- We bought an RV, and three days later, we took off for an almost four-month-long trip.
- We had to pack four months’ worth of clothes for our 7-month-old baby since he was growing so fast.
- Every stop along our trip had hidden gems, and it was a beautiful experience.
While most people who buy an RV do a test trip or a “shakedown” before they head out on a proper RV camping trip, our family does nothing by half-measures. Some would call it brave, others reckless (possibly more accurately), but three days after buying our RV, we set off on a three-and-a-half-month RV trip with our son, traveling around the whole continental United States.
In our defense, we rented a similar RV and did a 10-day trip from Orlando to Dallas and back to determine whether the lifestyle was for us or not. It had been a dream for years to travel around the United States in an RV as a family, and so after a successful trip to Dallas, we decided to bite the bullet.
Due to several engagements, we had committed to along the way in different states, there was a time crunch on our departure, and we set off on the trip in our typically chaotic fashion with some semblance of planning. We packed dry foods and canned foods under the dinette, tote boxes with four months of clothes for our growing infant, and a capsule wardrobe of summer and winter clothes for ourselves as we traveled through different climates.
We absolutely loved our adventure and seeing our son grow through the months.
There were things that didn’t go as planned
Although there were definitely things that went wrong, like our slide-out breaking, which resulted in us doing the second half of the trip without a slide, getting locked out of the RV with 10 miles of gas left in our truck, and boondocking in rest stops in the middle of a heat dome, we also made some wonderful memories as a family.
The bumps along the road helped us build that muscle of resilience to change and adaptability that I believe will serve us well in the future. Every stop along the way had hidden gems we would not have discovered if we had taken a traditional trip and flown to a destination.
It is amazing what kind of communities are created where a need exists, which most people are unaware of.
We spent more money than we had anticipated
The costs of traveling around in an RV are mainly related to gas and campsites. We soon realized that the speed at which we were traveling resulted in us burning money at a rate greater than we had anticipated in our gas-guzzling Toyota Tundra towing our 22-foot travel trailer.
While we could save on campsite costs with our memberships and boondocking, the cost of gas resulted in us dipping into our savings to pay for the lifestyle. Additionally, while at home, we shopped at Costco and cooked in bulk to meal prep and freeze food, but on the road, we bought smaller quantities of groceries, which were more expensive. There was also the novelty of buying fresh local produce, even when it was three times more expensive — after all who could pass up the allure of buying fresh eggs and bread from the farm you’re spending the night at?
We met so many people who cared for our baby
Looking back at our big RV trip, I think fondly not just of the sights we saw, like the painted desert in Arizona and the Catskills in New York, but the people we met along the way.
Courtesy of the author
When we stopped for a night at a Vino Veritas in Cleveland, we discovered it had once been a school, and the property was turned into a winery and hobby farm. and also allowed a couple of RVs to park on-site in exchange for purchasing something from the winery. The owner took my son around to see his pigs, goats, geese, and ducks. In the mornings, his dogs would join us outside for breakfast at the picnic tables, and at night, my husband and I dodged a family of skunks on the way to the restroom.
In Idaho we stopped at a local library, one of many we stopped at so that our son could have a break while driving, and he unfortunately bit a librarian who was carrying him. She calmly told me that she had run story-times for three generations of families in the area and was used to her tiny clients biting her. She then encouraged us to take seeds from their seed library and see how they would do once we returned home.
I met parents at a Duplo open play session at a library in Vancouver, Canada, who shared their hopes, dreams, worries, and anxieties about the future that their children would inherit. In Portland, Oregon, we stayed at a Harvest host site where our host, an ex-Peace Corp with two long gray pigtails, would carry our son down to the river and show him the deer, clad in a tie-dye print skirt from his days in Vietnam.
In Tahoe, we camped at a Thousand Trails campsite enveloped in tall pine trees, and I heard a familiar accent in the camping store that reminded me of home. There was a woman working there from Melbourne, Australia, where I had just spent the last 10 years living before I moved to the United States.
When we left Orlando, our son could sit up unassisted and had two teeth. When we returned, he was weeks away from walking and had 10 teeth and a lifetime of experiences.
He may not remember much of this trip, but we will. Living in an RV for three and a half months and traveling across the United States in it has taught us so much about living simply, making do with less, and the value of human connection.
