Recreational Vehicles

Is an RV the same as a mobile home, BTW? Since RuthyB started her homes thread, I see quite a few of you live in RV's. I have never been in an RV and never known anyone who owned one.

What were your reasons for choosing to live in an RV?

No an RV is Not a mobile home... Mobile homes today are most likely manufactured and brought in pieces to a site .. RVs have four or more wheels like a truck but have living accommodations like a home ...

http://www.answers.com/topic/mobile-home

http://www.manufacturedhousing.org/l...p?id=446&cat=1

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/R.V.

^Thanks for the links. I guess the name "mobile" threw me off.

Like Jen points out, "mobile homes" are basically manufactured houses that are built in a factory and moved (often two halves separately) to where they're going. There are ALL kinds of different manufactured homes and communities.

RVs are Recreational Vehicles - and while there are different classes and types, these are "homes" with engines, either gas or diesel. Big truck engines. They range from small - like little vans - to large. I think the biggest is 42 feet. You can spend from like $20,000 for a low-end RV to easily over $1 million on a big fancy one.

"Standard" size for most vacationers range from 28 feet to 40 feet. They're 8 feet wide, and for quite some time now, most of those come with what are called "slide outs," where a section - like the living room and/or kitchen, the dining room area, or the bedroom have a portion that is on a system that electronically slides a portion of the room out so that when parked the vehicle is wider. That way it's road legal for driving, but you have more room when parked.

There are also travel trailers - these are like RVs, but you tow them behind your vehicle.

There are also something called 5th wheels - these are usually taller than trailers. These require a special hook-up to tow, and must be towed by a truck with a bed that has the part that attaches to the 5th wheel trailer.

I'll go find some pictures for you.

Here's a 5th wheel:



See the special hook up?

here's the wikipedia on the 5th wheel hook-up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_wheel_coupling

Here's an RV with a slide out:



here's a van camper (called a Class B recreational vehicle) with a slide out:

^Laurie, thanks for all the information. You are so thorough in everything you post.

So why would someone live in one permanently? Because they like to travel?

Gary and I were sick of our jobs. We bought the RV, packed up what we wanted to keep, gave everything else away (I did send 3 boxes of books to my sister to store), we quit our jobs and hit the road. Kind of a... mid-life sabbatical. We drove from NY to Washington, up to the Yukon, then down through CA, AZ, NM, TX, all along the coast down to FL. Then we went up the East Coast, back around to Wisconsin.

I was a hedge fund manager. Along the way, my friends called to say, "as long as you're going to be in XYZ city, would you go visit XYZ company for us?" (Gary and been a Regional Manager for a Fortune 50 company). And we just turned that into a business. We were on the road full time for 10 years, and it was a blast!

The advent of the internet kind of made our being on the road moot, but by then we weren't spending a whole lot of time in the RV anyway. We did move to a firm a couple of years after we started our research work. They had us in a plane and all over the country. One year we spent 42 weeks in hotels. Didn't mind that so much - they were all first class hotels, and expenses were all picked up by the company. That was a blast too.

We did move out the RV into a house in 2004. We lived in a house until 2008. We moved back into the RV because of Gary's health. I couldn't keep up the property or the home by myself.

...and most of the kitties were first rescued when we lived in the RV, and they were happier here. The purring that went on for WEEKS when we moved back in confirmed we'd made the right decision LOL.

Originally Posted by Primula

^Laurie, thanks for all the information. You are so thorough in everything you post.

So why would someone live in one permanently? Because they like to travel?

Click to expand...

Some travel alot ... This is a popular life for many retires that either have lots of family to see or that want to see the country or move alot

Originally Posted by LDG

We moved back into the RV because of Gary's health.

Click to expand...

Very interesting story. So, can people live in an RV even if they don't travel anywhere?

Originally Posted by Primula

^Laurie, thanks for all the information. You are so thorough in everything you post.

So why would someone live in one permanently? Because they like to travel?

Click to expand...

Yes. Some people live in them for long periods of time but have homes to go home to. Construction or pipeline workers are an example. They are mobile to go where the jobs are, work for six months or two years or however long the job is.

Most people that live in RVs are older, retired people, and they haven't sold their homes, but they love traveling. Some sell their homes, and then buy a condo or whatever after a few years.

Some are "snow birds." These are generally retired people from Canada or the Northern US, and they take their RVs down to AZ, NM, TX, or FL for the Winter. They head down depending upon family and holidays, and stay until about Easter, then head home. A lot of these are either retired people or farmers. One thing I will say about retired RVers is that they are VERY active people!!!! Some travel around - others have their favorite parks they head to every year, and they stay in that same spot the entire time.

