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How many of you in Escapees are actually part time? And why?


Roadtrek 1

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9 minutes ago, WanderingStar said:

I think being a full timer is different for everyone. I consider myself a FTer . I live in and travel in my AS when I have home time. I am still employed full-time as an OTR driver. The AS is my only home and has been since 2006. My thoughts were it would be more prudent to go FT while employed since I am on the road for work. A S&B house just didn't make sense. Also, I could pay for and customize my unit before retiring. I think it is the best decision I ever made.

Our daughter, also an OTR driver, went the other way. She bought a house and land in Montana but it is as close to boondocking as you can get while owning such. She's totally off grid and as far from a mass of people as she can get. She loves driving, but she also loves privacy. I suspect that need for privacy is one of the things that makes her love driving--all those hours alone in the cab.

Linda

Blog: http://sandcastle.sandsys.org/

Former Rigs: Liesure Travel van, Winnebago View 24H, Winnebago Journey 34Y, Sportsmobile Sprinter conversion van

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2 hours ago, rm.w/aview said:

On a side note, since Christmas week 6 threads in the first four categories alone had to be closed.

Another side note...none HAD to be closed, and some shouldn't have been, someone just chose to.

18 minutes ago, WanderingStar said:

I like being alone as well. I plan on living in my AS until I go into assisted living or start wearing diapers again

LOL, go out how you started life!

 

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  We are part time. We both like our jobs and my schedule of 28 days on and 28 days off allows us enough travel time to satisfy our wanderlust. We spent most of February in AZ having missed Boomerville  because of our work schedule. Would we like to full time? Maybe, maybe not, since we love being near our grandkids and intend to build a house next door to them. I envy fulltimers, but while sitting in AZ I wonder if we would be bored with all the free time? Every full timer we talked to at Boomerville 2018 said we would adjust and love the life style. Well, we will see.

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1 hour ago, WanderingStar said:

I plan on living in my AS until I go into assisted living or start wearing diapers again

We were parked near a couple living in an Airstream in Yucaipa, CA a couple of weeks ago. Across the back of the trailer it read, "Toaster on Wheels." They have an interesting website

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

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On 4/22/2019 at 4:13 PM, Al F said:

Absolutely "there are no right or wrong answers" to full time, or part time, or just a few weeks of a year.

Most folks replying to this topic are giving good polite answers to a topic that seems to be worded as to want to start a discussion or an argument. 

A topic like this is best replied with simple polite statements of what each person does or to just ignore the topic.  

To reply with a critical or argumentative (as I am now) just feeds the desire to post more topics which seem to seek to start discussions or arguments rather than to inform.    

Kind of like "I saw this inflammatory posting on the internet" and now I want to discuss/argue about it. 

Some of us on this forum are seeing a pattern here. 

Al, thanks for your answer....No, I'm not trying to start any disagreement here.... please remember that I said there are no right or wrong answers....

I'm very pleased to hear that many people on the forum are inclusive of us part time group and from my experience so far on the forum, most are equally agreeable to letting folks have whatever size RV they want...Class A, B, C, trailer, 5th wheel, or even a teardrop...

Please know that I had to quit another forum of people who were not like that...in fact, one person ridiculed me for spending a lot of money on my Sprinter.. and said that the only thing he thought it was good for was a rolling brothel.... that was the last straw and I dropped membership in the club.. extremely rude and offensive. 

People make individual choices all the time for various reasons... for me.. part time works.. other people may want to be on the road all the time....

There's a couple of people who think I'm envious of this and would like to be on the road more often...

I'm very happy with the part time use and we do use the RV...in two years since I've owned it, I've logged just over 18,000 miles... that's not bad... it's being used...

Most people have told me that normal annual miles is more like 5,000 per year..  I think the first year was an anomaly, I'll probably go about 5,000 miles per year from now on..

Enjoy your RV and travels. 

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5 hours ago, Roadtrek 1 said:

Al, thanks for your answer....No, I'm not trying to start any disagreement here.... please remember that I said there are no right or wrong answers....

 

OK.  The following is the original post to start the topic:

Quote

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but, many people who are full time defend the "lifestyle choice" like they are in some "tribal council"... I've heard people who are say things to me like....you can't possibly "know" the true RV experience unless you are a "full timer"..... How's that? 

I don't care if you are a full timer or part timer... please do whatever you want....I happen to like the "part time" experience because I want to have a "home base" I don't have to move around...for me, it's easier....I know that many of the "full timers" will say that their home is wherever they are...and if this works for you, great....

