuff.
Now I mean, it's hard to findan RV site less than $80, to be
completely honest with you.
And you're getting into likewhere the Camp Margaritaville is
(19:42):
and the Camp Fimfo is of theworld.
And if you don't know what CampFimfo is, it's a really, really
big resort in Texas HillCountry.
They have one in Waco now aswell.
But you know you're starting at$110, $120.
Well, I can get a hotel for that.
Now, obviously there's somedifferences there.
I get a whole space, I have myhouse, the dogs can come.
(20:03):
There's a lot more amenitiespotentially at that campground
that I might use versus a hotel,and that's situational
depending on the hotel.
But there's so many things thatyou have to take an account for
when you're paying for things.
Now I would argue that we savemoney when we travel versus the
(20:24):
traditional way like getting inan airplane car, whatever
driving, staying in a hotel,because in that scenario you
almost have to eat outexclusively the way we do it,
and using Disney as kind of agood example, like Disney's
expensive right.
So if we were to go stay in ahotel we would have to eat
breakfast, lunch and dinner out,no matter what right.
There's not really an option ofcooking.
(20:45):
Well, if we take our RV all ofa sudden, you know we might go
splurge a couple of mornings andget some Mickey waffles and all
of that stuff.
But we don't have to.
We can have our coffee, we canmake our little egg bites, we
can do our normal thing and kindof keep our cost a little bit
down because you can provisionin stock before you get there.
Same thing for lunch.
(21:07):
We do this scenario when we dothe parks, that we eat breakfast
in the RV.
We'd go into the parks until wegot a little bit hungry or we
would just kind of snack alittle bit and I just go along
with whatever she wants to do.
But you know, for that scenarioit does allow us to be able to
lower some of those costs.
(21:37):
So there is a chance you couldlower your costs, but don't be
shocked if it's about the same.
The other side is that thesimplified lifestyle and that's
pretty easy as far as it's justless stuff, if you know what I
mean like it's just there's notas many things you have to worry
about.
Now you have to worry aboutweight in an RV and you don't
(21:58):
obviously have to worry aboutweight in a house, but you know,
because of that you end up withless things and so there's less
of everything that you kind ofhave to deal with and you can
focus a little bit more on someof those experiences.
We talked a little bit about RVcommunity, but that is a big
pro community and connection,meeting like-minded people,
(22:20):
whether it be at campgrounds,going to rallies and or events,
that kind of stuff.
And then also, like for us,we've met some of our best
friends in the world now throughRVing because we are so
like-minded and we're excitedbecause we've got travel planned
RV cruise, non-traditional withthese people and we would go
out of our way to spend timewith them and we plan stuff
around that now as well.
(22:42):
The other side and this is kindof like a subcategory, I would
say is personal growth.
You know learning.
A lot of people get into an RVand they're apprehensive about
like well, I don't know how anair conditioner works, believe
it or not.
A lot of the systems in an RVare fairly simple, and so taking
some time and learning some ofthese new skills like RV
(23:03):
maintenance, you know how tonavigate, you know driving with
it, all of those stuff.
It's part of it.
And I will say a phenomenalthing is the guys at the NRVTA
Todd, tony and everybody downthere have a great tech course
that you can buy into as well,and that's a great wealth of
knowledge.
It's online or they can sendyou a little USB drive and that
(23:24):
thing in itself has been anamazing tool for people to start
learning that.
Now, if you want more hands-on,you can go down to the National
RV Training Academy, which isin Athens, texas, which is
southwest of Dallas about anhour or so, but it's technically
the North Texas or East Texasarea.
It's kind of just south ofTyler, so over in that neck of
the woods, and they have aweek-long fundamentals class.
(23:46):
Now, if you're an Allianceowner, in addition to having a
week-long class, they also havea Alliance owner's fundamental
class specific.
So they kind of dial it evenmore specific to the systems
that Alliance uses.
And there's a bunch of otherAlliance owners there, so that
would be the other thing.
And then also adapting thechallenges on the road.
One thing I didn't do well withwas changes in the adaptations,
(24:08):
because I was so like this isthe mission kind of a thing when
it came to travel and whenyou're RVing, inevitably
something will happen.
