Last year, our per day, per person travel cost — fuel, food, lodging, entertainment, and all other expenses — came to $28. That’s on the high side because we ate out a lot and we did quite a bit of shopping above and beyond that which we would normally do had we stayed in Baltimore. Plus there was the fuel bill for nearly 4,000 miles of travel.
This year, the places we’ll be staying are closer, they are cheaper, they aren’t in or near large urban centers where we’d be inclined to go eat, sight-see, and shop, except for our stay in Charleston which probably will involve all those things. That, however, is only one week of the trip, so we shouldn’t be able to do too much damage.
Fuel costs are much higher this summer than they were last, so that will bump up the cost per day, but we also aren’t traveling nearly as far, either, so I’m hoping it all balances out in the end. Of course, costs for food, entertainment, and fuel in northerly parts of the country tend to be significantly higher than in parts south.
The other consideration is that our rig is one year older, and it’s been sitting for ten months, something that is quite detrimental for any vehicle. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that our journey is free of mechanical failures and collisions. That sort of thing could end our trip far earlier than planned.
Unforseen disasters aside, if we could manage to come in closer to $20 per day per person this summer, I’d be quite happy because, frankly, we won’t have nearly the cash we did last year.
It helps that I’ve built most of this trip around an activity that costs little aside from fuel — geocaching. Admittedly, there were entrance fees to the two big caching events we’re attending, but they weren’t horrible, and they included camping fees for those days. Geocaching as low-budget vacation: watch for the blog entry at the end of the summer to see if my theory bears out.
Of course, I’m also hoping geocaching will prove to be a good fitness regimen this summer. I plan to cover quite a few miles on this trip, not all of them in the cab of the pickup, so I’ll have to keep a record of miles hiked. Talk about no-cost travel! When I get back, I’m hoping I’ll be in better shape to keep up with the geocachers in the student organization I advise, most of whom are a good two decades younger than I am and 175 pounds lighter. Right now, I feel like a bit of an anchor around their necks when I go out with them. They are fully capable of going after caches that require navigation of very difficult terrain; I am not. Sixty days won’t render me fit to rappel down the side of a mountain to retrieve a 5/5 cache, but I am hoping it will at least let me hike a mile or two without wanting to fall over and die.
Tags: costs, Geocaching, rving, Travel
The route has been charted, the parks selected, and the reservations made. So here’s where we’re going this summer:
Tags: Geocaching, rving, Travel
Today was the final day of my ten days of freedom from school. I didn’t grade a single paper or even log into my work e-mail until today. It was wonderful!
That’s not to say I did NOTHING school related. On Monday I did take a group of students geocaching up to Northern Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, but that’s fun for me and in almost no way resembles actual work (except that I’m responsible for making sure other people’s children don’t die or get grievous injuries — always a little nerve-wracking).
So other than geocaching, I did manage to do some laundry, clean the house, pull all the excess stuff out and put it in our new storage unit (I still cringe to admit that), a storage unit which is now full. I can hardly believe I fit all that stuff inside the rig. We now have a half-empty basement space and some empty drawers and shelves. The trick is to NOT FILL THEM UP again anytime soon. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Geocaching, maintenance, rving, spring, Travel, work
Only two years after getting rid of about 80% of everything we owned, we have discovered that the “stuff” has crept back into our lives to the point that it can’t all safely fit in the rig anymore. Technically, it can fit, but it puts us far over our load limit. Since our travel is going to be restricted somewhat after this year, and we’ll probably end up having to move back into a sticks-and-bricks home at that point, I’m not inclined to get rid of any of the excess. We’ll probably have plenty of space for the newly-acquired clothes, linens, books, musical instruments, camping gear, etc. in twelve months should we make that move. So on Thursday I did what I swore I wouldn’t do while we were fulltiming, and I rented a storage unit. Admittedly, it’s a small one, only 5×5, about the size of a closet in most folks’ homes, but from the perspective of an RVer, it’s HUGE!
I did laundry on Thursday, dragged the giant suitcases that hold our off-season clothes out from the basement space, and proceeded to do the twice-yearly swap. All our spring/summer gear is now in our closets, and our winter gear has been packed back in the suitcases and some space bags and delivered to the new storage unit.
In addition to the clothes and winter linens, I’ve also taken over all the knitting, crocheting, and spinning stuff since we don’t do much of that anymore. I left only my drop spindles, some roving, some yarn, and my crochet hooks along with our sewing and craft kits. Two big tubs of fiber and accessories plus the spinning wheel are now in storage.