So, tell me...are you full time or just a part time person and I hope you enjoy whatever experience you've chosen.

What do you think... majority of people are full or part-time in the Escapees Club? 

Again, there's no right or wrong answers here. 

 

Al & Sharon
2006 Winnebago Journey 36G 
2020 Chevy Colorado Toad
San Antonio, TX

http://downtheroadaroundthebend.blogspot.com/

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7 hours ago, Roadtrek 1 said:

Most people have told me that normal annual miles is more like 5,000 per year..  I think the first year was an anomaly, I'll probably go about 5,000 miles per year from now on..

That was pretty typical of us before we went fulltime and I was still working. Not sure how accurate it would be today. Since we reverted from fulltime back to part-time I think that we put on a little more than that most years but we are now retired and were not at that time. With a travel trailer that doesn't keep mileage, it is more difficult to know how far it travels but we use the truck very little when not towing so based on that mileage I would guess our average per year today as part-time travelers to be about 7,000 miles per year. That happens to be very close to what we put on our motorhome when we were fulltime, but we also averaged putting just over 23,000 miles on the towed each year of that time and the towed didn't accrue miles while being towed. 

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

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This has been a thought-provoking topic for me. I’ve been interested to read all of the comments about what works and what doesn’t for those responding. 

I’ve been a part-timer for the past 3+ years. When I bought my TT, I had a vague daydream about full-timing but that’s what it was, not a plan or intention. I didn’t think I would want to be completely rootless, I like traveling with a purpose or a goal.

After my first multi-month trip, I found myself bored and all I could think of is my next trip. That feeling has gotten worse as time goes by.

This past year I started boondocking, and met a nice guy full-timing in a Sprinter van, and a couple in the same 21’ trailer I have and they were all happy and gracefully living in their small spaces.

I also met a guy who had full-timed for a year but decided it wasn’t for him, that he needed/wanted a 4 walled home base so bought a house that he lives in occasionally. 

A month ago I decided to sell the house and go full-time, at least for a while. I’ll see how I feel about it after 6 months, I’m not sure how I’ll feel about being rootless. Maybe I’ll like it or maybe I’ll buy or rent something outside of California. I’m going into this with a very open mind. 

I think if I change the way I pace my travels, I won’t get that road-weary feeling I sometimes get when I’m toward the end of a long, event-filled trip. 

One of the things I love about the RV community I’ve experienced so far is that there’s no one way to do it. I can think of a number of ways one could be considered a full-timer that is not anything like my own short-term plans. Does owning a house make you a part-timer when you only stay there maybe 2 months at the most out of the year, the rest in your RV? 

As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter at all. I’m excited to be able to spend more time doing what I love doing.

The open road is seductive and I have the opportunity to follow it as much as I want. That’s what RVing is about for me, and home-base or not doesn’t change that, it’s just a personal preference and individual circumstance. It’s not important. 

Or am I missing something?

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19 minutes ago, fpmtngal said:

I think if I change the way I pace my travels, I won’t get that road-weary feeling I sometimes get when I’m toward the end of a long, event-filled trip. 

That is where the big difference in travel style when your RV is your home and pretty similar for those of us who are retired and have no deadlines to meet. It is the reason that so many prefer not to make reservations, or at least not making them until a day before at most. It means that if you don't feel like traveling, you just sit until you do feel like traveling. If you get up to go and it is raining, you just stay another day and so travel in the sunshine. Of course, the key to that is reaching a point where you feel at home when in the RV. You can help that a great deal by redecorating the RV to reflect your personality, as you would in a house or apartment.  Make it feel the same as it does when staying in your home and not like staying in a motel or hotel room. 

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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1 hour ago, Kirk W said:

Of course, the key to that is reaching a point where you feel at home when in the RV.

Kirk hit the nail on the head.  

As long as you feel at home in your RV, the RV becomes your home.  It is not a vacation vehicle or a temporary place.  It is "home"!  

This is the way we were when we fulltimed from 2006-2010 and then part time since then.  One year we spent 10 1/2 months in the RV, a 9 month trip and then some 3 week trips.

The bottom line is: The RV is a home to us.  It is not a place we look forward to ending the travel so we can get back into the sticks and bricks. 

When we travel it is not a vacation, it is "travel".  Again as Kirk wrote "no reservations" or as few as possible so there is no deadline, or need to drive/move on any specific date.  We stay and see what we want for as long as we want and then move on.  Plans change, sometimes during the day we are driving.  We may get part way to today's destination and decide to stop early or detour to a different destination. 