You're going to get a flat tire, you're, you know, in our
scenario, you're going to take alug nut to your front cap and
it's going to look like somebodyput a 50 caliber bullet through
it and it's about to startraining.
There's always going to besomething, and so you really
(24:30):
learn to kind of roll with thepunches and kind of get past a
lot of those things.
So all right.
Segment three the cons offull-time RV life.
Though that was the good justpreviously.
Now let's talk a little bitabout the things that kind of
make you question justpreviously.
(24:51):
Now, let's talk a little bitabout the things that kind of
make you question.
I know for us initially.
We don't necessarily do thisall the time, but so the
challenges of consistent travelso you can have burnout from
simply just being on the moveall the time.
And this is where some peoplewill start spending more time at
campgrounds or like up to amonth in some area or seasonal
things.
And so there is a little bit ofexhaustion that can come with
(25:17):
finding, scheduling and planningthese things.
Especially if you move a lot,you know whether you're
boondocking looking forcampgrounds.
It all has its challenges,right.
There's going to be the goodsand the bads associated with
that, and some people that has atendency to stress them out
sometimes.
So you have to be a littlecareful of that.
Also.
I'm going to say this now butdifficulties in finding
campsites during peak seasons.
(25:38):
So RVing has become incrediblypopular, especially in the world
of COVID.
It was the only way peoplecould travel, so they did it.
Now, with that being said,nowadays it is slowly sliding
back to more of a normalstandard.
But I think campgrounds, whilethey're catching up it's just
now catching up and they'vegotten so expensive that it is
(26:00):
sometimes hard to find.
And I'm going to say this it'ssometimes hard to find
reasonably priced campgroundsduring peak seasons.
So reasonably pricedcampgrounds during peak seasons.
So Florida in the winter, youknow, upper Michigan, door
County, wisconsin, the Midwest,if you may, during the summer,
(26:22):
that kind of thing.
So you know you have to eitherplan way out or be super
flexible in what you do.
But that can be a con.
Now I talked about pros on RVmaintenance.
There's some, there's somenegatives there too, right?
So sometimes you're going tohave issues that can cause it to
be considered a con.
Now, I don't necessarily,because you can get a flat tire
in a truck just as easy as youcan get a flat tire in an RV.
And in fact I was coming backfrom Indiana and I was trying to
(26:45):
get about eight hours down theroad on my first day.
Now, I didn't get to startuntil late morning, so it was
like 10, 11 o'clock and I endedup experiencing a flat tire.
Now, luckily we have a tirepressure monitoring system, all
these things, but it took anhour to switch that tire out.
Luckily I found a crackerbarrel.
I can get to without having todo it on the side of the road.
(27:06):
If it would have been on theside of the road, that's a
massive stress.
I got super lucky that one ofmy pre-planned like one of my
first cracker barrels that I wasgoing to overnight at happened
to be within like a mile and ahalf of where I got the flat
tire and I was able to just kindof pull in there, do it on my
own terms, get cleaned up andthen, just if it went quick, I
(27:28):
might get back on the road.
It didn't.
It took over an hour and I justsaid you know what I'm gonna be
done for the night.
I'm gonna if this thingstressed me out, I'm a little
more exhausted now.
I'm just gonna call it.
And the nice thing about thatwas I was literally able to just
relax, put the slide, you know,get cozy, go get some dinner
(27:53):
inside Cracker Barrel, come backout, take a shower, get cleaned
up, get some good rest and getback on the road in the morning.
So the other thing too is andagain, a lot of these things are
kind of pros and cons but spacelimitations.
You know, adjusting to livingin a smaller space with very
limited storage can bechallenging, especially if it's
two people.
You know Lauren's used tohaving a lot of shoes and a lot
of clothes.
I've never had just an absoluteton of stuff, but I've had a
(28:15):
lot, and so both of us havingthe downsize and also taking
weight into consideration sothat we don't overdo some of our
capacities or GBWR, all of thatstuff becomes a little bit of
an issue.
