Lessons Learned: Week One of Full-Time RV Travel

The Adventure Begins!

We allowed three years for our idea of traveling the USA in an RV as a family to become reality. And after many months of preparation and two full weeks dedicated to emptying the house we’d lived in nine years and loading and organizing our RV, “Minnie,” we officially set out as a fulltime RV family on July 6, 2020! 

In our first week, we traveled through Oregon and Idaho and arrived in Montana. So far it feels like vacation—we explored Wallowa Lake, took the tram to hike on top of Mount Howard, played historic mini golf, toured a gold mine, and rode the 15-mile Hiawatha Bike Trail.

And though I know there are many lessons ahead, we’ve learned a lot already. Here are a few valuable insights from these newbs’ first week on the road: 

• Scout it out. When entering a parking lot, send someone ahead on foot to evaluate the exit situation. Unhooking the tow vehicle to turn around at a dead-end in a truck stop is an ordeal we don’t need to repeat.
• Fasten the fridge. DO NOT FORGET to latch the refrigerator before driving. Every. Time. 
• Plan ahead. So, Amazon Prime doesn’t do 2-day delivery to the boonies. We have to plan further ahead to have orders delivered to a future destination. And also, shop in real stores more often. 
• Be weekend-wise. After waiting more than an hour in the hot sun for the return shuttle at Hiawatha on Saturday, we decided we will strive to schedule “touristy” activities during the week and use weekends to relax, catch up on work and projects, or travel to our next destination. 
• Accept our limits. Because we’ve only been staying in an area for a handful of days, we simply can’t do everything that looks fun, interesting, or appealing. We’re learning to plan accordingly, and not mourn those missed adventures. (This is mostly Kristen’s issue – I want to do it ALL!)
• Remember that “Minnie” doesn’t rush. We’ve learned that we can’t be in a hurry to set up or break down camp, because that’s when things get broken. It can take 90 minutes to get this beast ready to roll, and that’s if everything goes smoothly. There’s no zipping out on moving day. Here’s a quick look at what we need to do before we hit the road.
  • Flush grey and black tanks
  • Disconnect any electric, water, sewer hookups
  • Dump station if no sewer hookup – sometimes wait in line for our turn
  • Sanitize area and hands
  • Fill water tank (especially if no hookups at next destination)
  • Take garbage to dumpster if available (otherwise it’s riding with us to our next stop)
  • Clean windshield if bug splats are too plentiful for good visibility
  • Vacuum and mop (and sometimes clean the bathrooms)
  • Rearrange items on floor/counters into travel stowage positions
  • Put the bungee cord on those cabinets that always come open
  • Carefully bring in slides
  • Jacks up
  • Plan route, fuel stops, and lunch (do we need to make sandwiches now to eat on the road?)
  • Position and hook up Jeep tow
  • Latch fridge 😛
• Keep snacks handy. It takes longer to get places driving 60 feet and over 35,000 pounds of vehicle, especially on steep and/or curvy roads. We might be starving by the time we roll into a campground, and even though it feels like we’re “almost there,” it might be another 30 to 45 minutes of getting the dang RV level, pulling the slides out, making the hookups, draining the dog, and taking care the day’s inevitable random problems before we can get dinner started. 
• Get an early start. We knew it would be challenging to get a campsite near Yellowstone National Park during peak season without a reservation, but had our fingers crossed that if we arrived at the non-reservable campgrounds outside the park right at checkout time, we’d be in luck. Unfortunately, we learned that those campgrounds get full by about 7am! (Stay tuned for another post about where we ended up staying for our visit to Yellowstone.)
• Dream of dull moments. All those projects I thought I would have time to catch up on, and all those books I wanted to read…. are still waiting for me. Not only are we busy exploring and experiencing, but it’s also super-time-consuming to make the game-plan for the next few days and weeks, figure out where we might need reservations months from now, and get all those exact dates nailed down! It’s like an enormous jigsaw puzzle! When I consider how much time it takes to pull together a weeklong family vacation, I know we’re going to be in continual planning mode for the duration of this adventure. My days are filled—with having fun, planning and scheduling, talking to clients for my business, taking care of the kids, plus we cook every meal and hand-wash every dish. Not to mention writing this blog and Instagram posts! And I actually love it.

I know that when we look back at this list in a few months we’ll be shaking our heads at how innocent we were and how many more important lessons we’ve learned. Today, my favorite lesson is how grateful I am that we are on the road together and that we chose to follow this wild dream!

Let us know in the comments if you learned anything from this list or if you have some great RV advice to help us out on the road!

Thanks to all our supporters and cheerleaders as we embark on this journey! Keep up with our latest adventures in REAL time on Instagram @renegadewinters or Facebook @RWfam.