I'm writing this from a campsite outside Moab, Utah, where we've been parked for four days because we keep finding reasons not to leave. The canyon walls outside our window turn a color at sunset that I have no word for. Somewhere between fire and wine.
A year ago, Bonnie and I were in a four-bedroom house in Naperville, Illinois, surrounded by thirty-two years of accumulated living, wondering if this was all there was.
The answer, for us, was no.
How We Got Here
The idea started as a joke. We'd seen a YouTube video about "full-time RVers," couples who sold their homes and lived on the road. I showed it to Bonnie expecting her to laugh. She watched it twice and then looked at me with an expression I recognized from our early marriage, when she'd had an idea she was too excited to be cautious about.
"What if we actually did that?"
Six months later, our house was on the market. We found a buyer in twelve days.
The Practical Reality People Don't Tell You
I'll be honest: the first three months were harder than we'd expected. Learning to drive a 35-foot motorhome in mountain terrain is not natural. We had our first argument about a parking space in Yellowstone that I will not describe in detail, except to say it was memorable. Bonnie had to remind herself that the kitchen, while small, was still a kitchen.
There are also real logistical considerations. We use a mail forwarding service through our home state. We have health insurance through the federal marketplace. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has information on coverage options for people without a fixed address, which was genuinely useful when we were sorting all of that out. We use a mix of national and state park campground memberships, which the National Park Service offers at significant discounts for seniors over 62.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, millions of American households own an RV, and the fastest-growing segment of full-time RVers is adults over 60. We are, apparently, a movement. It's a good one to be part of.
What Year One Gave Us
We saw 22 national parks. We ate tamales at a roadside stand in New Mexico that were better than anything we'd ever eaten in a restaurant. We attended a small-town rodeo in Montana and a bluegrass festival in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We had dinner with strangers at campfire tables who became, by the end of an evening, people we genuinely wanted to stay in touch with. And did.
We fought less than we did when we lived in the house. This surprised us both. I think it's because the house had quiet corners where resentments could settle. The motorhome has no quiet corners. You have to deal with each other. It turns out, dealt with, we still really like each other.
What I'd Tell Someone Considering It
Start with a rental. Camp in it for two weeks before you sell anything. If you hate it, you've learned something important for a few hundred dollars. If you love it, you'll come home more certain than ever.
Bring fewer clothes than you think you need. Bring better coffee equipment than you think you need. Bring your sense of humor, because there will be gray water situations and propane situations and cell signal situations that will test it.
And leave earlier than you plan to. Because the canyon walls outside Moab at sunset are waiting for you, and they don't care how old you are.