So the other side is like forlauren and I in our first rv, we
didn't know how much we needed.
(28:35):
Occasionally.
We needed some privacy, and Isay that in terms of if there
was ever an opportunity for meto go play golf or something
while she needed to work.
That was one way we dealt withit.
But my office in our old rig wehad a rear kitchen that was
elevated and then a living roomdown below and then the bedroom
up front and bathroom in betweenthe two kind of, at that point,
traditional RV, and I had toset my office up in a way that
(28:56):
was kind of at like a bar topcounter that overlooked the
living room, and so if Laurenwas trying to relax and I had to
be on a conference call onSaturday, there was really
nowhere for anybody to go, kindof a situation.
And so you know that was a bigreason why we decided to switch
to our current toy hauler isbecause I could customize the
rear space, like right now I'mrecording this podcast in the
(29:19):
toy hauler section, which isalso my office, and now if I
need to be on a call and she'sjust relaxing, all I have to do
is close the door.
And so we understood theimportance of having that
differential, that differentspace so that we could both work
simultaneously or she couldrelax.
Also, I didn't know how much itwas important for me being that
I work from home to be able toleave my office here at the desk
(29:41):
and go into that other spaceand actually relax.
Like that became a really bigdeal for me.
So, yeah, obviously if you'resolo that doesn't matter quite
so much, but for us that was abig deal.
So, okay, now cost theunpredictable cost, so things
that move around like unexpectedrepairs.
Now we budget our livesessentially Lauren and I are
(30:02):
kind of penny pinchers when itcomes to that and so we budget
like a company would in terms ofwe have what's called a
maintenance budget every year,and so we put a dollar amount at
something and we say, hey,we're assuming that we're going
to have $5,000, $2,000, $9,000,whatever dollars of maintenance.
Now we don't know what thatmaintenance is going to be.
Some of it we do.
We know we're going to have torepack bearings, inspect things,
(30:24):
oil changes, all that stuff.
That's going to be things.
But then there's we didn'texpect to pay that or we end up
whatever could happen,especially once you're out of
warranty.
Then obviously we have to takesome of that into consideration
and we try to budget for that.
(30:44):
But there is that unexpectedrepair Fuel prices.
If there ends up being some sortof a trade issue or, god forbid
, another war in the Middle Eastwhich I think they're just
always at war over there, butanything that affects oil prices
, fuel costs could go throughthe roof.
And now all of a sudden it maytake you, let's say, $600 to get
(31:05):
to your destination.
Now it takes $1,200.
Like, can you?
Is that okay, or is that reallynot something that you budgeted
for, kind of a thing.
So I'm going to say this andthis is only going to be meant
for solo travelers but there isa chance of loneliness.
If you're an introverted solotraveler then yeah, you're not.
You know, you may have a hardertime trying to meet people and
(31:29):
get out and do things if youdon't ever leave your RV or you
only go boondocking off byyourself, and so loneliness is a
real thing and what we try totell people is, if you get in
that experience where you'restarting to get too lonely, go
to an RV rally and that'llinstantly meet people.
Like for us I would say likewell, actually, if you're a solo
(31:51):
traveler listening to this orconsidering listeners, come to
the United Rally.
The United Rally is kind of funbecause it's a bunch of
YouTubers that got together orcontent creators that got
together and we are able to thenkind of create these small
communities amongst a biggercommunity and you get to know
people and meet people a littlebit better.
And now all of a sudden you maypotentially have friends or
(32:14):
anybody else that you can all ofa sudden get in with.
Also, as a full note, if youstart to hear some pretty heavy
rain, we have some storms comingthrough North Texas.
So if you start to hear thatsorry, now the last but not
least, internet or connectivityissues with the outcoming of
Starlink and those types ofthings, it has gotten
significantly better, so thisisn't as big of a deal anymore.
(32:38):
But just know that there is,you know you do have to pay some
attention to that, all right.
So moving on, essentially, is RVlife worth it and this is a
little bit of our personalopinion here Um, you know who
thrives in full-time RV life?