Down in FL where we used like to head for the Winter, http://crystallakervresort.com/facilities.cfm was gorgeous, and had so much to do. A lot of the places out west are also golf resorts. Have a nice ding the in side of our RV from someone with a wicked slice.

But where you can stay ranges from family camping, like KOAs, or county or State Parks, to these AMAZING resorts.

Originally Posted by Primula

Very interesting story. So, can people live in an RV even if they don't travel anywhere?

Click to expand...

Yup, just like in a mobile home, 5th wheel or trailer. We make sure to keep the engine in good shape and keep the tires in shape so we can travel if we want to. But no reason you can't keep it parked somewhere. Up North it's harder to find parks that are open year-round, but they exist.

If you have a spouse, you just have to make sure you get along well enough to be able to share a small space without driving each other batty.

^Very nice link. Our problem is that, even if we wanted to do that, we are severely tied down by our 6 cats. One of us always has to be at home because of them. Three of our cats live outside.

Yeah, that's a problem now. The beauty of the RV is being able to travel with your animals. But if you've got outside animals, that's a problem. When we moved into the house, we'd TNRd all the cats in the park, and had them all adopted out, or they'd moved on. There was no more colony.

Now we've got two females to trap, and three males. There are four already fixed that are regulars. We got the kittens from one of the females we missed last year into a foster network. But people live here year round, and it's on a farm, so we'd have to decide whether or not to relocate them with us, or wind down the feeding and let them find a new source of food. There's plenty of it around here - we feed to attract them so we can speuter them.

Originally Posted by LDG

If you have a spouse, you just have to make sure you get along well enough to be able to share a small space without driving each other batty.

Click to expand...

DH and I would go insane living together in an RV. I like it when we're on separate floors.

Our next door neighbors live in a 5th Wheel thing in their driveway. Apparently they're just in the beginning stages of a total remodel of their house, I swear the wife told me they were eventually going to knock it down and build a new one. Great... Finally out of apartment living, and now we have the trailer thingy 4-5 feet from our bedroom and bathrooms, and we can hear everything, so I assume they can hear everything too. We hear them talking, crying (a small girl), awake really early (3 kids total, all under 10 years old), walking.. it sounds like they're on top of us somehow, strange how sound travels.

When we first moved in, I thought "Oh, cool, they have an RV, they probably travel a lot so we'll have even more privacy! (i just called it that as a catch-all for a moveable house type thing, never heard of a 5th wheel til this thread- now I know!) Well, I know now that that's not the case, they're here for the long run, complete with all their construction sounds..

As a normal use for RVs and that sort of thing, though, I think it would be pretty cool to live that lifestyle, but also to have a house to come back to. Perhaps someday.. I have several decades before retirement. (as long as I keep not winning the lottery. )

I'm living in an RV because I can't afford a house :/ it's not ideal and a house would be so nice but you do what you gotta do. All the cats and dogs do pretty well, I make sure to keep febreze on hand and have lots of toys for the cats.

I live near a lake that is very popular and a very expensive place to own property. I've known people that lived in one of the RV sites on the lake in campers. The rent and overhead is very economical. Plus, at these places lake access is included. I've always thought it would be fun to live in one of those RV parks...my cousins once had a camper in one, though they weren't full-time residents. I liked the indoor-outdoor living aspect of it, most of the time we grilled out in the summer. We do that at home, too, just not nearly as much.

I live in a travel trailer because it is mine, I can do what I want, I owe nothing on it and I will never be homeless as long as I have it.

My parents bought it for me so I could live close to them.
They live in their RV full time, sold their house 7 years ago.
They aren't snow birds though, they're rain birds

My trailer has not moved in a year, I live in one of those amazing resorts.

We have an RV, a motor home that we refer to here as "The Famous TCS Motor Home."



That's because it has a license plate that starts with TCS..."

It's called a 24-footer, although it's about 26 1/2 feet long overall. It has a pretty-good sized kitchen and bathroom, because it doesn't have a bedroom. The bed lowers down out of the ceiling in the living room. It's small enough to park almost anywhere.

We don't live in it, of course. But we've had all the cats in it for at least one trip, and they all get used to it pretty quickly. Flambe especially loved it. He bounced all over it, and found lots of great places to hide and play.

In the current market, you can buy some very nice motorhomes for less than the price of a used car.