This means the actual traveling part is the same to us whether we were fulltimeing or part timing.  Of course the big difference is we have a second home (the sticks and bricks) to maintain which distracts from our freedom.  

The plus side to having the S&B is that we have a place to store all our "valuable possessions" that we can't bear to part with.  These possessions were in storage when we actually fulltimed. 

Al & Sharon
2006 Winnebago Journey 36G 
2020 Chevy Colorado Toad
San Antonio, TX

http://downtheroadaroundthebend.blogspot.com/

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1 hour ago, Kirk W said:

Of course, the key to that is reaching a point where you feel at home when in the RV. Make it feel the same as it does when staying in your home and not like staying in a motel or hotel room. 

Oh. Wow. Is that ever an insight for me.

It explains a whole lot. For the past 6 years I’ve done a variety of renovation projects at the house, to get it the way I wanted it to be. I’ve done some cool things. I have views that so many envy and that I love. But no matter how much I’ve done to it, no matter how much I love the house and the area, it’s not really home, and I never realized it.

I read your words while sitting at the trailer’s dinette. I look around and realize that this relatively small trailer is home to me, not the house. It’s been more of a home since the first month I had it and lived it in during the week the last 4 months I worked (2016). No wonder it only took one letter (a  not renewing my homeowners insurance letter) and no communication (both cell and internet were out) to push me into full-timing, it was just an excuse.

Thanks very much for those words.

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6 hours ago, fpmtngal said:

 

A month ago I decided to sell the house and go full-time, at least for a while. I’ll see how I feel about it after 6 months, I’m not sure how I’ll feel about being rootless. Maybe I’ll like it or maybe I’ll buy or rent something outside of California. I’m going into this with a very open mind. 

I think if I change the way I pace my travels, I won’t get that road-weary feeling I sometimes get when I’m toward the end of a long, event-filled trip. 

 

You seem to have a good attitude about your future lifestyle.  Personally, I'd give it longer than 6 months.  If you do a year before making a decision you will have gone through all the seasons and realize you can have reasonably good weather all the time.  Also, with the seasons of summer and winter you will get a feel of the different types of people out there - families and retirees.

Slow down in your travels. You don't have to see it all right away.  Many seasons we picked a state and explored that state thoroughly - driving every secondary road and backroads.

If you seem to become bored, why not try volunteering?  In addition to getting your campsite in some of the most beautiful places in the country, you can have the feeling of really helping out our public parks.  You don't have to be a camp host.  There are many unique opportunities to do.  We specialized in giving lighthouse tours, including living on an island in Lake Michigan.  We gave the tours at the famous Heceta Head Lighthouse in Oregon.  We volunteered at fish hatcheries.  We also did a stint on the Trash Tracker on Lake Powell, AZ - cleaning up the shoreline.  We went with another couple and the pilot of the houseboat. We hauled a barge for the trash and a speedboat for off-time siteseeing.  We also did some camp hosting.  When you get to pick the places you want to live with your RV it makes it pretty special.

Best of luck to you!!

Full-timed for 16 Years
Traveled 8 yr in a 2004 Newmar Dutch Star 40' Motorhome
and 8 yr in a 33' Travel Supreme 5th Wheel

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1 hour ago, Al F said:

  Again as Kirk wrote "no reservations" or as few as possible so there is no deadline, or need to drive/move on any specific date.  We stay and see what we want for as long as we want and then move on.

This approach can work if your choice of campground and your dates are fairly flexible.  However, we will be visiting family in June in the mid-Atlantic and the CG options are limited near their homes.  In one case we'll use a nearby State park which had to be booked months ago.  As we go north from there we're stopping for a couple of nights at a Canadian national park, the reservations for which had to be made months in advance.    Those reservations create additional dates that other stops have to "mate" with.   So we don't have the flexibility to stay extra days, but that's Ok,  we've built in stops that we think are adequate.

I realize that some of you don't like traveling this way, but it works for us.  We like to be headed to a particular destination.  We'll spend most of the summer on Prince Edward Island with a short excursion (by car, not MH) to Newfoundland.  Meandering about without a destination simply doesn't fit our style.  If it works for you, that's great.  This lifestyle is highly individualistic, each of us can define what works for each of us.

