Good Things Dealers Do

[motojavaphil]

Before I went fulltime I had more questions than answers. I would talk to fulltimers who were gracious but I soon found every person had a different take on what to do. RV Sales in Moriarty has consistent workshops surrounding making that transition. It helped! Do other dealers do this? What support systems did you have before you made the jump? Even though we are fulltime now we still go to the seminars when in the area as we find them helpful with PM and lifestyle concerns. We will be attending one this coming Saturday.
Phil

[motojavaphil]

Before I went fulltime I had more questions than answers. I would talk to fulltimers who were gracious but I soon found every person had a different take on what to do. RV Sales in Moriarty has consistent workshops surrounding making that transition. It helped! Do other dealers do this? What support systems did you have before you made the jump? Even though we are fulltime now we still go to the seminars when in the area as we find them helpful with PM and lifestyle concerns. We will be attending one this coming Saturday.
Phil

[rockintom]

Phil,

Good topic. I think you'll find RV Sales is the exception to the rule, as we had no formal training. We looked into this lifestyle about 4 years solid before doing it. Donna and I had no real RVing behind our belts (Donna did one MH RV trip years ago for a week, I had none!) We did some tent camping with our families when we were kids. We reviewed magazine articles,read books, and talked with many folks who had done it, but attended no seminars. We are not opposed to seminars, just never did any as they weren't available locally. I attended the manufacturer's seminars at the '06 Excel reunion and learned a lot of technical stuff (which I loved). I researched the rig part of RVing to a fault prior to buying, but didn't do such a good job of researching the RV park aspect of it! I "assumed" that as long as you were willing to pay for a nice resort park, it would be available everywhere!!!! WRONG! We were sadly disappointed on the day to day parks available out there. We lowered our standards alot to maintain our sanity. Donna and I enjoy staying at nice places when available, but now realize they are the exception.

Anyhow, we've found reading articles, discussing with other FTers, and just living the way you want are the best things you can do to ensure your best lifestyle adventure. To us, it's like everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it. We try to educate and improve ourselves on this lifestyle everyday. Oh yeah, and have fun! That's why we worked so darn hard to get here!

In our experience, we've found 2 major reasons why this lifestyle doesn't work for some people.

1. Both traveling companions are not aligned to the lifestyle. One is dragging the other. One or the other doesn't want to risk getting rid of their "stuff". This is a recipe for disaster.

2. Folks treating this lifestyle like a one week vacation, craming too much in and burning themselves out. You can do this lifestyle for 50 years and not see all there is in the U.S. Don't try to do it! Leave something to come back to again. Enjoy!

There's my great words of wisdom ...now we're off to sight seeing here in Yellowstone. rockin'

[D and J]

not really a dealer thing, but we attended a "Life on Wheels" seminar before we sold our house. life on wheels

We learned a lot, met some great couples, and had a blast at one of the conferences in PA