I'm going to say anybody thathas that desire to really just
(33:01):
want to get out, kind of thatadventurous spirit and kind of
enjoys a little bit more of achallenge, people that feel like
they can embrace a little bitof a flexible schedule and
lifestyle, to be completelyhonest with you, and anybody
(33:23):
that's going to prioritize likean experience over like a
material possession, if you may,at least to a point.
You know who may struggle ifyou really really really like
your routine and the stabilityof a home.
I'm going to say the stabilityof a home, um, and I'm going to
say the stability of a home.
And just because I'm saying itdoesn't work for full-time
(33:43):
doesn't mean you can't RV, itjust means full-time RV life.
You know, I think you're goingto struggle a little bit more.
Um, if you don't handle likeuncertainty or dealing with, uh,
frequent logistical challenges,whether it be planning,
executing all of those things, Iwould probably say you know,
whether it be planning,executing all of those things, I
would probably say you know,it's a little bit, it's going to
(34:04):
be a little bit more of astruggle.
So, as far as Lauren and I, youknow it, we're always kind of
assessing his full-time rightlife right for us, and we still
are very firmly in yes, now wedo it a little differently than
everybody else in the sense thatwe do we, we do travel quite a
(34:26):
bit, but we also come back toNorth Texas a lot because Lauren
does have to go to an in-personjob every so often.
So while living in and we don'thave a house here, we'd stay in
the RV when we're back back.
Um, you know, it has itschallenges, like I wish we could
travel more, but that's not thereality at the moment.
Um, and I think the big thingis, you know something that
(34:48):
we're willing to acknowledge,that maybe not a lot of other
people are that make content inthe space is like you don't.
You're no less a part of the RVcommunity if you only part-time
or still have a sticks andbricks, it's.
You know, living in an RV is anacquired thing.
It's not something that is foreverybody.
(35:09):
Now, traveling in an RV, Ithink that most people, as long
as you're willing, you know,you're up for it.
I think that that's one thing,living in it's a whole different
thing, and so I know that thislifestyle isn't for everybody.
Now I wanted to leave you with alittle bit of some tips for
(35:30):
deciding if it's right for you.
Okay, so try before you commit.
And so how in the world wouldyou try full-time RVing?
Well, for starters, you have todetermine if you even like
RVing, and so I would tell youmaybe try to rent an RV for a
few trips, or maybe take anextended vacation to test the
lifestyle.
(35:50):
So maybe rent an RV for acouple of weeks and hit the road
.
You can do that.
There are plenty of RV rentalcompanies out there.
In fact, one of our friends,rodney, he, rents on them, and
now he's more in the Alabamaarea.
But you know, getting into anRV and determining whether or
not you like it is a big deal.
Now, Lauren and I would do thisfor horse shows, so we would
(36:13):
rent RVs when we didn't have ahotel option.
We always like to stay onproperty when we go to horse
shows, because you're just thatmuch closer.
I can go back and get some workdone while she's doing the
things that aren't showing, andthen, when she shows, I just get
a text message and I wanderdown to the arena, I watch her
show, I help her with whatevershe needs help with, and then I
can head back while she wraps upfor the day.
The flip side of that is, youknow, you have to know that you
(36:36):
can do that small space withyour significant other if,
assuming they're going with you,I mean I guess you could just
leave them behind.
But I don't recommend that forthe sake of the marriage.
And so for us, we would rentRVs at horse shows quite a bit
and be there for upwards of aweek, sometimes less, sometimes
more and so we already knew thatwe liked the idea of it.
So the other big thing I wouldsay you know, when you're making
(36:59):
your decision on whether or notit's right for you is, know
your why, and I say that interms of understand your
motivation from wanting to gofull-time.
I would say, if you just thinkit'll be fun, I do honestly
think you need to have a littlebit more of a why than just this
could be fun, because I thinkthat that could hurt you in the
long run, because maybe youdon't completely understand what
(37:21):
you're getting into.
The other side of it is yourfinances, be realistic about the
cost of full-time RV life.
And if you think it's going tobe this massive money saver,
then I hate to tell you it'sprobably not Now.
There's ways you can do it.
That do you know?