I also carried out most of the books we had in the house. Mind you, we got rid of a LOT of books, DVDs, and CDs when we moved here, but what we had left still weighs quite a bit. Plus, I find we only actually pull out and use a very small number of those texts. And, despite my promises to the contrary, at least a dozen novels found their way into the house and are awaiting reading. I’ve been good about getting rid of books I’ve already read, but since I’ve taken up reading eBooks and listening to more audiobooks, I sort of forget that my print books are even there.
Since it’s raining this afternoon, I haven’t yet gone outside to dig out all the excess stuff in our basement so I can take it to storage, too. I need to move out the space heaters, the propane campfire (until I can sell it), the snow shovels, the Halloween and Christmas decorations, and the few boxes of old files, photographs, and mementos that we still have.
Once all this stuff is removed, I’ll feel quite a bit better about the weight of the rig. We haven’t weighed it since last year, so I don’t really know where we stand. We’ll have to run it over the scales before we leave on our trip this year and make sure we’re okay. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: maintenance, rving, Travel
So, obviously, I have a blog about our RV adventures. If you’re reading this, you knew that already. I’ve not made a secret of our rather unconventional home on wheels or our travels. In fact, where I teach, I’ve actually presented about fulltime RVing to some of my interested colleagues. I’ve also publicized my blog to my coworkers. That’s had a couple of interesting effects for me professionally.
So we threw out that entire plan that I mentioned in my last post. We’re not moving out of the rig, not getting an apartment, none of that. Instead, a few other things have happened.
I paid off my VW Golf, which was step one in the now-defunct plan. Then I took it to the shop because I knew it needed a brake job. Turns out it needed more than that: brakes, drums, calipers, struts, alignment, tune — about $2100 worth in total. I took the car to Carmax and found out it was only worth $2500. That left me with a choice — fix the car or sell it and buy something else. Read the rest of this entry »
I went to the Maryland RV Show last winter by myself, but this year, I took Alexis with me. We spent hours this past Saturday walking through all sorts of fifth wheels, travel trailers, and motorhomes. We saw the full range of models, from top-of-the-line luxury motorhomes to bare bones pop-up campers. In the end, we were reminded that our primary motivation for becoming fulltimers was to travel more. We’ve done much less of that in the past 18 months than we’d hoped to.
The main reason we’ve become so stationary is that the rig, while a cozy little dwelling, is frighteningly large and cumbersome out on the road. Alexis really isn’t comfortable driving it or parking it (especially since it is our home and holds all our possessions), and if she isn’t comfortable, we’re not going anywhere. After all, you don’t see ME getting behind the wheel to pull this monster.
We aren’t really ready to buy a house right now, but I think I’ve figured out a way to get us out of this huge rig, into a more traditional dwelling, and to get a smaller rig so that we’ll be more inclined to take short weekend trips as well as the long summer journey.
So here’s the plan:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: fulltiming, moving, rv, RV show, tow vehicles
A few months ago, I bought some LED bulbs to install in a couple of my existing incandescent fixtures. They work well and run cool. So when I went into the RV parts store yesterday and saw that they are now carrying the entire fixture complete with bulbs for no more than it would just cost to buy the bulb, I jumped on it and bought two of the fixtures. I brought them home and decided to redo the kitchen lights. The fixture over the sink was broken such that I could only make the bulb come on if I tapped it just the right way.
MJ gets handy
I got both the shore and battery power to the house shut down, broke out a screwdriver and unscrewed the existing fixtures. That done, I figured out how to wire the new lights (white to white, black to black — not too hard) and screwed it all back in. The only problem I encountered was that the new fixture was smaller than the old one. This meant making new screw holes in the bottom of the cabinet, but such is the price of progress.
Got the fixture over the sink and the one over the kitchen counter replaced and fired everything up again. Voila! Nice, cool, high-efficiency LED lights! So now 8 of the fixtures in my house have been converted to LEDs. Mind you, that’s only a few of fixtures in the rig, but I’ll get there eventually. Read the rest of this entry »
I suppose because I know we aren’t going to move the rig for another five months, I’ve been allowing myself to accumulate things that I don’t need or have room for. Oh, boy! This will be fun when it comes time to hit the road. Last year, I used my car as temporary rolling storage, filled it to the brim with winter clothes, quilts, heaters, snow shovels, and other items we didn’t need to take to the South in the summertime, and then parked the car at a friend’s house while we were gone. I hope I can still get the excess in my car this year. If not, I’ll end up having to do what I swore we would not when we moved into the rig — rent a storage unit. I simply refuse on principle. It defeats the whole purpose of downsizing.
Tags: clutter, downsizing, music
I’ve not posted for an entire month! I know, I know. I had nothing better to do over the holidays. I should have been posting every day, right? Wrong! We actually stayed fairly busy. Read the rest of this entry »
