I just returned home from almost four months of living in my RV.  It was a first.  I took the RV south in December and spent a wonderful 2 1/2 months at an RV park in Fort Myers Beach, FL escaping the cold New England winter.  From there, we hung around St. Augustine for a couple more weeks and then headed west for a month on the road exploring west Texas.  I had a great time.

The Fort Myers stay was the first time I had stayed parked in an RV for such an extended time and it worked out just fine.  And the road trip was paced with several multi-day stop overs.  I was gone 111 days and drove over 7,000 miles.  It was a long time to be away, but I grew very accustomed to living in my RV.

My sons did a fine job of taking care of my house while I was gone, but there was still a lot of work to do upon my return.  The RV needed to be unpacked, washed, and re-winterized. Piles of mail had to be culled and gone through.  I had to fix a broken dryer, broken screen door closer, a malfunctioning electrical outlet, and get my VOIP phone system working again.  Then the cars needed to be washed and cleaned, garage swept out, and two truck loads of trash taken to the dump.  Then the taxes needed to get done.  I was going non-stop for a week and hadn’t even contemplated the yard work.

As I was laying in bed one morning thinking about my to do list for the upcoming day, a stark thought entered my headed. When I was living in the RV I didn’t have this much work to do.  It gave me a pause.  Having just worked my butt off for the past 5 days, I began to ponder the simplicity of RV living.

I’ve been RVing for almost 4+ years now.  It took a couple years, a couple of RV’s, and several major trips to find my groove in how I like to travel.  I’m now spending about 6 months out of the year in the RV and have grown accustomed to living in a small mobile space.  For me, the living part is pretty simple and easy.  Here as some comparisons of my home living versus my RV living.

Less Space Means Less Stuff

At home, I have a closet full of clothes and a bureau full of more clothes.  All this stuff needs to be washed and cleaned.  With all the space in the house, its easy to accumulate stuff.  There are books, DVD’s, electronic gadgets, tools, art work, do dads, heirlooms, and toys.  Then there’s the stuff you don’t want to get rid of because you might use it someday like the tennis racket, cross country skis, extra bicycles, camping gear, and spare stuff.

With the RV, there’s only room for a couple change of clothes and a weeks worth of underwear.  I travel with two hats, two coats, a couple pairs of shoes, and two vests.  I might travel with a couple books but those get recycled when I’m done and a couple new ones get picked up.  There are a few DVD’s for rainy days.  There’s just a few electronic gadgets (laptop, tablet, cameras) and there’s no room for art work, heirlooms, or the spare stuff.  Just the basic stuff I need to live.  There’s less clutter and no daunting cleaning chores.

Less Stuff Means Less Stuff Needs to be Maintained

Maintaining my property can sometimes be a full time job.  It seems like something always needs to be fixed or cleaned.  With a house, there’s always something that needs painting, a cracked or rotted board that needs replacing, and a gap that needs caulking.  There’s carpets that need cleaning, floors that need sweeping, windows that need washing, and rooms to be dusted.  There’s always cars to wash and maintain.  And then there’s the chests and racks of tools just to maintain it all.

With the RV, much of this goes away.  Cleaning the RV can be done in less than 20 minutes.  The single bathroom can be swabbed out in about 3 minutes.  I usually use the RV park shower and there’s no washer or dryer to worry about.  The routine RV maintenance of checking batteries, flushing tanks, lubing the steps and seals, etc is pretty easy and quick.  I carry a simple tool bag because it something major breaks in the RV, I’m not equipped or skilled to fix it and will need to bring it to a dealer to get serviced.  The RV is much simpler and less work.

No Yard Means No Yard Work

When living in an RV at an RV park or on road, there’s no yard work to be done and no yard machines to maintain. There’s no grass to cut, no weeds to wack, no leaves to rake.  There’s no pool to clean and chemicals to check.  There’s no lawn and patio furniture to clean and have place to store

With the RV, all this stuff is provided and maintained by the RV park.  Its included in the “rent” and frees up a lot of time.

Less Work Means More Time for Enjoyment

What I found while living in my RV for 4 months, was that I had much more time for creative pursuits and enjoyment.  At home, my routine on many days is driven by what I’m going to fix or clean or what project I’m going to start.  When I’m in the RV, my routine is more driven by where I want to go for lunch, where to go for a bike ride or hike, is it nice enough to hang out at a beach, is there a activity I’m scheduled for, what happy hour am I going to, or where to go for some picture taking.  While I like fixing things, it can become daunting when it piles up.  And as I’ve got older, I’m becoming more interested in enjoyment and less interested in fixing things.

Which brings me to what I’ve concluded.  My RV lifestyle is a much simpler lifestyle and one that I enjoy.  It has shown me that my days of owning my big country home are numbered.  I’m not ready to chuck it all and go full time in a RV.  I like having a home base with family and my support mechanisms.  But, I’m going to want something a lot smaller, with much less maintenance, and something I don’t have to worry about while I’m out RVing.

Because right now, this Dawg likes being out traveling to different parts of the country and enjoying what they have to offer.