If you're looking for like vanlife and you're okay with a
(37:42):
little bit of heat and it's justyou, then yeah, you might be
able to save some money stealth,camping, all of that stuff.
But if you're looking to getinto a bigger RV, stay at
campgrounds, that kind of athing, then unfortunately you
know you might not save just awhole lot of money over sticks
and bricks.
And I say that, you know,depending on the size of your
(38:06):
home, or it could cost more ifyou're coming from a really
small home, that kind of thing.
And RVs are expensive at theend of the day.
I mean just the initialpurchase of an RV is expensive.
I mean a lot of fifth wheelsnow on the luxury side of the
high end side are definitelygoing to be over $100,000.
I haven't seen a diesel pusherunder $175,000 new too, by the
way.
So, yeah, just that's one ofthose where I'd say you know,
(38:27):
understand your finances really,really clearly and, just you
know, make there some bufferroom just in case, because
there's a lot of uncertainty.
Start small.
You know, kyd always says startsmall, start now.
I think that's what they say.
But, you know, start slowlydownsizing to see if it works
for you.
So, like, if you're in a home,like, try to maybe separate some
(38:50):
of your clothes, what you thinkyou could put fit in an RV, and
just try to live off of thoseclothes.
You know, and doing laundry ata laundromat every you know four
or five days.
You know now, if you'replanning on putting a like we
always had a washer dryer in.
In fact our dryer is goingright now, right next to me.
We always have a washer dryerin our unit, but it does take a
little longer.
It's much smaller loads, thatkind of thing, but try, try
(39:12):
doing that.
Another thing is, if you'recurious about the people and all
that stuff, if you're curiousabout the people and all that
stuff, I would say, attend an RVrally or even an RV show.
So some of the bigger showsHershey, tampa, both of those
are in the winter, one's earlyin the fall and then one's going
to be more in January.
You know, those types of thingsI would absolutely go do and
(39:38):
then find some RV rallies, likeI know a line.
Well, anytime you're going tohave a rally, like I know, rv
unplugged rally.
I'm working on another conceptwith somebody else.
That would be a good one,because there'll be cabins,
other means to stay on propertythat don't require an RV, or you
can rent an RV for that, andsometimes campgrounds happen.
Sometimes you have to gothrough like an RV share or
(39:58):
outdoorsy that kind of thing.
But you know, test the watersbefore you maybe spend all that
money and that commitment, don'tjust dive into it.
First you go into those ralliesand those type things.
You can then ask questions.
I know if you go to an RV show,at least for Alliance, they
have the owner section wherethat's what we're there for,
that's what the owners are therefor, so that you can come in
(40:19):
and ask questions.
It's just a group of peoplethat are volunteering their time
, that are passionate about thelifestyle, that happen to own
alliances, and so you can askthat question of whether it be
technical, with theirexperiences with the alliance
that you're looking at, or ifit's just a generic full-time
question.
Another thing that I'm going toadd in here too is there's a
bunch, a bunch of like facebookgroups and all that where you
(40:41):
can kind of see peoplecommunicating back and forth,
search for stuff, all of thatstuff.
So, oh, yeah, okay, last butnot least, on our instagram.
So if you don't follow us oninstagram it's just millers,
underscore in underscore motion,or just search millers in
motion Our faces will pop up.
We did ask if you have anyquestions about full-time RV
(41:04):
life and we did get a handful.
So I picked out about three ofour top ones.
So this one was a popular one.
What's one thing you wish youknew before going full time?
I'd probably say a betterunderstanding of our schedule,
and I don't know that waspossible.
So if I thought that we weregoing to be more stationary, I'm
(41:25):
not 100% sure I would have donefull time initially, but I also
wouldn't trade it.
So, yeah, that's probably theeasiest one.
A second one we got this alittle bit, but I thought it was
a really good one.
How do we handle mail and billson the road?
So there are a bunch ofdifferent ways you can handle
this.
So, obviously, if you'reselling your sticks and bricks,
(41:45):
you know we just had an election.
You want to be able to stillvote.
You want to be able to get mailfrom people when you have to be
able to get mail from people.
So there's two different ways.