Sandie & Joel

2000 40' Beaver Patriot Thunder Princeton--425 HP/1550 ft-lbs CAT C-12
2014 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L with ReadyBrute tow bar/brake system
WiFiRanger Ambassador
Follow our adventures on Facebook at Weiss Travels

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1 hour ago, docj said:

This lifestyle is highly individualistic, each of us can define what works for each of us.

And what works in one situation might not work in another for any particular RVer. When we visited our daughter in Maine having a campground reservation was critical even though we rarely made reservations elsewhere. The same for when we went to Key West. There are not unlimited options in either of those two places for us to try freewheeling it. One of the reasons I used to like to camp at Rainbow's End was they didn't make me decide in advance how long I was going to stay; I was not happy when they changed that policy.

Linda

Blog: http://sandcastle.sandsys.org/

Former Rigs: Liesure Travel van, Winnebago View 24H, Winnebago Journey 34Y, Sportsmobile Sprinter conversion van

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11 hours ago, docj said:

This approach can work if your choice of campground and your dates are fairly flexible.  However, we will be visiting family in June in the mid-Atlantic and the CG options are limited near their homes.  In one case we'll use a nearby State park which had to be booked months ago.  As we go north from there we're stopping for a couple of nights at a Canadian national park, the reservations for which had to be made months in advance.    Those reservations create additional dates that other stops have to "mate" with.   So we don't have the flexibility to stay extra days, but that's Ok,  we've built in stops that we think are adequate.

I realize that some of you don't like traveling this way, but it works for us.  We like to be headed to a particular destination.  We'll spend most of the summer on Prince Edward Island with a short excursion (by car, not MH) to Newfoundland.  Meandering about without a destination simply doesn't fit our style.  If it works for you, that's great.  This lifestyle is highly individualistic, each of us can define what works for each of us.

Absolutely, "each of us can/should do what works for us.

When I wrote: 

Quote

 Again as Kirk wrote "no reservations" or as few as possible so there is no deadline, or need to drive/move on any specific date.  We stay and see what we want for as long as we want and then move on.

I probably should have emphasized the "as few as possible reservations".  

We go from Texas to the Portland, OR area each summer to visit family.  I make reservations at a nearby state park months in advance as the park is full all summer long.

Now, the trip from Texas to Oregon takes us from 7 days to 6 weeks depending on various issues.  That part of the trip is done either w/o reservations or a reservation at a popular area or two that we want to stay at in route.  

The key to us is to be as flexible as possible in our travels to have a relaxed trip.  After all we have our "home" with us so there is no need to be locked in to being at a specific place for every night of the trip.

Granted there are some folks who don't feel comfortable traveling this way.  They feel very uncomfortable if they don't know where and what accommodations they will have every time they stop.  

Edited by Al F

Al & Sharon
2006 Winnebago Journey 36G 
2020 Chevy Colorado Toad
San Antonio, TX

http://downtheroadaroundthebend.blogspot.com/

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18 hours ago, Kirk W said:

...if you don't feel like traveling, you just sit until you do feel like traveling. If you get up to go and it is raining, you just stay another day and so travel in the sunshine...

We follow this plan, but it is not always possible. In recent years, just as it has been harder to get spots in some areas without reservations, it is also harder to extend stays on the spur of the moment in a park that takes reservations. We have been in Florida and Georgia since February. On two occasions (one county and one state park), every site was booked after the date of our originally scheduled departure. First come first served parks are generally no issue unless you run up against a stay limit such as those in many federal parks.

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19 hours ago, Kirk W said:

That is where the big difference in travel style when your RV is your home and pretty similar for those of us who are retired and have no deadlines to meet. It is the reason that so many prefer not to make reservations, or at least not making them until a day before at most. It means that if you don't feel like traveling, you just sit until you do feel like traveling. If you get up to go and it is raining, you just stay another day and so travel in the sunshine. Of course, the key to that is reaching a point where you feel at home when in the RV. You can help that a great deal by redecorating the RV to reflect your personality, as you would in a house or apartment.  Make it feel the same as it does when staying in your home and not like staying in a motel or hotel room. 

This is a nice FREE attitude to have.  It may have usually worked back when you were full timing.  However many campgrounds in the summer months get busy and stay pretty full.  There will be many places where when you wonder down to the office in your rain suit and tell them you are thinking about staying another day due to the rain they will tell you someone else is coming into your site and you have to leave.  

