Celebrating Three Years on the Road

Wow, I can’t believe that we have been living in the RV for three years already. We started traveling October 8, 2019, which I initially considered our full-time anniversary date, but we moved into the RV a month earlier, on September 8, 2019. I worked remotely for my last two weeks from the RV while we prepared to start traveling. So which date is the anniversary?

I guess it doesn’t matter; either way we are now three years into our RV adventure and are still enjoying this lifestyle. Full time RVing has its ups and downs like anything in life, but overall, life in the RV is good and works for us at this point in our lives. When we initially started out, our plan was to travel for about 5 years and visit the lower 48 states with stops at as many National Parks that we could. After 3 years on the road, we are halfway there with the state count, We have now visited 24 states and seen quite a few National Parks and other areas managed by the National Park Service.

Looking at our state map, it certainly does not look like we are half way to our initial goal. From the map, we have only seen about a third of the country. Our travels have been concentrated on the eastern part of the country, with a few stops in the mid-west. We joke that one of these days, we will cross the Mississippi! I guess the eastern states are all much smaller and concentrated into much less space. We have quite a bit more distance to travel to see the next 24 states. At this point, it is going to take longer than the initial 5 year plan!

One thing that we have learned along the way, is that we like to travel slowly and stay at each spot for a longer time period. That helps us really get to know an area well as well as “live like locals”. Both of us enjoying meeting people, both fellow RVers and locals so going slowly really gives us the time to do that. Also we have found it to be both stressful and tiring, if we move too fast in our travels. Going slow is the key to our enjoyment of this lifestyle.

Take this past summer as an example. We spent 2.5 months, visiting the New England states as well as New York and Central and Eastern Pennsylvania, which we highly enjoyed. New England was beautiful and it was wonderful to see that part of the country. At the end of that trip, we had a month stay booked near Pittsburgh, PA. We were both tired out from the trip and moving more frequently than normally. Even though we both enjoyed the trip, we wished we had booked a longer stays along the way and given ourselves more time in Pittsburgh to relax after the trip. All of the campgrounds in the area were booked, so we could not extend our stay, which was disappointing.

So we are on the road again, but still wanted to stay still for a little while longer. Luckily we were able to extend our stay at the Thousand Trails Hershey campground so we are here for almost three weeks before we start traveling again. This is a wonderful park and we are relaxing and enjoying our time here. Fall has started, leaves are changing color and the temperature is cooler. The only drawback has been some steady rains that have kept us indoors. Look for more on our stay in Hershey in the next blog post.

Looking across the lake to our site at Hershey Thousand Trails.

As we traveled, we met many other full time RVers. I enjoy talking to them about this lifestyle and how they travel. Many move much faster and travel much further than we do. Often it makes me think that we are doing it wrong and should try to go further. Then I talk to others that don’t move much at all. Some live full time in their RV in one place and others spend six months north and six months south and only travel to go between the two spots. It has taken me a little time, but now I realize that there is no right or wrong way to do this. For each of us, the right way is what works for us and not what works for others.

For Tim and I, the right way is to have longer stays, with a few shorter periods of travel. Over the next few years, we still plan to head further west, but the travel periods will most likely be in the spring and fall, with seasonal stays in the winter and summer months. We enjoy spending at least three months in Florida for the winter and at least three months in Pennsylvania in the summer. That gives us time in our home bases for us to relax, de-stress and spend time with family and friends. I anticipate that we will travel a little further west each spring and fall as we travel between Florida and Pennsylvania.

At this pace, we know it will take more that our initial five year plan to visit the lower 48 states, but I am sure that we will eventually get there. I don’t know how many years we will continue to live in the RV; only time will tell. In the meantime, we aren’t setting any time limits or long term plans. We look forward to what the future will bring in our RV adventures.

I thought I would end this post with a few memories from our favorite stops in the past 3 years on the road. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful country and so privileged to be able to spend our retirement traveling.

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Celebrating Three Years on the Road

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