Stumbling Towards Full-Time

[-Gramps-]

From my blog here at FMCA.com:

I have a bunch of rules for owning a Motor Coach. We have owned a coach for nine years. I can create a new bunch of rules for buying one both used and new because I have experience at buying both.

I have no rules for full-timing it …I don't have a clue ... not yet, anyway.

We have made some serious decisions in the last few months that have told us that full-timing it could very well happen at some point in our future. That point may be sooner than later.

The thought of living in the coach for an extended period of time doesn’t bother me. We have done it a few times already. Just after our son Joel was graduated from college (notice my proper grammar) we took a four-week trip in our first coach. For part of that time he and his sister stayed in the coach with us. We all came out alive. At the end of the month on the road, I was not too eager to get back to work.

The idea of going full-time is entirely different. Do we move toward full-timing it slowly? Making big changes in one’s life is like running a marathon -- start out slow, conserve some strength for the end and, if you start to stumble, make sure you stumble in the right direction.

I think a long trip, say six weeks or more, should be the first thing Diane and I do. This trip would not only be the longest one we have taken, but the destination should be somewhere special like Niagara Falls or deep into the Smokey Mountains or back to Disney World. It would be a trip without looking back home. No worrying about customers. No phone calls from them either. This trip would be a time for Diane and me to get to know each other all over again.

Let’s assume that we really enjoy our two months time on the road. We take to it like ducks to water or something to that effect. Then what?

I don’t really know how to go about making the transition. Do we store some things? Do we sell our stuff? Do we give things to our kids? Do we do all the above?

Selling our house, parting with “things” we own, some for more than forty years, causes me to grieve even before it happens.

I mentioned a duck to water. I may be a duck tossed in a stream. I have to float with the flow.

Diane has been downsizing for quite a while now. She keeps telling me to carefully evaluate every non consumable item I want to buy. Her favorite phrase is:

“Do you really need it and if you do will it fit in the coach?”

She did not ask for anything for Christmas except for Kindle books.

She wants me to digitize all our slides and pictures.

I can see where her head, and more important, where her heart is headed.

I should know, after all, she is the reason we have a coach in the first place. I think she has been working toward living on the road for a lot of years.

I am not sure how to do this but I will learn.

Don't I have rule that owning a motor coach is a never ending learning experience?

Gramps
Derrick.

[johnbhicks]

When you digitize your photos DO NOT GET RID OF THE ORIGINALS! Store them away in a safe place. I use a large bank safe-deposit box.

Digitizing is just so you can share them with folks on your travels. You _will_ lose your digitzed photos either due to hardware failure or obsolescence or both. Guaranteed. Maintaining and migrating a digital archive is a pain even if they're a small number of happy snaps. So protect your originals.

A trip is a good idea, but make it a three-month trip, one month to be spent in one spot. A trip is a vacation but most fulltimers don't travel all that much, so you need to find out what that's like. And you're right, no customers. If you're unsure about your stuff, put what's really important in storage and think about it after a couple of years. You'll probably wonder why you kept most of it.

If our story would help...

We'd done many weekend and week-long trips and we got the harebrained notion to take a trip of about a month. I plotted, planned routes, researched campgrounds and we launched on the grand adventure.

A month later we neglected to come home.

Two months later we asked a friend to go to the house, donate all the food in the chest freezer to charity and turn everything off.

We returned home _nine months later_ and that was just to rid out the house, get it rented out and store stuff. It was totally unplanned and unexpected. We fortunately got a great renter, let her give away, sell or deal with a lot of furniture and stuff and we were out on the road two months later. That was a few years ago.

We don't travel a whole lot; we find a place and especially people we like and stay a while. We're the Floridiots who spent last winter in the North Georgia mountains. This winter our next destination is Ochopee in Big Cypress in _warm south Florida_ in a week or so; looks like the plan this winter is to move every week or two.

If cost is a factor, a week at a park will usually get you a free night (compared to the daily rate) and a month will usually get you at least a free week or more.

I think most people are afraid of significant change even if they won't admit it.

[ticat900]

I live 5.5 months in my Motorhome and 7.5 months in my S+B house and I will never full time.I love my house and its non replaceable

Large Diesel pusher motorhome's are great for snowbirding but nothing replaces a nice paid for S+B house in a nice city like we live in

I for the life of me can not understand how people live in little 34 ft gasser 24/7/365

[wheelman65]

My wife and I are researching the life of a full timer in a 40+ RV+car+motorcycle..the kids are in college and this large house goes unused and we can't always travel to where we want...so down the road we are a going....as a retired trucker im looking forward to not passing all the great sightseeing this great country has to offer....my Question is this...I'm considering pulling an enclosed trailer with my car and bike so I can have a sense of security and a few tools along the way...as apposed to an open trailer...I read alot about how 4 wheels down is so much easier..maybe for a non fulltimer yes..but were not going to a KOA type campground for a week..it would be month long stays...

I'm open to any suggestions about this...thanks !