Joe & Cindy

Newmar 4369 Ventana

Pulling 24' enclosed (Mini Cooper, Harley, 2 Kayaks)

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1 hour ago, FL-JOE said:

This is a nice FREE attitude to have.  It may have usually worked back when you were full timing.  However many campgrounds in the summer months get busy and stay pretty full.  There will be many places where when you wonder down to the office in your rain suit and tell them you are thinking about staying another day due to the rain they will tell you someone else is coming into your site and you have to leave.  

Yep! Last December we reserved a site at a NY State park for next Labor Day weekend and the following week. A few days ago, we decided to extend it to the full two week limit, but found our site was already booked for the balance of the season. We were able to secure another site for the added time, but we will have to do the "site shuffle" of course.

Dutch
2001 GBM Landau 34' Class A
F-53 Chassis, Triton V10, TST TPMS
2011 Toyota RAV4 4WD/Remco pump
ReadyBrute Elite tow bar/brake system

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We started out our adventure in 2006. We had been Rv'ers for many years. We were now both retired. We started with a open mind about full timing.I was sort of for it wife was undecided. We rented out the S&B  hooked up and left. We were gone for over a year.We both kept a journal.

Long story short we both decided the full time lifestyle was not for us. We enjoy the travel, we enjoy the 5th wheel. The determining factor was that we were financially able to  keep the S&B and travel as much as we wanted. We enjoy being on the road and we enjoy our S&B which is where we are now 14 years later and a full USA map we are slowing down. We purchased a lot in a HOA in Florida and will winter there as long  as we can.

We have no worries about coming off the road our S&B is here and always has been.We have never considered our  two 40 foot, 4 slide outs 400 Sq ft  5th wheel as our permanent home but as a magic carpet to take us anywhere we wanted. Like was stated no right or wrong answers and we are all different in our wants and needs. It has been a great adventure.

Helen and I are long timers ..08 F-350 Ford,LB,CC,6.4L,4X4, Dually,4:10 diff dragging around a 2013 Montana 3402 Big Sky

SKP 100137. North Ridgeville, Ohio in the summer, sort of and where ever it is warm in the winter.

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21 hours ago, fpmtngal said:

Oh. Wow. Is that ever an insight for me.

Don't let naysayers dissuade you from what you wish to do or how you choose to live. 

 
 
 
Quote

 It may have usually worked back when you were full timing.  

As I said in a different post, there are times that you do need to have reservations, especially in tourist hotspots, on long weekends, and in any busy season where traffic is high. We are still traveling in that way for the most part. We tend to avoid the areas where traffic is high and prefer to visit such locations in the offseason and we spend most of our time in areas less traveled. You will need to plan ahead if you want a particular campground in an area that is very busy, but we spend several months at a time in our RV and find much little changed from when we did live in the RV all of the time. The simple fact is that it really does not matter if you are part-time of full-time in your RV, you will experience the same need for reservations or lack of it either way. While it is true that we bought a home again in 2011, to date I have never had any RV park ask if we were fulltime before allowing me to extend our stay! We prefer the more rural areas and in small town America, we still travel just as we always did. And we still go home to our RV wherever we happen to be. 

Good travelin !...............Kirk

Full-time 11+ years...... Now seasonal travelers.
Kirk & Pam's Great RV Adventure

            images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqFswi_bvvojaMvanTWAI

 

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I think one of the main difference between full-time and part-time RVing is that part-timers who are not retired, by definition, have restricted times of travel. It's hard to be as free flowing in your travel when you have to be back to work by a certain date. For instance, when I was a kid and my family traveled with a pop-up camper to California we only made it as far as Arizona before we had to turn back towards home. For that type of destination travel it can be helpful to have reservations all along the way but, even then, a flat tire on the trailer can mess with your timing.

Linda

Blog: http://sandcastle.sandsys.org/

Former Rigs: Liesure Travel van, Winnebago View 24H, Winnebago Journey 34Y, Sportsmobile Sprinter conversion van

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8 hours ago, sandsys said:

I think one of the main difference between full-time and part-time RVing is that part-timers who are not retired, by definition, have restricted times of travel. It's hard to be as free flowing in your travel when you have to be back to work by a certain date. 

Linda

That may have been true a few years ago, but not so much now.  Many Xscapers are of working age, they're not retired yet they're fulltiming without a home base.  Their RV is their home, and they're using their RV to host a mobile office or other kind of online business.

With high speed wireless Internet becoming close to ubiquitous, there's no reason a home business needs to stay at a fixed address.

Edited by Lou Schneider
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