So for one, if you have familythat still has a sticks and
bricks, you can use them as whatwe call a domicile.
So like for us, my parentsspend half the year in Wisconsin
and half the year in Texas,depending on where it's hot and
(42:06):
cold, and so, like for us, theyforward their mail from Texas up
to Wisconsin when that happens.
So that doesn't work for us,because trying to get our mail
would be like pulling teeth.
So we use Lauren's family'shouse and they're nice enough to
just kind of toss our mail inthe corner, and then we make
sure to connect with them everyso often, or we'll pay for them
(42:29):
to FedEx it to us or UPS it tous or that kind of stuff, and
that allows us.
So like on our driver'slicenses and all that stuff.
We own multiple businesses inthe state of Texas, so we
actually need to reside in Texas.
Now there are other servicesout there that allow you to
create a domicile, escapeesbeing the biggest one, and they
have a couple of campgroundsthat essentially you buy a lot
(42:50):
which it's not that expensive.
One of the biggest ones is inKingston, so if you're looking
for a Texas residence, thatwould be somewhere where you
could potentially do that aswell.
And then, what's the best advicefor someone starting out?
We got this one a lot as well.
I will tell you.
It's be ready to go with theflow, like, don't take anything
(43:15):
too seriously, go with the flow.
Anything too seriously, go withthe flow it's.
It can get to a point whereyou're really starting to
question whether or not youthere are.
Things will happen in your RV,and this is a complicated thing.
Things will happen in your RVlife that will make you question
if you did the right thing ornot.
Um, and so just every take abig deep breath and just know
(43:40):
that there's a community ofpeople out there that are
willing to help.
But if you don't ask, theydon't know.
And so it is one of thosesituations where I would say
just go with the flow.
And and that is probably thebest advice I could probably
come up with so, oh, all right,before we leave you, I am going
(44:00):
to go get something real quickand I'm going to start trying to
end these episodes a veryparticular way.
So I will be right back.
Okay, on our Instagram, I usedto do a dad joke of the day and,
to be honest, you'd besurprised how much that starts
to weigh on you.
So I'm going do a dad joke ofthe day and, to be honest, you'd
be surprised how much thatstarts to weigh on you.
(44:21):
So I'm going to start doing oneat the backside of these
episodes.
So, if you heard it, please dome a favor and let me know you
heard the dad joke by maybegiving me your best one back,
whether it be in the comments.
If you're listening to this onYouTube or through the show,
note links that we have downbelow.
So, all right, you ready.
Why don't RVers ever get lost?
(44:44):
Because, naturally, they'realways going to take the scenic
route.
All right, that was bad.
That was actually really bad.
So do me a favor, send in yourfavorite RV-themed dad joke and
I might give you credit for itand read it on the podcast.
So, full-time RV life is anadventure like no other.
Okay, it has its challenges,but for the right person, it's
(45:07):
an incredible way to live andexplore.
If you enjoyed this episode,please don't forget.
If you're on YouTube, subscribeto the channel.
Also, make sure and check outour main channel, Miller's in
Motion.
You can find everything thereat millersinmotioncom.
In addition to that, a big, big, big, big, big help.
These podcasts don't magicallyjust promote themselves, so we
rely on you.
(45:27):
If you enjoy listening to thispodcast, please share it with a
friend.
Uh, if, especially if they'rethinking of getting out on the
road or just into rving and thatkind of stuff, we would love it
if you shared it with them.
Also, if you can, please do mea huge favor and rate and review
us on your favorite podcastplatform, whether you're
listening to us on Apple,spotify, google, all of the
(45:49):
other things.
There's so many of them now.
I was looking at our directorythe other day.
Wow, I didn't realize we're onlike 40.
So wherever you're listening tothis, do us a favor, hit the.
So, whether, wherever you'relistening to this, do us a favor
, hit the little follow buttonand set us up for an automatic
download so you can listen to uson the flight, on the drive,
wherever, and all of thosethings.
Thank you for tuning into therv shenanigans podcast.
Until next time, keep thewheels rolling and the venture's
(46:11):
coming.
See ya, you.
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